{"id":153750,"date":"2023-05-19T13:57:14","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T17:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=153750"},"modified":"2023-09-05T14:52:18","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T18:52:18","slug":"an-honors-thesis-creates-a-french-connection-between-martha-coleman-23-and-herb-saucier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2023\/05\/19\/an-honors-thesis-creates-a-french-connection-between-martha-coleman-23-and-herb-saucier\/","title":{"rendered":"An honors thesis creates a French connection between Martha Coleman ’23 and shuttle driver Herb Saucier"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Herb Saucier was flabbergasted. Invited to attend a senior\u2019s thesis-binding ceremony on the porch of Coram Library, he suddenly found himself at the center of attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was just standing there listening, and then she called me over. And oh my God! I had no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The senior was Martha Coleman \u201923, a major in French and francophone studies from Seattle, whose thesis explores the evolving significance of French in Maine<\/a>. A key part of the thesis-binding ritual is having a Bates friend help out, and in this case, the friend was a very surprised Saucier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as Saucier and Coleman maneuvered the 142 printed thesis pages into the traditional black binder, cheers went up from friends, faculty and staff gathered around. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Phyllis
Martha Coleman ’23 and 73-year-old Herb Saucier enjoy the moment on the porch of Coram Library on April 17, 2023. They became friends this year, talking in English and in French, when she took the Bates shuttle, with Saucier at the wheel, to Lewiston High School to teach French. Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Most times, the cheers are solely for the senior. This time, the cheers were both for Coleman and for Saucier, a well-known driver of the Bobcat Express, a small fleet of vehicles that shuttle Bates students to their community activities in Lewiston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coleman chose Saucier for the special occasion to show appreciation for his friendship and support during her senior year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past year, several times each week, at 7:15 in the morning, Coleman hopped into one of the shuttle vehicles, usually a Nissan Leaf, with Saucier at the wheel, for the 10-minute drive to Lewiston High School, where she taught French as part of her Bates education minor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Maybe they only chatted for 10 minutes a day, about this or that, but the goodwill and friendship quickly added up. \u201cLittle interactions like that mean so much,\u201d says Coleman.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Saucier is a 73-year-old retired Lewiston policeman whose father spoke only French, so he grew up learning and speaking French at home. During the commute to the high school, three days a week, “we would talk French,” says Saucier. “\u201cShe told me that she was doing her thesis on the French down here in Lewiston and what have you. She would ask me questions on my upbringing. That was really neat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe they only chatted for 10 minutes a day, about this or that, but the goodwill and friendship quickly added up. \u201cLittle interactions like that mean so much,\u201d says Coleman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to the college\u2019s shuttle, Bates students often talk about the lifts they get from the shuttle drivers, not just the transportation kind but the emotional kind, too, through caring words and support. \u201cI just love any chance I can get to talk about how awesome the shuttle drivers are,\u201d says Coleman, speaking for many students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in Seattle, Coleman remembers photos of her father\u2019s bike trip through France when he was a high school senior, and hearing him talk about exploring the country thanks to French skills he learned in school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u201cMy
On the Coram Library porch, before friends, faculty, and staff, Martha Coleman \u201923 talks about her thesis year, including the support she received from Herb Saucier. The festivities that day featured three different thesis-binding ceremonies. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI came to see studying French as a way of exploring the world,\u201d says Coleman. But between COVID and other interruptions, Coleman decided to stay on campus for her junior year rather than travel abroad. \u201cI could not fathom uprooting myself one more time.\u201d In the end, she did explore the world, in a sense, without ever leaving Lewiston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coleman\u2019s year-long honors thesis was advised by Professor of French and Francophone Studies Mary Rice-DeFosse, whose own scholarly publications include The Franco-Americans of Lewiston-Auburn<\/em><\/a>, co-authored with James Myall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thesis has a section written in French that traces the history of French in Maine, and an English section focusing on community perceptions of the role and importance of French in Maine, drawn from recent reports on Maine’s Franco American communities, her own survey results, and interviews with several community members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maine\u2019s Franco American communities, which thrived into the mid-1900s, were created through years of cultural exchange with the Canadian maritime provinces and with Quebec. And during Coleman\u2019s morning commutes to the high school, she sat beside a man who personifies part of the history of French in Maine, where a quarter of residents self-identify as Franco American or French Canadian. In Lewiston, the percentage is near 60 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sylvia
Lewiston’s Franco American community has a culturally rich history, including a vibrant musical tradition. Sylvia Roy (seated), born in Stratford Center, Canada, and her husband, Rosaire (right), performed around the state in the middle 1900s; here, they pose at WCOU Studios on Lisbon Street, circa 1945. From left, Julie Vallee, Rosaire Labbe, Sylvia, Albert Cyr, and Rosaire. (Franco-American Music Traditions Collection, Franco-American Collection, University of Southern Maine Libraries)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Herb Saucier\u2019s French-speaking father grew up during the Depression in the far northern Maine town of Madawaska, located on the St. John River, which is the U.S.\u2013Canada border. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen my father was born, there was no hospital in Madawaska,\u201d Saucier explains. \u201cWomen would cross the bridge into Edmundton, New Brunswick, and have their babies there, and then they’d come back to the U.S. So my father was born in Canada, but raised in northern Maine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his early teens, Herb\u2019s father worked in the woods as a lumberjack, later moving to Lewiston and starting a family. His father worked as a truck driver for one of the mills. \u201cI was born just down the street from Bates, at St. Mary\u2019s,\u201d he says. Growing up, \u201cpretty much all we spoke at home was French. Even up till the time my father passed away in 2009, if I would go to his house or something to visit or whatever, help him with something, we always spoke French.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there are exceptions, Saucier\u2019s generation of Franco Americans in Maine is considered the last to have learned French from their parents but not have been able to pass down the language to their children. \u201cAnd I feel bad about that,\u201d Saucier says. \u201cI do wish my kids would\u2019ve learned French. It\u2019s something that has gotten lost. When there’s a break in the chain it\u2019s kind of hard to keep it going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the chain was, in many ways, forcibly broken by society\u2019s bolt cutters. Through most of the 1900s, speaking French was not supported in local public schools. A 1919 state law, not repealed until 1969, banned the use of French in schools in all but foreign language classes. Even at Bates into the early 1990s, a rule prohibited Bates staff from speaking their native French in the presence of non-French speakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
This corner on Lisbon Street, circa 1979, shows the sign of a bygone piano store named Ouellett, a common Franco American name in Lewiston. (Franco-American Resources Inventory of New England \/ University of Maine)
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHerb\u2019s generation was doing the best they could to give their kids the tools they needed to survive a school system that, at the time, was really trying to discourage French,\u201d Coleman says. \u201cOr they’d been through that system themselves and seen how hard it was to go into a high school environment where speaking French wasn\u2019t encouraged.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saucier and Coleman sometimes talked about his regret. \u201cHerb was one of the first people to say to me, so candidly, that as much as he would love to see Lewiston go back to the way it was, in terms of its relationship with French, he didn\u2019t see that ever coming to pass.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u201cMy
Martha Coleman ’23 and her adviser, Professor of French and Francophone Studies Mary Rice-DeFosse, have a happy moment during the April 17 thesis binding. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Saucier put a face to a feeling that Coleman saw echoed as she got deeper into her thesis research, including surveys and interviews with elderly Franco Americans in Lewiston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was eye-opening. She\u2019d been hearing various upbeat Maine voices, reading Maine texts, and taking in media that, quite appropriately, shared excitement about the future of French in Maine, especially with new French speakers immigrating to Maine over the last 25 years from African countries such as Togo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Djibouti, Rwanda, and Angola. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, she says, the feeling of loss tinged with acceptance that Saucier and others voiced is real. The feeling needs to be heard as a reminder that \u201cgrief and guilt can be hard to see,\u201d she says. \u201cGrief still needs to be a part of the conversation about French in Maine, and we have to have realistic hopes. How do we hope for something new instead of hoping for a return to something old?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer might come from what Coleman saw and learned about French culture in Lewiston through her classroom teaching experience at Lewiston High School. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She met and worked with students \u201cwho have never heard the term \u2018Franco American\u2019 and know little to nothing about Maine\u2019s French history\u201d but still showed interest, she wrote in her thesis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u201cMy
As Herb Saucier hold the traditional black binder open, Martha Coleman ’23 completes the binding. Saucier was a \u201csupporter and cheerleader\u201d for Coleman throughout the thesis writing process, she says. Community work and community members have been so important to this project.\u201d (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And she engaged with students with French last names \u201cwho can\u2019t speak or read the language themselves but still call their grandparents m\u00e9m\u00e8re<\/em> and p\u00e9p\u00e8re,<\/em> Franco American terms of endearment; with students who attended French elementary schools in the DRC before coming to the U.S.; and with students who speak French fluently with their families but still take French courses to help improve their writing skills.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coleman doesn\u2019t try to make a definitive statement about the direction of French in Maine in her thesis, but instead hopes to \u201copen a conversation about how the role and importance of French in Maine is evolving as the range of French speakers in the state expands and diversifies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She ends her thesis with a conclusion written in both French and English that offers a series of future-focused questions about how French language and culture in Maine can be supported. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both conclusions end with two French sentences: Je ne sais pas. Mais j’ai h\u00e2te de voir ce qui se passera.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated by Coleman, it means, \u201cI don’t know. But I can’t wait to see what will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Herb Saucier was flabbergasted. Invited to attend a senior\u2019s thesis-binding ceremony on the porch of Coram Library, he suddenly found himself at the center of attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":153762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4,14,31,11012],"tags":[5736],"class_list":["post-153750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-faculty-staff","category-lewiston-auburn","category-student-life","tag-mary-rice-defosse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153750"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153808,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153750\/revisions\/153808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}