Is It Time to Leave?

I have read several articles lately about whether it’s time to leave the United States before it turns into a full-blown Fascist country. From what I can tell from these historical guidelines, the answer seems to be Right Now.

Time to Leave?

I have also read the history of Europe as the Nazis rose to power and thought I would have been savvy enough to get out before the pot reached a boil and the frog inside was cooked. It turns out, though, that I’m no longer that eager to pull up stakes and start all over in a different country.

At my age, emigrating elsewhere requires more strength and determination than I think I still have. Our children are now adults and parents with their own priorities, so we are not responsible for their well being. Having considered the option, I would rather stay and try to rescue America from its descent into autocracy,

Does that make me weak? Perhaps. If we were moving to join family overseas, that would be one thing. But to do it all ourselves overwhelms me just thinking about it.

Where to Go?

The second question, which follows fast on the first, is where to go.

There are no countries in the world today that resemble the United States in 1939. Back then, we were the country everyone tried to reach. America was the safe place where boatloads of immigrants could go to escape the Nazis and start a new life. Now that the same threat has come to America, where would we go?

What other country has thrown its door open to American expats? What nation has invited those who want to escape before martial law goes national, voting is tightly controlled, Christianity becomes the national religion, and we can be stopped on the street to present our papers?

None of them.

The Great Deportation

From the Canadian Encyclopedia

As I explained earlier this year, my family all came to America from Canada. It’s our version of “the old country.” I have visited both eastern and western Canada. It has a real attraction for me as a refuge from the current attack on Democracy. But Canada doesn’t want us.

This is ironic given Canada’s history.

The country’s British government once expelled thousands of French-speaking Canadian citizens in its own form of ethnic cleansing. It happened from 1755 to 1764 and the government called it the Great Deportation. The citizens of Nova Scotia who suffered from it had a different term: the Grand Dérangement, or Great Upheaval.

An Attack on the Acadians

From the Canadian Encyclopedia

The Acadians, Francophone citizens, lived in Nova Scotia. They were the original French settlers of what became the Canadian Maritimes, including New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Some of them were my ancestors.

When the colony became British in 1713 it created a conflict between the French inhabitants and the British rulers. The British viewed the Acadians as a threat because of their French heritage and language as well as their apparent loyalty to France during the Seven Years’ War.

The Great Deportation

In 1755, Governor Charles Lawrence forcibly deported all the Acadians to other British colonies in North America. Le Grand Dérangement removed approximately 11,500 Acadians from their homes in villages around the Bay of Fundy. Many were sent to British Colonies in far-flung locations that included France, Louisiana, St.Domingue (Haiti), and the Falkland Islands.

Map of the Great Deportation

This deportation led to widespread suffering and loss for the Acadians. It broke up families and separated children their from parents. People lost their homes, their property, and their land, which were given to English colonists. Bereft of all they knew and sometimes of family they loved, the Acadians faced challenges of resettlement and adaptation in a new place. Some, particularly young men, were forced into indentured servitude.

Le Grand Dérangement was an act of war and of retaliation on the part of the British and an insulting offensive against the Acadians. It had significant impacts on the culture and the demographics of both the Acadian community and the regions from which they were taken.

Broken Families and Missing Children

To reframe this act in more modern terms, imagine if the United States had not placed Japanese-Americans internment camps within the country during World War II. Picture instead these citizens sent sent to the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Then imagine parents deported to Puerto Rico while their children were sent to Guam. This is what happened to the Acadians.

East Coast Destinations

Approximately 2,000 Acadians arrived in Massachusetts, with a significant number coming to Boston, which was then a British Colony. In 1755, six ships docked in Boston. Upon examining them, legislators from the Massachusetts General Court found them overcrowded and under-provisioned. If that was the case with these ships, imagine the conditions in vessels that went much further from Canada. Many died en route.

The Great Deportation dropped these devout Catholics into a predominantly Protestant culture that had been founded by the Puritans in rejection of everything Catholic. It should come as no surprise that Bostonians viewed the new arrivals with a mix of suspicion and anxiety. Laws forbade the deportees from practicing their Catholic faith.

Although considered prisoners of war, the Acadians worked as farmers, laborers, or sailors. Millions of their descendants still live in New England, where French surnames, like my family name, are common.

Canada Regrets the Great Deportation

In 2003, the Canadian government formally recognized the deportation’s historical injustice. Then-Governor General Adrienne Clarkson issued a royal proclamation declaring July 28 as ”A Day of Commemoration of the Great Upheaval.” The proclamation acknowledged the suffering of the Acadian people and expressed regret for their forced removal.

Although the descendants of ancestors traumatized, robbed, and displaced by Le Grand Dérangement appreciated this recognition, I don’t think it went far enough. To be fair, however, in 2003 Americans weren’t looking to escape their own government.

What if Canada opened its doors now to the American descendants of the Acadians they deported and expelled to foreign locations? Allow us to apply for Canadian citizenship and a Canadian passport based on our ancestry. Acknowledge that we can trace our ancestry back to Canada.

Bring back at least some of those descended from the deportees. It would be a start.