Older anglo workers can’t find jobs
Peggy Curran’s tone here in this story about how hard it is for older anglos to find jobs is weirdly patronizing. Oh dear, we can’t write perfect French, but if you’re kind to us, you may find we have some skills you can exploit to your profit.
david m 22:13 on 2012/10/05 Permalink
generally, i think it’s really hard for most monoligual anglophones of any age to find great jobs – virtually all monos (tm pending on that slur) either own something that ships something somewhere, lord land, work in tech/online design, work in law services, or work in service… professions that have them dealing mostly with people in the usa or in other provinces. on a big scale, this is probably partly a boomer thing and it’s obviously a quebec changing thing, but at any rate, even if i’m pro-francisation, it’s kind of sad to think of what it means for the longevity of this peculiar anglophone culture that we have in western montreal. it’s a shame that the oldsters radicalized so hardcore over the years – refusing to learn french, retrenching in every possible cultural way – to the point that they’re pretty much pushed to the leprous fringe that the dead end anglo right wing wants them to believe is the fate of quebec writ large.
Kate 22:25 on 2012/10/05 Permalink
Up to a point. Although I found Curran’s piece dispiriting, she does point out the difficulty for an older, unemployed anglo to actually learn French properly. There’s a funny attitude here that you could only speak French if you made an effort, but if you never worked in French (for the kinds of reasons you mention) and you never learned it properly in school (I flinch at how poorly we were taught French in my English-language high school) what are you supposed to do now?
Not knowing French is regarded here as a failure of will, a weakness of character. But it could be simpler – if you don’t have French-speaking friends and haven’t been hired to work in a French milieu because you ARE an anglo, it isn’t necessarily because you’re being deliberately obtuse. French is all around you but there’s no easy way to access it, and it doesn’t help that the accent in which you will be taught, if you are lucky enough to get formal lessons, bears little or no resemblance to the one you will hear in the street outside.
I am fortunate enough to have been able to learn French on the job, in the street, and so forth. I’ve been stubborn about living east of the Main. But a lot of people have a tin ear for language or don’t easily read even their own, let alone a second language. (But working on the election, one of the other people at my table said flatly, “You have a funny accent.” More recently someone else, I don’t remember who, also challenged me with talking funny. Yes, French is not my first language. But I can’t imagine listening to someone speaking English with a non-mother-tongue accent and telling them “Hey, you talk kind of funny!”)