ABSTRACT
Franco-American communities consist of Frenchspeaking immigrants to, and citizens of, the United States. Many of these communities have roots in French Canada, and in particular the province of Que´bec. In Que´bec in the early 1960s, the federal government, desirous of creating a truly Canadian identity to stave off both the American giant and rising Que´bec nationalism, formulated, by means of its Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, the concept of two founding peoples and two official languages “from coast to coast.” On the Ameri-
can side of the border, interest in ethnic minorities was on the increase as the federal government sought to better defend its international interests.
