Cultural and Identity Transmission in Mixed Couples in Quebec, Canada

• Author: Josiane Le Gall,Deirdre Meintel
• Published date: 01 November 2015
• Date: 01 November 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0002716215602705
• Subject Matter: Section I: Intermarriage, Boundary Crossing, and Identity

112 ANNALS, AAPSS, 662, November 2015

DOI: 10.1177/0002716215602705

Cultural and

Identity

Transmission in

Mixed Couples

in Quebec,

Canada:

Normalizing

Plural Identities

as a Path to

Social

Integration

By

JOSIANE LE GALL

and

DEIRDRE MEINTEL

602705ANN The Annals of the American AcademyCultural and Identity Transmission in Mixed Couples in Quebec

research-article2015

Drawing on eighty interviews with mixed couples in

Quebec, this article discusses how parents in such unions

negotiate strategies of cultural transmission and develop

“identity projects” for their children, that is, blueprints for

the children’s ethnic identities. Our data show that instead

of one person having to take on the other’s culture, and the

children adopting that culture, both partners usually

embrace cultural differences as enriching for themselves,

their children, and the society in which they live. It is not

so much a question of transmitting a “heritage” but rather

making available a set of virtual cultural resources to the

child that he or she will activate (or not) later in life. We

argue that through the choices they make, mixed couples

contribute to shaping a society where plural identities are

normalized. In so doing, they become important agents of

social change and participate in the creation of an endur-

ing diversity, a long-term transformation of Quebec soci-

ety, and even contribute to the multiple meanings of

“Quebecois.”

Keywords: mixed couples; Quebec; cultural transmis-

sion; ethnic identity; identity projects

For the children, I think it’s a great advantage to

have parents from different origins. Well, there

is the language they are going to learn, the cul-

ture. And the fact that I make them travel a lot,

because I love to travel. My wife too, she loves it.

They have this advantage of knowing other coun-

tries. Like I said, they will speak Spanish, they

will live in a Latino world, it won’t be new for

them. So, it gives them an open mind even if

they don’t realize it.

Josiane Le Gall is an associate professor at the University

of Montreal. Her areas of research include issues

related to immigrant families, religious diversity, and

Muslim populations. Recent publications include

Quand la famille vient d’ici et d’ailleurs. Transmission

identitaire et culturelle (Presses de l’Université Laval

2014) (with Deirdre Meintel).

Deirdre Meintel has taught at the University of Montreal

since 1987 and is director of CEETUM (Centre d’études

ethniques des universités montréalaises). She has pub-

lished widely on issues related to gender, migration, eth-

nicity, identity, and more recently, religion and modernity.

She has conducted fieldwork in Mexico, Cape Verde, the

United States, and Montreal.

CULTURAL AND IDENTITY TRANSMISSION IN MIXED COUPLES IN QUEBEC 113

Steven was born in Colombia and lives in Montreal with Christine, a French-

speaking Quebecoise he met in college several years ago. Parents of two young

children, they both value diversity. As Steven says, they want, among other things,

their children to be fluent in French and Spanish and to travel abroad. Steven

and his wife are representative of mixed couples living in Quebec who wish to

transmit multiple identities to their children by putting forward the different

legacies of each parent. In this article, we discuss identity transmission in mixed

unions. We ask, what values, cultural traits, and identity markers do parents

transmit to their children? As an important point of contact between people from

different cultural backgrounds, mixed unions have often been discussed as inter-

cultural microcosms. For quite a long time, mixed marriage was perceived as a

sign of success for minorities and their assimilation into the majority, as the cul-

mination of the process whereby an immigrant “melted in” (see, e.g., Alba and

Nee 2003; Lieberson and Waters 1988; Park 1921; Qian and Lichter 2001).

Melting in would result in the irrevocable disappearance of identity and cultural

traits of the immigrant parent. These premises have been increasingly challenged

by scholars in recent years (see, e.g., Caballero, Edwards, and Puthussery 2008;

Collet and Santelli 2012; Rodríguez-García 2006, 2012; Song 2009). The results

of our research on mixed unions in Quebec confirm that these relationships can-

not be considered as indicators of an assimilation process. Parents who were

interviewed engage in a pluralist discourse in which differences appear as an

asset for the individual and for society. We argue that the differences between

our results and those of a number of similar studies carried out in other national

contexts, particularly in France, are revelatory of certain particularities of

Quebec. We suggest that mixed unions are both a reflection of change in society,

that is, the move toward greater pluralism in Quebec, and a contributing factor

toward such change.

In what follows, we make a brief survey of scholarly research on identity and

cultural transmission to children in mixed unions. We then introduce the notion of

“identity projects,” followed by a description of the sociohistorical context of

Quebec. We then discuss the methodology of our study and turn to its findings,

examining the “identity projects” of mixed couples in our sample and looking at

what they transmit to their children in regard to names and languages. This is fol-

lowed by a discussion of mixedness, culture, and identity in present-day Quebec.

Identity and Cultural Transmission in Mixed Couples

In mixed couples, the transmission of cultural or identity referents to children

cannot be taken for granted; it is rather an object of reflection and, in some cases,

negotiation between partners (Meintel and Kahn 2005). The birth of a child

indeed raises a series of new issues for parents in mixed couples, whose decisions

will concretely shape the child’s identity. What appears natural for most parents

(parents in an ethnically and religiously homogamous union) becomes challeng-

ing when cultural diversity is brought in. Parents in mixed unions render explicit