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Nice; but you have a jaded perspective, as I don't think you are born to an immigrant and then forced into that position.
What is more puzzling and troubling is that in this day and age someone would willingly immigrate to Quebec and then complain that their kids have to go to school in French!
If your taxes are paying for English schools, your children should be entitled to accessing them. I can't believe that you are actually acting as if English is in no way part of Quebec's society. Are you serious?
Oh yes, how incredibly ridiculous to expect to get education in one of the official languages in a bilingual country's second most bilingual province where an immigrant will likely be living in what is arguably the most bilingual city in the world.
English is part of Quebec's culture. Quebec is not a unilingual society.
What is more puzzling and troubling is that in this day and age someone would willingly immigrate to Quebec and then complain that their kids have to go to school in French!
Complain about being forced into a French only education because a law changes when you are a kid? What does any kid know at a young age, except that they were yanked out of their cultural normalcy. This is the paradox because you apparently see nothing wrong with it to this day. How old are you? My wife was in elementary school in the 1970's when the earliest and most severe linguistic/cultural oppression took place. Her parents didn't know any better, and neither did she until some years later when she eventually hit University, then she woke up and realized that woah, it's not like this anywhere else in the democratic and civilized western world, what is wrong with this place?
Complain about being forced into a French only education because a law changes when you are a kid? What does any kid know at a young age, except that they were yanked out of their cultural normalcy. This is the paradox because you apparently see nothing wrong with it to this day. How old are you? My wife was in elementary school in the 1970's when the earliest and most severe linguistic/cultural oppression took place. Her parents didn't know any better, and neither did she until some years later when she eventually hit University, then she woke up and realized that woah, it's not like this anywhere else in the democratic and civilized western world, what is wrong with this place?
If your wife was in English school prior to 1977 she would have been "grandfathered" and permitted to remain in the English school, so I don't get your point. The laws really affected immigrants who arrived here after 1977, and those who came before who were in the English school system (and also those who had not yet entered school but had siblings in English schools or parents who went to English school), also could go to English school. And still can today.
If your taxes are paying for English schools, your children should be entitled to accessing them. I can't believe that you are actually acting as if English is in no way part of Quebec's society. Are you serious?
Oh yes, how incredibly ridiculous to expect to get education in one of the official languages in a bilingual country's second most bilingual province where an immigrant will likely be living in what is arguably the most bilingual city in the world.
English is part of Quebec's culture. Quebec is not a unilingual society.
Except that Canada does not guarantee to you that you will be able to live an entirely francophone or anglophone life (according to your preference) anywhere in Canada.
This was patently apparent to me for most of my life when I lived as a francophone outside Quebec.
If this is important to you (many immigrants don't care whether their new life is in English, French or Swedish), then you should do your research and choose your place of settlement accordingly.
Also, given all of the publicity (sometimes negative it is true, but often unfair) about French in Quebec, I have to question the smarts of someone who moves here and expects to live as though the French language does not exist and to be able to operate entirely in English all the time.
If your wife was in English school prior to 1977 she would have been "grandfathered" and permitted to remain in the English school, so I don't get your point. The laws really affected immigrants who arrived here after 1977, and those who came before who were in the English school system (and also those who had not yet entered school but had siblings in English schools or parents who went to English school), also could go to English school. And still can today.
I now realize she started in 1979 so, although you are right on the time scale, I think I am still missing one good reason for how the law actually benefits anyone it affects?
Also, given all of the publicity (sometimes negative it is true, but often unfair) about French in Quebec, I have to question the smarts of someone who moves here and expects to live as though the French language does not exist and to be able to operate entirely in English all the time.
Expecting to do so solely in French is also questionable. English is part of Quebec's society and culture, whether you'll admit it or not.
Expecting to do so solely in French is also questionable. English is part of Quebec's society and culture, whether you'll admit it or not.
Funny how you guys rarely give the same consideration to French, which is part of the "society and culture" of many other parts of Canada just as English is in Quebec.
I now realize she started in 1979 so, although you are right on the time scale, I think I am still missing one good reason for how the law actually benefits anyone it affects?
I've had many many members of the "101 Generation" (children of immigrants who went to school in French post-1977) and a crushing majority of them will concede that it was a good thing as they say they would have never learned French (as well anyway) otherwise and would have lived isolated from the society in which they lived, and therefore likely would have had to leave Montreal.
And for those who did leave, they still generally see it as a positive because French is a useful job skill that they can take advantage of in their new lives elsewhere in Canada. (Bilingual jobs in English Canadian corporations are often held down by former allo or anglo Montrealers.)
Comedian Sugar Sammy, for example, says quite openly all the time that Bill 101 was a good thing for him, and he would have never learned French and had a career as a francophone comic had it not been in place.
I've had many many members of the "101 Generation" (children of immigrants who went to school in French post-1977) and a crushing majority of them will concede that it was a good thing as they say they would have never learned French (as well anyway) otherwise and would have lived isolated from the society in which they lived, and therefore likely would have had to leave Montreal.
And for those who did leave, they still generally see it as a positive because French is a useful job skill that they can take advantage of in their new lives elsewhere in Canada. (Bilingual jobs in English Canadian corporations are often held down by former allo or anglo Montrealers.)
Comedian Sugar Sammy, for example, says quite openly all the time that Bill 101 was a good thing for him, and he would have never learned French and had a career as a francophone comic had it not been in place.
My wife's experience has been quite different. The first generation of children affected from this law, may have "benefited" from learning French in order to fit into that society eventually as adults, but they are resentful at the same time. Leaving the school and friends they loved, to be thrown into a new environment, is quite traumatizing for a child. This is what we are discussing. Not how learning another language can help you in a workplace. Because frankly, I don't know many ethnics that voluntarily hang out with French Canadians. The children of loi 101 era will stick with their own kind, even as adults, and speak English amongst each other. Why? Because of the basic cultural differences that will always divide the French Canadians and the immigrant's child.
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