17 Facts About French Americans

1.

State with the largest proportion of people identifying as having French Americans ancestry is Maine, while the state with the largest number of people with French Americans ancestry is California.

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2.

The city with the largest concentration of people of French extraction is Madawaska, Maine, while the largest French-speaking population by percentage of speakers in the U S is found in St Martin Parish, Louisiana.

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3.

Franco-French Americans are less visible than other similarly sized ethnic groups and are relatively uncommon when compared to the size of France's population, or to the numbers of German, Italian, or English French Americans.

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4.

Nevertheless, the French Americans presence has had an outsized impact on American toponyms.

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5.

Some Franco-French Americans arrived prior to the founding of the United States, settling in places like the Midwest, Louisiana or Northern New England.

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6.

Vital segment of Franco-American history involves the Quebec diaspora of the 1840s–1930s, in which nearly one million French Americans Canadians moved to the United States, mainly relocating to New England mill towns, fleeing economic downturn in Quebec and seeking manufacturing jobs in the United States.

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7.

The largest number settling in South Carolina, where the French Americans comprised four percent of the white population in 1790.

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8.

French Americans Canadians set up a number of villages along the waterways, including Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin; La Baye, Wisconsin; Cahokia, Illinois; Kaskaskia, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan; Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan; Saint Ignace, Michigan; Vincennes, Indiana; St Paul, Minnesota; St Louis, Missouri; and Sainte Genevieve, Missouri.

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9.

The Franco-French Americans became active in the Catholic Church where they tried with little success to challenge its domination by Irish clerics.

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10.

In 1928, with Catholic Al Smith as the Democratic candidate, the Franco-French Americans moved over to the Democratic column and stayed there for six presidential elections.

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11.

Unlike the Irish and German Catholics, very few Franco-French Americans deserted the Democratic ranks because of the foreign policy and war issues of the 1940 and 1944 campaigns.

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12.

In 1952 many Franco-French Americans broke from the Democrats but returned heavily in 1960.

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13.

In northern New England, Franco-French Americans faced exclusion from the halls of power and more easily turned towards the Democrats.

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14.

Franco-French Americans made up close to, or more than, 10 percent of the population of seven states, six in New England and Louisiana.

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15.

French Americans was the most commonly taught foreign language until the 1980s; when the influx of Hispanic immigrants aided the growth of Spanish.

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16.

French Americans identifies three categories of scholars: survivalists, who emphasized the common destiny of Franco-Americans and celebrated their survival; regionalists and social historians, who aimed to uncover the diversity of the Franco-American past in distinctive communities across New England; and pragmatists, who argued that the forces of acculturation were too strong for the Franco-American community to overcome.

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17.

French Americans'storians have pushed the lines of inquiry on Franco-Americans of New England in other directions as well.

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