On June 23, 2024, it will be exactly 25 years since I arrived in Quebec. To celebrate this quarter of a century in a unique corner of the world that we are building together, I would like to make a list of the reasons why I chose and continue to choose this country. Here are some reasons that explain my love for Quebec yesterday, today and tomorrow.
The absolute kindness with which Quebec welcomed me at the end of the 20the century. On Thursday, June 24, 1999, a day after my arrival from Argentina, Quebecers I barely knew welcomed me to a Midsummer party on the dilapidated roof of an apartment in the Old Montreal. We had difficulty communicating in French, but lo and behold, many spoke Spanish!
A new language, Quebec French, unique in the world. I came to Montreal to study fine arts at Concordia. So, in English. I quickly understood that, without Quebec French, I was missing the point.
A shared culture, still under construction. The first disc I bought in 1999 was the complete Gilles Vigneault album. But who was this guy who sang like he was dancing and danced like he was singing? Was it the same man with the eagle skull who was dictating live on TV from the Great Library? Also in 1999, it was the director Jean-Pierre Lefebvre who introduced me to Quebec cinema, with old Super 8 films, in a Concordia classroom. I thus received the new millennium by looking For the rest of the world.
Around 2003, my gateway to Quebec literature was Élise Turcotte, with The sound of living things. I continued with Michel Tremblay, Gabrielle Roy, Dany Laferrière. If the stories of the genesis of societies in great poverty, the stories of political oppression and strained filial relationships are universal, Quebec literature anchors them in urban and rural landscapes to which we can return again and again. You just have to look around to understand that we are walking on the pages of our novels.
Then, in 2008, came The image mill by Robert Lepage on the Bunge silos in Quebec. It shows us a story in constant writing and rewriting of which I feel part. The Bunge & Born company established itself in Buenos Aires in 1884, well before it did so in the port of Quebec. There, the name Bunge is associated with elites; it is synonymous with deforestation and monocultures. Here, we stormed its silent walls to paint a fresco of the history of Quebec which, for me, also evokes the history of colonial injustices in my country of origin.
A world territory to tame. We must breathe the life that emerges from the melting snow to confirm that we are one with this land sculpted by the seasons. The contemplation of an old wooden barn still standing in Beauce moves me as much as the new spire of Notre-Dame de Paris.
Immigration from all walks of life. With whom we have experienced together this profound and irreversible metamorphosis of being accepted and of accepting those who accept us.
An environmental movement and a feminist movement that inspire the world. The first, in particular, carried by young people, expressing themselves in a thousand ways with the conviction that nothing is lost in advance; the second, awakening us for decades and stopping at nothing. Here are two beacons that keep the reactionary darkness at bay.
Unique relationships with indigenous peoples. In the long series of colonial injustices that are the history of Canada and Quebec, unique events have marked the relationship between Francophones and the indigenous peoples of the territory we call Quebec: the Great Peace of Montreal of 1701, and the peace of the brave of 2002. Having been born in a deeply racist colonial country which massacred its indigenous peoples, these two efforts at peace and reconciliation, as partial and incomplete as they may be, remain singularities for me.
A river that flows through our veins. When I was little, in my hometown, we studied the geography of the world and its great rivers. The Paraná, The Nile, the Amazon, the Rhine, the Volga, the Mississippi and… the Saint Lawrence. This spinal river weaves our lives, unites our stories, threads our villages, makes our language flow; it passes through us. We drink it, it is in our bodies. We are this river.
A forest that enters our lungs. While reading Kukum And Maria Chapdelaine, I understood to what extent the history of Quebec is that of its forests. Quebec smells its forests and we breathe our forests every moment. It’s our own perfume. I want the future of my children and grandchildren to feel the same way.
Unfailing resilience. Quebec has survived great traumas in its history, and has often emerged stronger. To famine, merciless winter, plagues, conquest, efforts at assimilation and periods of darkness, he responded with a multiplication of rural villages, a global refusal, a global momentum, a quiet revolution, institutions strong French speakers, imagination, patience and waves of immigration that have been successful many times. Our resilience and our openness to others are inseparable.
We know how to celebrate our efforts and our successes, and we know how to honor those who have left us. This Midsummer, I will raise a glass to this country and to all of you. To all the people from elsewhere who have chosen to also be from here, to sow ideas, children, memories. And I will reread these few reasons to love Quebec, while I begin to find others.