Quote:
Originally Posted by Capsicum
Quebec seems to be on the word stage, a successful example in turning the tide against assimilation in the opposite direction (with institutional backing) in a way that many other formerly dominant (on at least a regional, if not national level) but now marginalized regional groups didn't. Having even Anglos themselves in one's midst "assimilate to your culture" is no easy chore considering how eager the rest of the world is eager to lap up Anglo-American culture.
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Well, most anglos in Quebec haven't "assimilated" to francophone culture but most of them do speak French and are functional within it. I've heard it said before that the anglo community in Quebec is the only sizeable homegrown anglophone population in the world that has "majoritarily" (
majoritairement) learned to speak a second language.
Everywhere else in the world anglos either live as the dominant majority (de facto or de jure) or as a small dominant élite that can basically live obliviously to the teeming masses of "others".
In the latter case, whenever that status gets threatened, the anglo reaction is simply to pack up and leave. Which is perfectly understandable - there are tons of awesome places around the world to choose from to live happily as an anglo. They've built a disproportionate share of the world's most successful societies.
While some of them kind of did follow that urge in Quebec, by the usual standard a pretty huge lot of them stayed.
It's one of things that I find makes Quebec a fascinating sociological laboratory.