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The French in Los Angeles: A study of a transplanted culture
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Content
THE FRENCH IN LOS ANGELES
A STUDY OF
A TRANSPLANTED CULTURE
A Thesis
Presented to
the Facmlty of the School of Social Work
University of Southern California
In Partial fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Science in Social Work
by
Mildred Stella Rubin
May 1936
UMI Number: EP65559
All rights reserved
INFORMATION TO ALL USERS
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.
In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,
a note will indicate the deletion.
DWrnWdn P W b iisM n g
UMI EP65559
Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author.
Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC.
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unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code
ProQuest LLC.
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Z I t 3 "-C-
This thesis, w ritte n under the direction of the
candidate’s F aculty Committee and approved by
a ll its members, has been presented to and ac
cepted by the F aculty of the School of Social
W ork in p a rtia l fu lfilm e n t o f the requirements
fo r the degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN SOCIAL WORK
D ean
Date.
/f3 €
F a c ility C om m ittee
C nairm an
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION 1
Statement of the problem •••••••••*• 1
The group under observation* •*••••••• 2
Importance of the study. . . . . . . 3
Objectives ...... .......... 4
Methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
II. THE FRENCH IN AMERICAN HISTORY . . . . . . . . . 8
Early French expeditions to North America. . . 8
The French in California . . . . . . . . . IS
Early French settlers in Los Angeles ..... 17
III. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FRENCH IN LOS ANGELES . . SI
Crime and Delinquency. . . . . . . . . . SI
Population Trends. . . . . . . . . . . . S6
Employment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . S6
Home Ownership . . . . . . . . . . . . . S6
Business Enterprise. . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Spatial Distribution S3
Cultural Cohesion. . . . . . . . . . 36
The Press. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4S
The French as a Colonist Type. . . . . . . . . 45
The Family . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . 48
Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
iv
CHAPTER PAGE
Group Morality . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
IV. VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Mutual Aid Societies . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Charitable Organizations . . . . . . . 66
Le Club Français of International Institute. . 72
Artistic and Literary Societies. ....... 74
L*Alliance Française 75
French War-Brides. . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Religious Organizations. ................ 82
Fraternal Orders . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Political Organizations. ... ....... 85
Reasons for Extensive Organization ...... 87
V. SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS .............. 90
Social Distance. ................. 91
Provincial Source.............................. 93
Occupational Distance. . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Religious Distance . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Implications of Findings ............. 101
BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................... 105
APPENDIX................. Ill
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
It is the purpose of this study to present a picture
of the French in Los Angeles, from the early days of Cali
fornia history to the present time. It is hoped that the
result will be, in some measure, a natural history of the
group. Of primary sociological significance, however, will
be the attempt to discover the form which the French culture-
1
pattern assumes in Los Angeles, and the extent to which as
similation has taken place. To what degree have the French
in Los Angeles become Americanized? Which of their institu
tions have they kept intact, and which have they discarded?
What are the national characteristics responsible for the
social phenomena peculiar to the French group in Los Angeles?
Has the American cultural influence acted upon all the
French alike? To what extent is American culture responsible
1
According to Wissler, every society or culture has
a pattern which follows the same general lines as the pat
tern or plan of every other society or culture. "Students
of culture find that the same general outline will fit all
of them; thus, we say the facts of culture may be compre
hended under nine heads. . . ., viz.. Speech, Material
Traits, Art, Mythology, Religion, Social Systems, Property,
Government, and War." Clark Wissler, Man and Culture (New
York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1923), p. 75.
2
for the social phenomena peculiar to the French group in Los
Angeles? To what extent is American culture responsible for
social relationships within the French group? In fine, is
the French nationality group a resultant of the impact of
American culture, or is it a bit of France transplanted?
THE-GROUP UNDER OBSERVATION
In the group under observation are to be included
only those persons who have come directly to Los Angeles
from France, and their descendants. Although there are many
other groups in this city who consider themselves to be
French, by virtue of the fact that they are a French speak
ing people, such as French Canadians, Swiss, and Belgians,
it is necessary to exclude them from this study for the pur
pose of clarity and precision. In speaking of the French in
2
Los Angeles, therefore, only the eleven thousand who were
born in France, or who are descended from those born in
France, will be designated.
Although the French in Los Angeles are not, strictly
speaking, a colony, since they have no residential corapact-
2
The United States Census Bureau, 1930, lists 11,000
French in Los Angeles, of whom 3,478 were foreign-born, and
7,641 were French native white stock.
3
ness, and are not congregated in one particular locality,
the term "French Colony” will be used hereafter to signify
the group under observation, since the French of Los Angeles
have organized under the title, ”La Colonie Française de Los
Angeles,” and have elected officers to represent them as a
3
group* The use of this title dates from the latter part of
the nineteenth century, when there was a definite French
Quarter in Los Angeles, namely, that section having Aliso
4
Street as its center. Notwithstanding the fact that there
is no longer a French Quarter, the French still claim their
name of the "French Colony."
IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY
Many sociological studies have been made of nation
ality groups in Los Angeles, such as the Italian or Russian
5
or Mexican, but, thus far, no such study has been made of
3
See Chapter IV, p. 58.
4
See Chapter III, p. 34.
5
See Pauline V. Young, Social Heritages of the Molo-
kane in Los Angeles (unpublished Master*s thesis. University
of Southern California, 1926); Olive P. Kirschener, The
Italian in Los Angeles (unpublished Master^s thesis. Univer
sity of Southern California, 1920); George M. Day, The Rus
sian Colony in Hollywood (Doctor»s Dissertation, the Univer
sity of Southern California, 1930); Helen Douglas, The Con
flict of Culture in First Generation Mexicans in Santa Ana.
California Tunmblished Master ^s thesis. University of
Southern California, 1928).
4
the French group. It has been a purpose of studies of immi
grant groups to determine the underlying causes of such
problems as crime, delinquency, dependency, and of social
maladjustment, in order to derive from their analysis a
basis for possible preventative measures. A study of the
French Colony should be complementary to the studies of
other nationality groups. When it can be determined whether
or not the French present problems which are similar to
those of the Italian, the Mexican, or the Russian, and when
the underlying causes of either the presence or absence of
such problems can be analyzed, to some extent, it may be pos
sible for sociologists and for social workers to deal more
adequately with immigrant groups in our midst.
OBJECTIVES
For an understanding of the present-day French Colony
in Los Angeles, it is essential to have a picture of the rô
le which the French have played in American history in gener
al. The first part of the thesis is, therefore, devoted to
a brief résumé of French contributions to American coloniza
tion, both in the East and in the West.
From a generalized description of the French in Cali
fornia as a whole we turn to the French in Los Angeles City.
Chapters III and IV are an attempt to discuss French nation
al characteristics in their relation to the habits of the
5
French Colony in Los Angeles, and to portray the French Colo
ny as it appears in association, both voluntary and involun
tary. The final chapter summarizes the preceding chapters,
and indicates the nature of social relations within the
group itself as well as of relations between the group and
the community which envelops it.
METHODS
For a study of this kind it has been necessary to use
both primary and secondary sources of information. Library
materials offered an abundance of information on French life
in general, and on the historical aspect of French contribu
tions to American culture. In order to obtain first-hand
information concerning the French in Los Angeles, it was ne
cessary to use the interview method to a large extent. In
all, forty-five French persons were interviewed, including
the heads of societies, as well as members of the different
social classes in the French Colony. In addition to inter
view material, ten case records were read, constituting the
entire French case load, at International Institute, where
is found the largest number of French families or individu
als receiving case-work service.
Perhaps the most important single method employed was
6
that described by Lindeman as the "participant observer."
6 ^
Edward C. Lindeman, Social Discovery (New York; Re
public Publishing Company, 1934), p. 191.
6
In. order to gauge the activities of any group quite accurate
ly, we must know not only that which the group thinks it is
doing, but also that which it is actually doing. Therefore,
in addition to being an observer, that is, one who looks on
from without, it is necessary also to employ the "partici
pant observer," one who forms a part of the group itself and
who may, consciously or unconsciously, furnish the observer
with an expression of the group-thinking. According to Lin
deman, the "participant observer" is one who
1. Is a part of the group being studied
2. Has vital interests involved in the group ^ s activi
ties
3. Provides the exterior or outside observer with the
facts of the group’s activities
4. Provides the outside observer with facts bearing
upon the categories utilized in the study
5. Presents criticism of the categories
6. Discovers new categories as emergencies of the
group’s changing activities
7. Corrects conclusions of the outside observer, from
the viewpoint of one whose interests are at stake.7
By utilizing a combination of the methods mentioned
above it has been possible to secure a more or less accurate
sociological description of the group under observation.
The statistical method, however, which is regarded by many
students as the only accurate means of securing data, was not
practicable in this instance, since the only figures obtaina-
7
Lindeman, op. cit.. p. 192.
At many of the social meetings the author acted as
participant observer, while at discussion groups, the rôle
was that of non-participant observer.
7
ble were those compiled by the United States Census Bureau,
relating to population.
CHAPTER II
THE FRENCH IN AMERICAN HISTORY
EARLY FRENCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA
The French are not, properly speaking, an immigrant
group in the United States, for they are among the history-
makers of our country and indeed, of the whole continent of
North America. Sailors from the Channel coast of France,
particularly Normans and Bretons, came early to the eastern
shores of North America to find new lands, to find new
wealth. Throughout the history of French exploration and
discovery we find that it is principally from these coast
provinces that the French have ventured abroad, for the
Frenchman from the inland provinces is a stay-at-home person
and leaves his hearth only with regret, while the fisherfolk
of Normandy and Brittany have the habit of the sea. In 1534,
a hardy Breton sailor from St. Malo was sent by his king,
Francis I, to extend the territory of France. This was Jac
ques Cartier, whose reports of the severities of the Canadian
1
climate helped to check for a time French colonizing plans.
At the close of the sixteenth century and the beginning of
the seventeenth century, several abortive attempts were made
1
Reuben Gold Thwaites, France in America. (New York
and London: Harper and Brothers, 1905), p. 8.
9
to establish French colonies in the new land. In 1600, Hen
ry IV granted a royal monopoly of the fur-trade to some of
his Calvinist friends, one of whom was accompanied by Samuel
de Champlain, commissioned by the king to act as pilot and
chronicler of the expedition. It was not until the middle
of the seventeenth century, however, that actual colonies
were established on the continent, notably around the Bay of
Fundy, and that the French had actually gained a foothold in
2
North America.
The story of the discovery and later exploitation of
the Mississippi is filled with names of Frenchmen, such as
Marquette, Joliet, Frontenac, and La Salle. Almost every
expedition numbered some French in its band, either in the
rôle of explorer, or of missionary, eager to convert the na
tives. It is of interest to note that the French were usu
ally on much better terms with the Indian tribes than any of
their rivals in the new land. In the eighteenth century,
with the founding of New Orleans in 1718, the French became
masters of the territory of the Mississippi Basin and the
Gulf of Mexico. Their mastery was short-lived, however, for
after the Louisiana Purchase in 1804 the French power in
North America was completely exterminated. It is a matter
of history that the French have never been particularly suc
2
Reuben G. Thwaites, op. cit.^ 8-11
10
cessful as empire builders; there is a lack of some peculiar
quality in the national character which prevents them from
attaining that degree of imperialism so remarkable among the
English, for example. "That the French, at first, made much
larger claims to the interior of North America than did the
English, was due less to their undoubted avarice for territo^
3
ry than to their early enterprise as explorers." Relative
to the great amount of French emigration to this country dur
ing the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there should,
at present, be a greater influence from this national group
than is actually felt. The only lasting influence is per
haps that of the Huguenots, who came during the sixteenth
century. According to some authors, many of the Pilgrims
were of French blood, disguising their names for the purpose
of escape; it is maintained that a great many passengers of
the Mayflower and their descendants were from fine Huguenot
families; notable among these were John Alden and Priscilla
Mullins, whose original name was Molines; the names of Fa-
neuil and Revere are also those of Huguenot families. It is
generally agreed that the Huguenot influence on American
culture has been a happy one, for a great number of great
statesmen and men of letters in this country were directly
descended from this religious and high-principled group.
3
Reuben G. Thwaites, on. cit.. p. 43
11
French emigration during the seventeenth century was
composed of two distinct types: those who asked only for
religious freedom, and those who hoped to better their eco
nomic position through the acquisition of property. Neither
of these types was successful as a colonist. The story of
French attempts at colonization both by Huguenots and by Ca
tholics proves that "while they (the French) make a most ad
mirable element in a colony established by others, they have
not the peculiar qualifications requisite to successful co-
4
Ionization when left to themselves." In the early period
of colonization, the spirit of American culture was the spi
rit of the frontier. But the Frenchman in anything but a
frontiersman; for him the old, the established, the tradi
tional, are essential; it is almost impossible for him to
create tradition, to be first in anything, historically
speaking. It is not that he lacks initiative; it is, rather,
that he is infinitely cautious, and caution never founded an
empire. If there is one word which characterizes the French
more than any other, it is "caution." This state of mind in
the national type, if there be such, is not based entirely
upon a fear of the unknown; it is based rather upon the over
whelming need for a well-ordered existence, no matter upon
what economic level. The French are extremely adaptable;
4
Lucian J. Fosdick, The French Blood in America (New
York; The Fleming H. Revell Company, 19Ô6),p. 107.
12
they fit easily into any kind of group, provided there is a
group existent. It has been said that the basic elements of
American culture are the spirit of the frontier, the cosmo
politan spirit, the middle class spirit, and, in later times,
the urban spirit. Each of these elements, with the excep
tion of the first, the French possess to a striking degree.
For this reason, perhaps, French emigrants have always form
ed one of the most valued nationality groups in American com
munities.
THE FRENCH IN CALIFORNIA
Just as the French formed one of the most influential
elements during the colonizing period of American history in
general, so they made their culture felt in the early days
of California. The first French to come to this state belong
ed to the same classes as those which had furnished exporers
and adventurers hundreds of years before. A definite wave
of emigration may be noted around 1848 when the revolution
in France forced many of the nobility, particularly younger
sons, and members of the professional classes to leave for
political reasons. It was just at this time that the cry of
"Gold!" was heard everywhere, so that the attention of
French political refugees was naturally directed toward Cali
fornia. "The emigrants from France belonged to the intelli
gentsia— they were younger sons of nobility, lawyers.
13
5
doctors, political free-thinkers, etc. Most of these, how
ever, were quite unfit to undergo the hardships of the mi
ner’s life, so that they, spectacularly unsuccessful in amas
sing a yellow fortune, drifted back to the cities, to form
the nucleus, mainly, of the French colony in San Francisco.
Moreover, after the beginning of the gold rush, a mining tax
was levied which checked the Latin influx, "including the
6
highly desireable contribution from France." The French
were thus forced away from the mines toward the towns and in
to rural occupations, particularly viticulture. The failure
of the first-comers did not serve to check the steady stream
of gold-seekers, however. The first considerable group of
these to come directly from France was in September, 1849,
when about forty persons landed in this itate. At this
period California was being glowingly described in France
and companies were quickly formed to expedite the voyage of
the emigrants. These were purely mercenary companies design
ed either to enhance the value of their own holdings in the
gold mines of which they were part owners or to form agricul-
7
tural stock companies in the new communities. The influx
5
Ernest de Massey, A Frenchman in the Gold gush, M. E<
Wilbur, translator; San Francisco; Historical Society, 1927,
Translator’s Preface.
6
Hubert H. Bancroft, History of California (San Fran
cisco, The History Company, 1890), VII, ft.n., p. 701.
7
Lpc. cit.
14
of French to California was given an impetus in the early
Fifties by lottery schemes established for the purpose of en
ticing them here; all kinds of commercial companies were form
ed to bring groups of French people to this country; some
were honest, but most were not, and a great many French found
themselves stranded upon reaching the shores of California.
Such enterprises lasted all through the period from
1850 to 1890, for even in a French newspaper article of 1894
mention is made of the so-called Baron Rogniat who establish
ed an emigration agency in Paris and created a paper there
called the Franco-Amér1cain. in which he described the marve
lous soil and climate of Southern California, in the hope of
attracting emigrants, and in which he offered his services
for a commission. Many such emigrants, lured by his graphic
descriptions, came here only to find very bad economic con
ditions, with about 5,000 unemployed in Los Angeles. These
French people coming to Los Angeles, who were mostly young
men of good family, were ruined by the venture.
From November, 1849, to June, 1850, thirty-five
French vessels brought over 2,000 French to California. In
1850, the Garde Mobile, a company under the patronage of the
French Government, transported retired French soldiers to
the gold fields; the government then granted them clothing
and equipment for their work in the mines. However, many of
these soldiers deserted, as did the sailors from the ships
15
Which had brought them; from this riffraff were recruited
men for the French expeditions into Sonora, the history of
which forms a colorful part of the story of Western frontiers
Around 1850 the Mexican and Sonoran governments con
ceived the idea of using foreigners as military colonists in
order to check Anglo-American expansionists. "The Europeans
most available to Sonora for this purpose were the French
8
who had migrated to the California gold fields." The rival
ry between Latin and Anglo-American was fostered by a dash
ing French adventurer by the name of Hippolyte du Pasquier
de Dommartin. In order to hold the trade routes for Mexico
and therefore for fellow-Latins he received from the state
of Chihuahua a land grant with permission to build a rail
road upon it. fie then proposed to bring 140,000 colonists
from France. "He was the first Frenchman to advocate, in
the eighteen fifties, the aiding of Mexico through French
9
colonization as a means of checking Yankee imperialism." As
we may gather from even this small episode, during the whole
eventful period of the gold rush the French colonists played
a large and colorful rôle in Western history, to such an ex
tent, indeed, that their nationality stood out in contrast
8
R. K. Wyllys, The French in Sonora (1850-1854)
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1932), p. 33.
9
Ibid.. p. 18.
16
to others, due mainly, perhaps, to certain national charac
teristics of sobriety and level-headedness. In the Daily
Alta California. January 21, 1853, a statement is made that
"of the foreign population within our borders the French is
the preponderating element and its influence upon the commu
nity, into which it infuses something of the national vivaci-
ty and fondness for the enjoyable relaxations of life, and
to which it imparts the impress of peculiar habitudes, is
suffi c iently marked•"
In 1851, the French population of California was
about 20,000 and it formed one of the three principal nation
alities of the population of San Francisco. In 1853, the
French population increased to 28,000, consisting of many en
tire families, in contrast to the number of single men of
other nationalities. In February of this same year, the
Daily Alta California reports the coming of a shipload of
French women. We may gather from such facts as these that
most of the French in California at this time had come with
the intention of accumulating a spectacular fortune, with
which to return to the homeland. Yet very few of these emi
grants sought naturalization or assimilation and general-
10
Daily Alta California. January 21, 1853; quoted by
Wyllys, op. cit., p. 44.
17
ly kept to themselves In small but compact communities, a
fact to which many place-names bear witness, as for example,
French Gulch and French Corral.
EARLY FRENCH SETTLERS IN LOS ANGELES
At this period, although most of the French communi
ties were concentrated in Northern California, several
Frenchmen had already become aware of the possibilities of
fered by Los Angeles, and by Southern California. As early
as the 1820’s several Frenchmen had come to Southern! Califor
nia to stay. In 1827, there came a young French cadet, Mas-
earel, aboard the "Jeannette" enroute to the Society Islands
carrying merchandise for the French colonists and for the na
tives there, as well as several passengers for Papeete.
One of the passengers, Jean Louis Vignes (1771-1862),
having some goods to dispose of, took occasion to trade
with the people of Los Angeles and formed such an attach
ment for them and for the place that, after erecting a
distillery in the Society Islands, he abandoned the en
terprise and returned to settle there in 1831. Vignes
found several Frenchmen had preceded him to the pueblo
in the years since his visit: former members of Napo
leon’s old guard, who had cast their lot for the liberty
of Mexico from Spain. They had made their way northward
overland from Mexico City following the fulfillment of
their objective. Louis Bouchette, who had been an offi
cer in the rebellion, was the leader and most outstand
ing character of this group. Upon arrival of Vignes he
was engaged in planting a vineyard on Macy Street. Vi
gnes followed his example, thus marking the year 1832 as
the actual start of the progressive development of the re
sources of the venerable clime. These two Frenchmen,
finding in Southern California the opportunity for ex
pression of their standards of life and their impulse to
ward industry, which they had sought in vain in their
18
wanderings throughout the world, were perhaps the first
to evolve the possibilities there of viticulture on a
large scale.11
The descriptions of the opportunités offered here were read
with enthusiasm by relatives in the mother country and re
sulted in the increased immigration of other Frenchmen. In
the Thirties there were more Europeans in Los Angeles than
there were Americans, and more French than any other nation
ality represented. The leader of the French group at this
time was, of course, Jean Louis Vignes, whose vineyard ex
tended from Alameda Street to the River, and north to Aliso
Street, which took its name from the great sycamore tree un
der which the early French pioneers gathered daily to drink
and talk with "Don Luis." Vignes established, in 1834, the
first orange orchard in Los Angeles, securing his young
18
trees from the San Gabriel mission. Many of his relatives,
notably the Sansevain family, came to join him here, and the
influx of French was constant, although toward 1850 when the
news of gold was spread, many inhabitants of Los Angeles
left for the North.
It is interesting to note that a large proportion of
11
Fernand Layer and Charles Beaudreau, Le Guide fran
çais de Los Angeles et du Sud de la Californie XLos Angeles:
Franco-American Publishing Company, 1932), 17-18.
12
Ibid.. p. 18.
19
French immigrants coming to Northern California during the
gold fever were Basques, who, after working in the mines and
finding their efforts not too væll repaid, moved toward the
South where they engaged in their own particular occupation
of sheep-raising, an occupation which is responsible for
some of the large fortunes of present day Los Angeles. From
the earliest days of French immigration in California until
the latter part of the nineteenth century, the majority of
French immigrants came almost exclusively from the southern
provinces of France, either from the Basque country itself,
or from the districts surrounding it. These people were,
therefore, of the peasant class, for the most part shepherds
or farmers. The provinces from which they came always have
been, and are, the least productive in all France, and it is
frequently impossible to wrest a living from the infertile
soil. As a result, the provinces of the Basses-Alpes and of
the Pyrénées have been constantly depopulated, not only be
cause of a terribly decreased birth-rate, but even more be
cause of a continuous emigration. In seventy years’ time,
up to 1905, the provinces of the Basses-Alpes lost one-third
13
of their population. It is not strange that quite a large
proportion of the emigrants from these provinces should find
their way to Southern California, not only because it was as
13
Gabriel Eisenmenger, Haute Provence (Digne: n.p.
1914), p. 154.
80
yet an undeveloped country, but also because it offered vast
opportunities in the very industry with which they_ were the
best acquainted.
CHAPTER III
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FRENCH IN LOS ANGELES
The French formed one of the most Influential ele
ments in the growth of the West as a whole and in Los Ange-
less they became the backbone of respectable society. For
the French are an eminently respectable people, frowning up
on digression from the mores of the community. In general,
the French are a bourgeois society and as such, are, preemi
nently, the bearers of the mores. It will be discovered in
any French community whatsoever, whether in France itself or
abroad, that the essence of that community is a middle-class
society, and that any study to be made of such a society
will have to be made in terms of a bourgeois psychology, a
bourgeois philosophy, and' a bourgeois sociology. The prob
lems presented by such a society will not be those presented
by any other nationality group.
CRIME AND DELINQUENCY
When we observe in an urban community, a group such
as the Italians, the Mexicans, or Russians, we notice immedi
ately that certain well-known problems present themselves,
problems of illiteracy, of poverty, of pauperism, of delin
quency, both adult auad juvenile. It has long been thought
that the French are a Latin race, and as such should be
22
placed in a category with the Italian, the Spanish, and the
Roumanian races. Yet, in America, the French nationality
group does not resemble in the least any of its supposed
sister groups. Indeed, on the contrary, the French group
bears a decided resemblance in its habits to the English, the
German and other Northern nationalities. This resemblance
has been shown by a large number of indices, such as popula
tion trends, crime reports, living conditions, juvenile de
linquency, and number of descendants. For example, the re
port of the Juvenile Bureau of the Los Angeles Police for
the fiscal year June, 1934, to June, 1935, indicates that
1
It is a matter of controversy as to whether the
French are a race, or a nationality. It is generally agreed
by the foremost authorities, however, that France is a com
posite of the three principal racial stocks of Europe, name
ly: the Nordic, the Alpine, and the Mediterranean (Latin).
The three ethnic stocks have been maintained almost intact
in France, due to geographic as well as political factors,
so that France is not at all a unified country, racially
speaking. It is technically incorrect, therefore, to use
the term "French race" in speaking of France, since not one,
but several races may be distinguished. For further discus
sion of this problem, the following authorities may be con
sulted:
Jacques Barzun, The French Race (New York : Columbia
University Press, 1932);
Frank Hankins, The Racial Basis of Civilization (New
York: Alfred Knopf, 1926);
W. Z. Ripley, Races of Europe— a Sociological Study
(New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1899%;
André Siegfried, France, a Study in Nationality
(Published for the Institute of Politics by Yale University
Press, 1930);
Lothrop Stoddard, Racial Realities in Europe (New
York: Charles Scribner * s Sons, 1924) .
23
there were only nine juvenile delinquents of French parent
age coming from Los Angeles City. Most of these either came
from broken homes or from homes in which the economic condi
tions were poor. On the whole, there are no serious offen
ses and no poor school reputations. The school records were
all either "fair" or "good":
TABLE I
REPORT OF THE LOS ANGELES POLICE
JUVENILE ARRESTS FOR FISCAL YEAR, JUNE, 1934 TO JUNE, 1935
Sex Age Econ. Condition Charge No.
of Offenses
Boy 17 Poor Burglary 4
Boy 11 Unknown Throwing
rocks at
cars
1
Boy 9 Fair Theft 1
Boy 16 Poor Shooting
in City
Limits
2
Boy 15 Poor Throwing
rocks at
Street
Lights,
Runaway
Theft
5
Boy 12 Poor Same as
above
5
Boy 15 Poor Petty
Theft
Several
Boy 16 Fair Theft 3
Girl 15 Poor Sex delin
quent
4
(with
same boy)
The statistics of the Los Angeles Police Department
on crime show that the French were conspicuous by the fact
that there was little or no violation of municipal ordinances.
24
a fact which is characteristic of the colony for there is a
great respect for law and order. The greatest number of ar
rests was for drunkenness which is unusual because the
French, as a rule, do not drink to excess. Following is a
table of the arrests of French persons during the period of
a year:
TABLE II
N T O R g E i E R ( C W ? j L E L R J B G I C E ) l O l ? f q E B B C Ü G N S
IN LOS ANGELES CITY BY CHARGE
DURING THE FISCAL YEAR JUNE 1934 - JUNE 1935
Charge
Homicide
Rape
Robbery
Assault
Burglary
Forgery
Theft or Larceny
Carrying Weapons
Sex Offenses
Non-support
Violating Drug Laws
Violating Liquor Lqws
Drunk Driving ' '~
Drunkenness
Disorderly Conduct
Vagrant
Violating Traffic Laws
Violating Motor Vehicle Laws
Violating Municipal Ordinance
Burning i - S true tur e s
Evading Railroad Fare
Gambling
NUBiber of Persons Arrested
0
0
1
4
1
1
7
1
(1 grand theft)
8 (5 violations of
Rooming House
Ordinances)
0
0
5
2
82 (But no habitual
drunkards)
0
1
0
0
1 (Peddlar in a pro
hibited district)
1
7
1
25
Charge (cont
Punchboards in Possession
Total
Number of Persons Arrested
(cont*d)
126 (11 women on charge
of drunkenness)
TABLE III
TOTAL ARRESTS IN THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES
FOR A PERIOD OF ONE YEAR, June 1934 - June 1935
Charge
Drunkenness
Sex Offenses (excluding rape)
Theft or Larceny
Robbery
Burglary
Vagrancy
Violating Municipal Ordinances
Total Arrests
Total No. of Persons in L. A,
50,000
4,535
2,225
1,705
1,926
5,294
1.844
84,569
Although the greatest number of arrests, among the
French is for drunkenness, as it is among the general popula
tion, the comparison of figures shows the number of arrests
among the French to be almost trivial. On the charge of va
grancy which has the second highest figures for the general
population, there was only one French person arrested. The
total number of arrests for the French population is an al
most infinitesimal percentage of the total number of arrests
for the general population.
26
POPULATION TRENDS
With respect to population trends thé French group,
again, follows closely the tendencies of the English and
German groups, the inhabitants of Los Angeles who came from
the British Isles having a percentage of 92.5 of families of
fewer than five children while those inhabitants coming from
France have a percentage of 91.8 of families with fewer than
2
five children.
EMPLOYMENT
With respect to the number of persons regularly em
ployed, again the three nationality groups, the English,
French, and German have the largest percentage of all foreign
groups in Los Angeles; the German group having a percentage
of 80.4, the English having a percentage of 66.3, and the
3
French having a percentage of 62.5.
HOME OWNERSHIP
Apparently the only important point upon which the
French colony differs from the other two mentioned is that
2
Commission of Immigration and Housing of California,
A Community Survey Made in Los Angeles City (San Francisco:
T9Ï87," 39:41: --------------------
3
Ibid.. 56-62.
27
of home ownership, for here the highest percentage is found
in the Russian group which has a percentage of 52.7 while
the second highest is found in the French group which has a
4
percentage of 40.5. It is well known that the French are a
nation of home owners. It is the ambition of every French
man who comes to Los Angeles to make enoughtmoney, first of
all, to buy a little house preferably in the country, and
every Frenchman in the tradesman class engages in business
with the idea of retiring sooner or later to the little hpme
which he has purchased. Many of the French in Los Angeles
have said that they could not endure living in San Francisco
because it would mean living in rented apartments, whereas
in Los Angeles, it is possible to have a separate house.
BUSINESS ENTERPRISE
The French are a people who prefer to amass a solid
little sum gradually but surely through honest effort and di
ligent labor rather than take their chances on brilliant
"coups" in the hopes of getting rich quickly. "La France
compte infiniment plus de fourmis cue de cigales, et le *bas
de laine ^ oh-l^on entasse les écus est en quelque sorte le
symbole de notre peuple." ("France numbers infinitely more
of ants, than it does of grasshoppers, and the *woolen
4
Commission of Immigration and Housing of California,
OP. c i t . . 6 4 - 7 0 .
28
stocking* in which the pennies are piled up is in a measure
5
the symbol of our people." This predominant national cha
racteristic is not lost in emigration. In the French Colony
in Los Angeles, it has been the ambition of almost every
Frenchman to engage in some small business and to put by a
little money every day so that old age may be spent in re
tirement, living on a modest but steady income. Big busi
ness is the exception among the French middle class. There
are, in the French Colony, perhaps three or four big busi
ness men. Their achievement is not entirely due to a love
of enterprise, such as we encounter among most of our Ameri
can business geniuses. The rise to power of these men is
due rather to the fact that they were thrust into their posi
tion by circumstances. In one case, a French shepherd came
to Los Angeles in the early days of its development and, in
order to get pasture for his sheep, was forced to buy land
on the outskirts of the town. Today his family is among the
richest landowners of the town, not because he set out to be
come a dealer in real estate, but because he was interested
in raising sheep.
Our Colony is proud of such families as the Pellis-
siers. Germain Pellissier came here as a shepherd from
Southern France. He had to keep on buying more and more
5
Ernest Granger, la France— Son Visage. Son Peuple
(Paris: A. Fayard et Cie., 1932), p. 225;
29
land for his sheep and cattle. And now, behold! Today,
we see the magnificent Pellissier Building on Wilshire
Boulevard and Western Avenue. That is where M. Pellis
sier bought land for his sheep in 1890i^
Such a circumstance is due to the fact that the old
est members of the French Colony were among the earliest pio
neers. The French seldom possess the attitudes and values
of the adventurer; those coming to the gold fields came not
so much because they were lured by the prospect of wild for
tunes, but because they had to leave France. They found no
success in mining; they all gradually drifted back into the
towns to make their living in small businesses. The French
that kept coming to Los Angeles all during the latter half
of the nineteenth century did not burn their bridges behind
them. In almost every case they knew exactly what they were
coming for; in almost every case the newcomer had friends or
relatives who had a place waiting for the new arrival; in al
most every case there were savings accumulated large enough
to take care of the traveler until he was completely estab
lished. There is scarcely a Frenchman here who has throvm
himself and his fortune into a commercial venture with the
daring and recklessness characteristic of most Americans.
The French are not gamblers, neither are they adventurers.
The element of chance was not in their coming nor is it in
their society today.
6
Interview No. 39.
30
Presque tous les travailleurs débarqués dans ces der
niers temps ont trouvé une position toute prête à les re
cevoir, ayant été appelés dans ce pays (California) par
des parents ou amis déjà avantageusement établis.
(Almost all of the laborers who have disembarked re
cently have found a position all ready to receive them,
having been called to this country by either relatives
or friends already established advantageously.)7
The French group in Los Angeles has always been the
most prosperous of any nationality group. One reason for
this is that already mentioned above, namely, the great pru
dence and foresight with which they prepare their coming.
Another reason is the fact that the French have generally
been accepted readily by the native group. Other countries
have always looked to France as the center of cultural re
finement and the home of the niceties of life. Things that
are French have always enjoyed a vogue with inhabitants of
other countries. That the French coming to this country
have capitalized on this attitude is evidenced by the type
of business in which they engage. The French in Los Angeles
have gone into the same enterprises as those into which
their compatriots have gone in any other community: restau
rants specializing in French cooking; bakeries specializing
in French breads; wineries; laundries and cleaning establish
ments specializing in fine hadd work. In San Francisco, for
example, the French have for some time held a monopoly on
7
Daniel Lévy, Les Français en Californie (San Fran
cisco: Grégoire Tanzy et Cie., 1884%% p. 363.
SI
the laundry business. In Hollywood they have added other
specialties greatly in demand in a cinema colony— here there
are many fencing masters, French conversationalists, hair
dressers, and couturiers. "Les meilleurs ambassadeurs au*ont
eu la France en Amérique, ce sont les chefs de cuisine et
les modistes." ("The best ambassadors that France has had in
8
America are its chefs and its modistes.") This tendency of
the French to deal in highly specialized commodities abroad,
as well as in France, is one reason why they are, in general,
a self-supporting group. The department-store idea is whol
ly American, and it is only very recently that such large
enterprises have sprung up in France itself due to the Ameri
can influence. The typical French idea of business is the
small-shop plan, offering one particular article; one of the
most common commercial phrases in French is spécialité de la
maison. The French in this country have been extremely for
tunate in possessing amd maintaining prestige for certain
professions and small businesses which are their spécialités.
It is relatively simple to go into business when there is a
demand for what one has to offer. In 1895, the French news
papers in Los Angeles carried advertisements for the follow
ing:
2 Distilleries and wine distributors
4 Retail wine merchants
8
Interview No. 26,
52
3 Fine groceries
4 Watchmakers and jewelers
3 Merchants of furniture and household articles
2 Clothing stores
1 Shoe store
1 Shoemaker
3 Pharmacies
1 Laundry
1 Photographer
1 Hairdresser
1 Stable
i Iron worker and blacksmith
1 Funeral parlor
1 Landscape gardener
1 Cleaning establishment
1 Bookshop
3 Cafés
6 Hotels
3 Bakeries
At present the French in Los Angeles are engaged in
much the same type of business. There are, at least, eight
restaurants, six bakeries, as many importing houses, several
pharmacies, about eight laundries, specializing in fine hand
9
work, and many cleaning establishments.
9
It is impossible to indicate any section of Los An
geles where French businesses are centralized. It is true
that some of the older establishments are still located in
the very heart of the city. For example, the famous Taix
Restaurant is still located on Commercial Street, while all
of the French pharmacies are within a small radius of the
Plaza. The Franco-Amer lean Baking Company, likewise, is
located on College Street, near the French Hospital. With
these exceptions, the French business houses are scattered
throughout the city. For example, one French restaurant is
found on Vine Street in Hollywood, a second mn West Washing
ton Boulevard near La Brea, a third on Seventh Street near
Westlake Park, another on Olive Street at Sixth, and still
another on La Brea Avenue near Third Street* Bakeries and
pastry-shops are found not only in downtown Los Angeles, but
in Hollywood and in Beverly Hills, as well. The laundries
and cleaning establishments are to be found in many of the
(continued on page 33.)
S3
It is quite apparent that, in proportion to the small size
of the French Colony in Los Angeles, there was, in 1895, and
there is now, an unusually large number of business enter
prises. It is almost the general rule for members of this
Colony to go into business for themselves rather than to
work for others. This tendency may be said to be typical of
the national character and is evidence of the highly indivi
dualistic nature of the French people.
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
The French in Los Angeles present a curious phenome
non. The observer expects to find, in a Colony whose mem
bers all inhabit the same section of the city, a strong soli
darity and national cohesion; such as are found in the Mexi
can group, or Italian or Russian colonies, but when a nation
ality group is so scattered geographically that it is impos
sible to locate any agglomeration whatsoever, he does not ex
pect to find that a cultural enclavement still exists. Yet
such is the case with the French Colony. As a matter of fact,
it should not be termed a colony at all, for there is no
10
residential compactness.
small business centers of the city.
10
The justification of the use of the term "French
Colony" is the fact that the French people of Los Angeles are
organized into that which they themselves call La Colonie
française de Los Angeles. For further clarification of this
point, see Chapter I, p. 3.
34
The French of Los Angeles are scattered, throughout every sec
tion of the city; there is no French Quarter whatsoever; yet
the French are very closely knit as to activity. Originally,
of course, there was a very definite French Quarter around
Aliso Street; in fact, as it is related by a very old resi
dent, at one time it was impossible to get through Aliso
Street without speaking French.
In the old days, I remember, that whole part of Los
Angeles was so French that there was even a pelote court
where the old Times Building stood. You see, there were
so many Basques here, and pelote is the Basque game that
everyone plays. On Sundays, after church, we all used
to go there to play, just as we did back home.i^
Even the streets of the Quarter began, in the Nineties,
to look like those of Paris, for at the corners of Main
and Fourth Streets, kiosques were erected for advertising
purposes.IS
When the earliest French settlers came to Los Angeles
there was only one section where they could establish both
their homes and their business, for the entire city was made
up of perhaps six streets altogether. Thus the French took
Aliso Street for their very own and up until recent years
all the property on the street was owned by French people.
Even today this section is still the center of much French
13
business enterprise. The offices of the two French news-
11
Interview No. 16.
12
News Item, Le Progrès. April 10, 1895.
13
See footnote to p. 32.
35
papers in Los Angeles- are maintained on North Broadway and
on North Hill Street, for, as one of the editors explained,
"The old French people still think of this part of the city
as belonging to them, and when they come to town, this is
14
where they come."
About the year 1890, however, the French began to
leave Aliso Street to look for another residential section,
although they still maintained their business center there.
An article in Le Progrès of May 25, 1893, states that for
the past few years the French have begun to leave pour aller
habiter d*autres endroits plus pittoresques ou plus hygiéni
ques. La plus grande partie d * entr * eux ont tout simplement
franchi la rivière de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles et con
struit de superbes habitations sur les hauteurs de Boyle
Heights.("to inhabit other sections more picturesque or more
hygienic. The majority of them have quite simply crossed
the river of Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles and have construct-
15
ed superb dwellings on the hills of Boyle Heights.") As a
result, such streets as Brooklyn, Myers, and Anderson were
the site of new homes for the Colony, while Summit Avenue be
came exclusively French as Aliso Street had been. A little
14
Interview No. 41.
15
News Item, Le Progrès. May 25, 1893.
36
later several French families moved out to Pico Heights, and
many moved north of the commercial district, beyond Temple
Street and Sunset Boulevard. As the later immigrants came
in, they tended, naturally, to inhabit those sections taken
over by all immigrant groups, while the older residents mov
ed ecologically in much the same manner as the native Ameri
cans. At the present time, therefore, it is impossible to
distinguish any definite French district as we distinguish
Little Italy or Russian town. There are a few families of
the poorer French scattered throughout the other nationality
groups, while the well-to-do are scattered throughout all
the middle-class American residential sections. In recent
times, of course, there have been very few French coming to
Los Angeles, and the Colony has been further depleted during
the past few years by the fact that the economic conditions
of the country as a whole have forced many French to return
to their native land.
CULTURAL COHESION
Although in the early days of Los Angeles, the French
nationality groups composed one of the most influential ele
ments of the community, today most people scarcely know that
a French Colony exists. Nevertheless, in spite of its insig-
16
nificant numbers, as compared with other nationality groups.
16
See Appendix B, p. Ill
57
and in spite of the scattered residence, there is great cul
tural cohesion among the French of Los Angeles. It appears,
in fact, that very few of the French here have reached a
high degree of assimilation into the American community.
The exception to this would be, of course, the descendants
of the earliest pioneers, descendants who are so far removed
fr^m French tradition that they are really not French at all,
but Americans with a French ancestral background. According
to Park, there are three grounds on which an immigrant group
can remain culturally separate for any length of time:
1) The ability to perpetuate traditional memories
without loss.
2) The ability to create values superior to those of
America, and the maintenance of separation in order not
to sink to the cultural level of America.
S) An ineradicable prejudice _on one or both sides.
The French group has remained separate on all three bases.
It is scarcely possible to say that the French in Los Ange
les have become Americanized. They have become so only to
the extent that they can compete in business ehterprise with
Americans, yet they have not acquired American business me
thods. We canntt say that there has been an ineradicable
prejudice on the side of either French or American, since
national prejudice is based upon competition, and there has
been less conflict between the two upon this score than upon
any other. It is true, however, that many Americans have
V
17
Robert Park and Herbert Miller, Old World Traits
Transplanted (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1921), 303-504,
38
held the idea that the French are a rather gay people, con
cerned principally with the little pleasures of life; this
attitude is due mostly to the musical comedy stereotype of
the Frenchman which Americans are apt to accept.
The American caricature of the French is the joint
product of the A. E. F., the members of the social regis
ter who belong to various Franco-American friendly socie
ties, and the middle class tourists who went to Europe
during the 1920*s.
The French, on the other hand, generally consider most Ameri
cans to be a rather boorish lot, lacking in politesse. The
French, more, perhaps, than any other nation of Europe, have
a sense of National superiority which nothing can undermine.
After long centuries of cultural domination of Europe and of
recognition for possessing the highest degree of civiliza
tion on that continent, it is not strange that the French
should consider any other country, even the land of their
adoption, as far beneath them in culture or refinement of
living. A manifestation of this feeling is the determina
tion on the part of the French inhabitants of any part of
the globe to make felt the influence of their language and
of their culture upon the other peoples among whom they
dwell. One has only to glance through the articles in the
local French newspapers, past and present, to become instant-
18
Helen Hill, The Spirit of Modern France (Foreign
Policy Association and World Peace Foundation, 1934), p. B,
59
19
ly aware of the intense national feeling. An example may
be cited, relative to the Fourteenth of July celebration, in
1895, when there was so much dissension in the Colony that
certain groups refused to participate:
Here we do not have the enemy at our gates; it is
even worse; we live among them; and, when someone refus
es to belong to a patriotic demonstration at the head of
which there is one society rather than another, he is
really showing a very mean spirit. "What a poor parade
you hadI" some Yankee will say afterward, "Well, French-
ee, I thought you were more numerous in Los Angeles than
you really are. ..." And there you are. At the very
next opportunity this Yankee will step on your foot.^0
We notice throughout all French journalistic litera
ture the extreme prejudice with regard to the Yankee, a pre
judice based almost entirely upon a clash of temperament^
In spite of the intense national feeling among the French
themselves, they abhor one hundred per cent Americanism,
mainly because they fear attack upon the Latin racial groups
by way of discrimination in business and politics. It is
easy to understand, therefore, why the French should remain
as a nationality group apart; as we have already indicated,
they tend, in their immigration habits, to follow the
19
It will be noted that the majority of newspaper re
ferences are taken from the journals of the period from 1890
to 1900. This was the period when the French Colony in Los
Angeles reached its highest point of importances and its
highest degree of articulation as a unit in the urban life of
Los Angeles.
20
News Item, Le Progrès. June 20, 1895.
40
SI
countries of northern Europe, and. In their American pat
tern of life, to be more adapted to the native mores than al
most any other immigrant group; yet by the native stock they
are classed with the Latin races. The result is a kind of
cultural isolation, which the French group, itself, tends to
perpetuate. If we go back into the racial origins of the
French we shall find that a very large part of their nation
al heritage is Anglo-Saxon, or Teutonic, although they form,
perhaps, the most heterogneous country in Europe. It is
maintained by many authorites that this very heterogeneity
is responsible for the outstanding cosmopolitan spirit of
the French people and for their easy adaptability.
The theory that France has profited greatly from a
pregnant diversity of racial elements, while incapable
of exact proof, is rendered highly plausible by this
brief sketch of her racial background. In both diversi
ty and excellence of achievement the French people have
been unsurpassed in modern times.
In any case, it is most certainly true that the French have
adapted themselves to the American community with a minimum
of maladjustment. Yet the national aspect is more complex
than this; while the French adapt well to their land of adop
tion, they are not, as a whole, assimilated by it.
Intensely aware of their cultural heritage, the
21
See footnote to p. 22.
22
Hankins, on. cit.. p. 153.
41
French are scarcely willing to give it up for a culture pat
tern which they consider inferior to their own. We shall
find, therefore, that the traditional memories of the nation
are kept intact. We shall also find, however, that this im
migrant heritage does not clash so frequently nor so violent
ly with the native tradition. This absence of conflict is
due to the fact that, while most immigrant heritages consist
of an accumulation of national customs and generally quaint
(to the out-group) institutions, the French heritage is a
purely intellectual one, made up of an ever-increasing pride
in the achievements of the great men of the nation, in liter
ature, in art, and in diplomacy. As a general rule, immi
grant groups are not concerned with the national history of
the country from which they come; through a general illite
racy, or through lack of interest in any unit which is not
purely local, the average immigrant knows little or nothing
of the concept of the Nation. It is quite different with
the French. It is generally conceded that France has a low
er percentage of illiteracy than almost any other European
country; it is also a newspaper-reading country to a high
degree. Although no figures have been gathered to support
this contention, there are probably more newspapers, having
a wider circulation in proportion to population, in France
than in any country in Europe; the character of the French
press, moreover, is of unusually high calibre:
42
And ideas are, in Paris, so far more numerous and fe
cund than are our kind of sensations, even manufactured
sensations, that Paris has on an average, some eighty-
odd daily papers. If the Figaro desires to be especial
ly startling, it gets M. Mirabeau, or M. Grandlieu, or M.
Saint-Genest, to exalt some disquieting ineptitude into
plausibility ; it does not procut*e bogus interviews or
print a broadside of private letters, or invent a puer
ile hoax. The police reports are fewer and infinitely
less elaborate. Names and dates are no more important
to the interest of an actual than of an imaginary drama.
The law imposes respect for privacy, but the law has the
full support of the public. . . the gossip of the French
press is pompous— pretentious, but it is not pitched in
either the lackey or the parvenu key. Interviewing is
still an occasional eccentricity.^^
THE PRESS
The French press in Los- Angeles is unusually active
and extensive with respect to the size of the French Colony.
There are three French newspapers in circulation in Los An
geles: The Courrier du Pacifique^ published in San Francis
co, and the Courrier Français and L*Union Nouvelle^ both pub- ^
11shed in this city. Practically every French family sub
scribes to at least two of the three papers. The Courrier
Français is admittedly a paper for the common people and is
of the nature of a small-town journal, concerned particular
ly with little local happenings. Since its subscribers are
of those who derive a great deal of pleasure and flattery
from seeing their name in print the journal is replete with
personal items. The policy of the publishers is a non-
23
William Brownell, French Traits (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1919), p. 93.
45
partisan one, although much space is devoted to local poli
tics, not because the paper is attempting to influence the
voting of its readers, but because the French political-mind-
edness is recognized. L*Union Nouvelle devotes more space
to international news, the front page presenting the general
news of the day. The oldest newspaper in Southern California
is the Courrier du Pacifique which is published as a daily
paper in San Francisco and which appears in Los Angeles
twice a week. In Los Angeles it has about 6,000 subscribers*
This paper is probably the most efficient of all, for it re
ceives all its information regarding international news from
L'Agence Havas in Paris so that news is received from that
city within forty-eight hours. A representative of the
paper has his office in Los Angeles from which he communi
cates to the editor in San Francisco all local news by wire
and by plane.
There are two characteristics of these papers which
are essentially French. In the first place, both of the
French papers published in Los Angeles include a daily in
stallment of a popular French novel, without which no French
newspaper, anywhere, would be complete. Indeed the feuille
ton occupies an entire page in both local papers; in a jour
nal of only eight pages this is a considerable item. That
which is most startling to the American eye, however, is the
absence of screaming headlines across the front page, and
44
the complete lack of the sensationalism which characterizes
the American press. In this regard, the French paper pub
lished in America has never lost the principles of journalism
practised in France. It is seldom that one comes across the
gruesome stories of murder and robbery that go to make up
the larger part of American news. Or, if there is a report
ing of a crime passionel. for example, the French journalist
is not so much concerned with every macabre detail of the ac
tual crime as with the psychological aspect of the personali
ties involved, and the story is told in a matter-of-fact man
ner over which the American reading public could scarcely
smack its lips; perhaps this is because the French are a
more subtle people and may be trusted to read between the
lines of the printed page. In any case, the journalism of
the local French newspapers is of a higher type, both in ac
tual journalistic content and in literary value, than that
of the majority of local American papers. "And the national
turn for intellectual seriousness is as conspicuous in the
periodical press as in literature. The press, in fact, is
literature to a degree unknown in England and among our-
24
selves." This characteristic may indicate why the French
are in general so well informed on topics of wide interest
rather than on topics such as sensational court episodes or
24
William Brownell, op. cit.. p. 92,
45
jury trials. The poorest Frenchman is better acquainted
with current news than most middle-class Americans; he is
accustomed, too, to a less sensational type of journalism so
that his attention is held more by politics and events of
national and governmental import than by human-interest
items. Whereas the Los Angeles papers published in English
capitalize on the much publicized Hollywood, the French
papers here scarcely mention the name of an actor or actress,
except to advertize cinema offerings. In general, the
French papers handle the private life of those in the public
eye in a most impersonal and disinterested manner. The ave
rage Frenchman is thoroughly conversant, however, with the
great names of literature and in the arts, past and present.
THE FRENCH AS A COLONIST TYPE
It would be almost presumptuous to expect that a
French immigrant should relinquish his cultural attitudes
and values for those which he meets in this country, especi
ally since he is able to keep them without loss to himself.
The values which he held in the mother country he re-creates
in this country, and we have to admit, indeed, that certain
of those values, as, for example, the importance of the fami
ly, are superior to American values, and are responsible in
part, if not wholly, for the solidity of French society in
our midst. Park recognizes various types of immigrants, and
46
nationality groups which generally conform to these types*
According to his classification, the French are of the colo
nist type:
We define the colonist as one in whom these memories
of home are, from our standpoint, ^over-determined* (to
use the psychoanalytic phrase): one who never forgets
nor wishes to forget, whose-allegiance is to the home
country, whose superior values are the home values.
These are often very fine types, hut the old loyalty
yields stubbornly to the new, and the subject is usually
careful to let you know that he is contributing more to
America than America is to him*^^
This trait is most definitely characteristic of the French.
Their attitude invariably is one of superiority toward any
other nationality. Yet the French immigrant to America has
none of those attitudes or values which go to make up the
other immigrant heritages. His attitudes and values corree
spond more nearly to those of the land which he has come to
inhabit, in that the French culture-pattern in general is
expressed in institutions resembling the American culture-
pattern. We cannot emphasize too much the dual aspect of
the national character which makes it possible for the
French emigrant to find quickly for himself a place in the
new world and at the same time to look ever longingly back
ward toward the beloved France. The intense love for the
Mother-country is one reason, perhaps, why the French are
not an emigrating people. "The typical Frenchman is devoted
25
Park and Miller, op. cit.. p. 93.
47
to his country and proud of its history, present power and
extensive culture. His emigration is to be explained not by
any general causes, such as oppression or widespread poverty,
so frequently the case with other peoples, but by individual
26
and personal reasons." Due, in part, to the fact that emi
grants are not forced out of France by national catastrophes
or tyrannical government, the love for the homeland is not
uprooted and the hope of returning there to visit, after a
fortune has been made, is usually present in the minds of
many French emigrants. The word "emigrant" seems to be more
appropriate in alluding to the French than does the word
"immigrant" because the emphasis of their thought is upon
the land which they are leaving rather than upon that which
they are approaching. We shall find, moreover, that organi
zations formed within a French colony are instituted more
for the purpose of maintaining French culture and French na
tionality than for helping the members to~adjust more readi
ly to the American community surrounding them. There is a
certain arrogance about such a colony which is startling to
anyone who does not belong to it. The French can see no
reason for becoming more and more Americanized; they are
willing" and eager to learn and to utilize American business
methods, but, for them, there is no point in accepting
26
Henry Pratt Fairchild, Immigrant Backgrounds (New
York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1927), p. 253,
48
American culture in general. Here again we come upon a
double aspect of the national character; the French are a
social people, but only to a certain point, beyond which they
become so individualistic in temperament as to be .withdrawn
from the -society which they crave. The analyst who attempts
to delve into the mysteries of the French character will
shortly find himself before a blank wall; he cannot penetrate
the inner thought. This fact explains to a certain extent
why the French in general are considered to be a superficial
race; the Frenchman will not let himself be known beyond a
given point, the limits of which he himself has set. It is
difficult for anyone outside of the primary group to really
know a French person.
THE FAMILY
French society everywhere is characterized by its
solidity. This solidity is derived from the attitude of the
French toward the family, which, for them, is all-important.
B7
"The French family is the crystallization of French life."
In an interview one Frenchman explained that the French fami
ly life was the primary reason for the fact that among the
French in this city there is little juvenile delinquency, re
latively little crime, and practically no poverty or pauper-
27
Interview No. 25.
49
Ism.
I am firmly convinced that it is our family life
alone which explains why the French everywhere have few
er criminals and fewer ^problem children" than other
people have. Why, we do not even have any way of ex
pressing in French the words "problem child." No, no,
in the French family there is no such thing. Our child
ren obey the parents, and when they do that they do not
get into trouble. There is only one authority in the
French family, and that is the father. My children know
that they must ask my permission before doing something.
Of course, you understand that it is not that I am mean
to them or anything like that. They know that I am stern
simply for their own good, and they do not complain. But
I do not permit them to do all those things which the
American children do. No, my children stay at home much
more, but we make the home life agreeable to them.SS
When the individual is firmly rooted in his family, outside
factors can seldom cause conflict within that individual.
Almost any Frenchman in Los Angeles will say that that which
shocked him more than anything else in his first encounter
with American life was the loose structure of the family.
Such statements as "I was shocked at the familiarity of
29
children to their parents," are commonly heard. The
French family is the one institution above Mil which is main
tained intact after emigration. One could go into any
French home in Los Angeles and find that here is a bit of
France, itself. People of other nationalities insist that
the French are not particularly fond of their children be
cause they rule them with an iron hand.
Interview No. 41.
29
Interview No. 25.
50
The French community is destitute of many sentimental
influences which are very potent with us. The home, for
instance, in England and among ourselves, is a nursery
of sentiment to a degree which it certainly is not in
France— mother and children are not, in France, brought
into such sympathetic and sentimental relations. The re
ciprocal affection is, of course, just as sure and puis
sant, but its sinews are rational. She does not efface
herself so much and aspire to live only with them. They
are educationally and otherwise occupied instead of de
veloping emotional precocity,
The apparent severity by which the French parent is charac
terized is merely a vestige of the ancient patriarchal fami
ly organization. It is true that we do not find that com
radeship, particularly the father-son relationship, upon
which Americans pride themselves. The relationship between
parent and child is characterized by guidance on the part of
one and by respect on the part of the other. Such a rela
tionship is found among the French of any class, and at any
economic level. "The thought of acting contrary to the
wishes of one*s parents never occurs to a French child,
whether that child is a minor or an adult. The grown-up
daughter of one of the Los Angeles pioneers stated that, al
though the Fourteenth of July celebration bores her exceed
ingly, she would not dream of staying away since it is herf:
father*s wish, albeit unspoken, that the entire family at
tend in a body.
Of course Father would never say anything if we stay
ed away from the Fourteenth of July picnic, but I know
30
Brownell^ on. cit.. p. 142.
51
he would feel terribly hurt, because he feels that is is
one of our traditions. Some of the French people seem
to have fun but I have always found it deadly. It lasts
all day, you know, and some of the families even come
hours before, in order to have their own picnic before
the big one begins. Then they have a lot of speeches,
you know, and silly games, and then in the evening they
have a grand ball. By that time everybody is all worn
out and the children get restless, but they all stick it
out to the bitter end. Sometimes I just dread it, but I
guess it*s one of those things that you do for your fami
ly. My brother and I have always gone with our parents,
and I suppose we always will.31
Since all familial authority is vested in the father,
it is he who holds the purse strings also. Neither the wife
nor the child is allowed to be extravagant, nor to spend
more than a decent percentage of the family income. The
frugality of the French household is proverbial. One of the
most noticeable characteristics of the French is that their
every transaction is upon a cash basis. The concept of the y
installment plan is absolutely foreign to almost the entire
French Colony. There is scarcely a Frenchman here who would
venture to make a purchase without the entire amount in hand.
If he cannot pay for his purchase at the moment, he will pre
fer to go without it. "Frugality is noticeable everywhere.
It is the source of the self-respect of the poor;. . . .it de
corates respectability, and sobers wealth; it enables the en-
52
tire community to get the utmost out of life." The whole
31
Interview No. 17.
32
Brownell, pp. cit.. p. 128.
52
philosophy of thrift is practised in eating, in amusement,
and in dress. Just as in France, the average woman plans
carefully her wardrobe of four dresses for the season, so
here, too, the household is the scene of careful planning.
One of the most delightful things about the French
family is its habit of shared activity. The children and
parents of the French families here in Los Angeles spend
more time together than do those of other nationality groups
and the institution of Sunday as "family day" is as zealous
ly retained here as it is in the mother-country. "Hone of
us children would think of making other plans for Sunday; I
could not see any of my friends, anyhow, because they are
33
all with their families."
The fact that French children are kept close to the
home fireside may indeed explain the absence of jubenile de
linquency among the French in Los Angeles. French boys do
not gang together nor do they find it necessary to belong to
character building organizations. French civic leader visit
ing the All Nations Foundation, for example, noticed boys of
all nationalities, but when he asked to see some French boys,
he was told that there was not a single one there. A survey
made in Los Angeles shows that there v/as not a single French
child in attendance at any of the playgrounds under observa-
33
Interview No. 23.
53
34
tion. The French child obviously finds adequate group ac
tivity in the home and does not feel the necessity of seek
ing companionship outside. In most immigrant families the
cultural distance between parent and child is widened when
the child reaches sbhool age and goes out into the American
world. He finds it difficult, and often impossible, to re
enter the home environment. We do not find this situation
in the French Colony for the simple reason that French cul
ture in its essentials, is so like American culture that the
parents, themselves, adapt quickly. Moreover, the parents
have generally received a good enough education at home so
that their children need not be ashamed of them. The "old-
country" characteristics are not nearly so marked among the
French as among other nationalities. The pride of tradition
and the feeling of national superiority are so ingrained in
the French family that the children never reach the point
where they have a feeling of cultural inferiority.
RELIGION
Whereas in France the religious life tends to a great
degree to be correlated with harmony within the family, that
is not true of the French here in Los Angeles. Although
many of the children are sent to parochial schools, religion
34
A Community Survey Made in Los Angeles City, p. 29.
54
is not emphasized in the French family, nor, indeed, in the
Colony in general. The trend of the French people every
where is away from religion* A Basque priest at the Benedic
tine Monastery at Montebello, who has been here for almost
half a century, and who has had occasion to observe careful
ly the religious life of his French parishioners, has made
the statement that the great wave of atheism which swept
over France was brought to the community here by the French
immigrants.
I have been in this monastery for about fifty years.
I used to live among the Indians on the reservation in
Oklahoma, for the Benedictine Order used to do a great
deal of good among the poor Indians, who were not used
to the white man*s ways. When we learned that many Bas
que shepherds were coming to the region around Los Ange
les, we were afraid that they would have no one to help
them keep to the good way of life. They sent me here to
establish this place. We were to have a school also,
but that did not last long, and the fine buildings we
planned were never finished. The Basque shepherds were
very religious people (I am a Basque myself), and this
became a center of worship for them. Even now, many Bas
ques come to me from other towns where they live, like
Puente. But those French who came in later were not the
same. There were organizations in France which tried to
draw our people away from the Church, to become Atheists.
Many of the French who came to Los Angeles were under
the influence of those people. So you see, now I have
little-work to do. I live here alone, and I am seldom
called except now and then for the confessional. I used
to be priest at Notre Dame de Lourdes, but that is no
longer a French Church, Sometimes I am very sad to
think how the French people here are neglecting their re
ligion. %
The signs of religious disinterestedness were to be
55
Interview No. 8.
55
seen early in the history of the French Colony in Los Ange
les. The Bishop of the diocese of Saint Vibiana, where the
French first attended mass, even in 1893 felt the necessity
of having a French priest, since the French were already
slipping away from the chitrch. The French newspapers, acting
on behalf of the Catholic element, pointed with scorn at
their compatriots with atheistic tendencies:
It is remarkable that it is only among the French that
religious indifference is found. Elsewhere, there are
also atheists, but these atheists have ceased to believe
only as a result of the inefficacy of the Protestant
teachings. If these atheists had been Catholic, they
would have remained so always, whereas the Frenchman who
does not believe, is, generally, lacking in intelligence,
or, at least, in proper education. Therefore, they are
greatly inferior to the German atheists, for example,
who are among the intellectually élite of the count r y .36
In 1894, a great effort was made to build a French
Catholic church, and a gift of land for the purpose was donat
ed by Mme. Bonnet, the daughter of the owner of the great
Leonis tract, which is now a part of the wholesale business
district of Los Angeles.
There is a great interest being manifested in that
the French who go to church (and all of us French are
not so strong-minded that we can do without it), should
go to a church directed by a French priest and having a
the sentiments of all the children of France, instead of
going to an American, German, or Irish church.
Although the French Catholic church was finally built on
36
News Item, Le Progrès^ September 12, 1896.
37 .
Ibid.. July 26, 1894.
66
East Third Street on the road to Montebello and was knovm as
"Notre Dame de Lourdes," it did not long remain a French
church, for the French were not sufficiently interested in
maintaining it. We notice, of course, that here history is
repeating itself, for now, again, in 1936, the Colony is at
tempting to build a church which will probably never materi
alize.
GROUP MORALITY
We can say, definitely, that there is no group reli
gion responsible for the solidarity of the French in Los An
geles. There is something to take its place, however, and
that is the group morality which is as strong among the
French in Los Angeles as it is among the French in France.
French morality is a conspicuous national character
istic. . . . It is in France that life is longest and
happiness greatest, and well-being most widely diffused.
The great distinction between us, the chief characterist
ic which in this sphere sets off the Frenchman from the
Anglo-Saxon, and from the Spaniard also, and the Italian
over whom he triumphs morally, perhaps is his irreligious
ness. I refer, of course, to the mass of the nation, not
to the few who are absorbed by devotion, which is reli
gion intensified. To-day, at all events, the great body
of the French people is Voltairian. A better epithet
could not be found for "irreligious morality".3°
We have repeated constantly that the French are an intellec
tual people. Their goddess is Reason. Even the most reli
gious among them do not look upon their spiritual life from
38
Brownell, pp. cit.. p. 73.
57
an emotional point of view.
In France, although we have also had some very great
mystics, Christianity has taken the form rather of a so
cial religion and of a social morality. . . . In adopting
Catholicism, France has rendered it more interior and
more moral than in Italy, but always orienting it in the
direction of a social life, of justice and of right, of
fraternity and of charity. It is especially in France
that there was developed chivalry which corresponded so
well with the very character of the nation.39
The highly developed social instinct is perhaps the
most dominant characteristic of the French people. The
Frenchman is essentially a social being. It is not that he
displays a sentimental attachment to the human race, but he
is interested in man, almost, he might say, from the scienti
fic standpoint. It is no coincidence that the science of So
ciology was first formulated by a Frenchman, Auguste Comte.
"The Frenchman is a gregarious creature. Nothing is further
from him than the désire for solitude or isolation. He is a
40
family man, a social man, and a townsman," We have, in
deed, seen that he is a family man and a townsman. Let us
now discover to what extent he manifests himself as a social
man in the French Colony in Los Angeles.
39
Alfred Fouillée, Psychologie du peuple français
(Paris: F. Alcan, 1898), p. 201.
40
Paul Cohen-Portheim, The Spirit of France (New
York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1933%% p. 17.
CHAPTER IV
VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS
In proportion to its size, the French Colony of Los
Angeles has, perhaps, the greatest number _of voluntary orga
nizations, of any nationality group. First of all, there is
the organization of the French Colony itself, to which every
French person in Los Angeles belongs, consciously or uncon
sciously. That is to say that every Frenchman is a member
simply by virtue of the fact that he is French. The Colony,
headed by a president and executive council, becomes active
only in preparation for the annual celebration of the Four
teenth of July. During the remainder of the year there are
few, if any, meetings of the Colony as a whole. The fact
should be emphasized, however, that the French regard them
selves as a national unit known as the Colonie française.
Apart from this all-inclusive organization, there are appro
ximately twenty-three French societies in Los Angeles City,
exclusive of those in outlying communities. The following
is the list of societies in the possession of the French
Consul:
Mutual Benefit Societies
Société Française de Bienfaisance Mutuelle
Légion Française
Société des Dames de la Légion Française
Société des Vétérans Français
59
Religious Societies
Comité de la Messe Française
Mission Evangélique Française
Fraternal Orders
Cour Française des Forestiers d*Amérique
Grove Gaulois (Druides)
Vallée de France
Artistic and Literary Societies
Alliance Française
Cercle Français Artistique et Littéraire
Cercle Paris
Salon Français de Hollywood l .
Théâtre Français
Political Societies
Cercle Lafayette
Franco-American Democratic Civic League
Athletic Societies
French Sporting Club
Patriotic Societies
Club Français de 1*Institut International
Comité France-Amérique
Société des Alsaciens-Lorains
French War-Brides
Charitable Societies
Société de Charité des Dames Françaises
Chamber of Commerce
Chambre de Commerce Française de Los Angeles
Almost all of these organizations fall into those ca-
Ç
tegories which are commonly found in all goreign groups with
in the urban community; they may be fraternal societies.
60
patriotic or political societies, religious societies, or mu
tual benefit societies. These last are always the most im
portant of all associations in an immigrant group, and in
the French Colony they have a high degree of organization.
There is evidence showing that back of the familial
and communal solidarity of the European peasant is the
fear of death and of its attendants and preliminaries—
hunger, cold, darkness, sickness, solitude, and "misery,"
The peasant is strangely indifferent to death, but he
fears any irregular features— suddenness, inappropriate
ness, He wants to die decently, ceremonially, and so
cially, Since a man*s death is usually the most conspi
cuous incident in his life, attracting the universal at
tention and interest of the group, since it is the occa
sion of judgements and speculations on the status of the
family— whether they are thereby impoverished, whether
they are rich— death and burial are not only the occa
sion of the natural idealization of the dead, but a
means of securing recognition. . ...
Out of this sentiment grows the mutual-aid society,
with death, burial, and sickness benefits. The business
institutions are formed for the immigrant, but the mutu-
al-aid society is organized by the immigrants» It is
the basic institution, out of which grow the numerous
lodges, orders, and fraternal organizations.^
MUTUAL AID SOCIETIES
The French, with reference to the mutual-aid socie
ties, have conformed to the common immigrant pattern, for
their benefit societies are the very core of the Colony it
self. At the present time there are four such organizations,
the Société Française de Bienfaisance Mutuelley the Légion
1
Park and Miller, Old World Traits Transplanted (New
York: Harper and Brothers, 1921),303-304.
61
Française, the Dames de la Légion Française, and the Société
des Vétérans Français. The most important benefit society,
known as the Société Française de Bienfaisance Mutuelle de
Los Angeles, was founded on March 1, 1860, and incorporated
on March 2, 1862. The aim of the organization is expressed
thus: "The Society is established on the basis of mutual
aid for the care of its sick members. Its character is
strictly non-confessional, and it shall remain apart from
all political and religious questions." The Society is ad
ministered by a Council of nine members, elected each year
by the members in General Assembly, which also elects a pre
sident, a vice-president, a secretary, and a treasurer. The
president appoints three committees, a Committee on Finance,
a Committee on Purchases.and Business Transactions, and a
Committee on Personnel and Property. All duties are highly
specialized, and every possible detail of administration is
set down in the Statutes and Regulations of the Society.
The history of this organization is a rather spectacu
lar one, and one which distinguishes the French Colony from
any other nationality group in this city. At the time of
the first meeting in 1860 there were thirty-three members,
each paying two dollars, in addition to a monthly payment of
2
Société Française de Bienfaisance Mutuelle, Statuts
et Règlements (Los Angeles, 1926), Article II.
62
one dollar which made them eligible to medical care. In
1869, there was a sum of five thousand dollars in the trea
sury. At that time, there being but one^hospital in Los An
geles, and that under the supervision of a religious order,
the French Society decided to build another, which would be
non-confessional in nature. Accordingly, in 1870, a fine
hospital was erected, costing almost six thousand dollars.
This served not only the Sociétaires who were ill and entitl
ed to medical care, but also some paying non-members. The
venture was extremely succèssfiip.; during the inauguration
days, in order to assure the solidity of the society, the
members raised an additional twelve hundred dollars by sub
scription. By 1903, there were foun hundred and thirty-five
members and forty thousand dollars in the treasury, so that
it was possible to add another building to the hospital, at
the cost of ten thousand dollars. For many years thereafter,
the French Hospital, at the corner of College and Castellar
Streets, was considered the finest institution of its kind
in the city; at the time of its construction it was the first
modern medical center in the community. But by 1915, the
hospital was no longer adequate, and it was so outmoded that
physicians hesitated to take their patients there. There
fore, in spite of the fact that this was during war-time and
a precarious moment for new ventures, the Society built a
new hospital, costing forty thousand dollars. For the first
63
time it was necessary to make a loan, such a procedure being
somewhat foreign to French business methods, and thirty thou
sand dollars were secured for equipment. In June, 1915, the
inauguration of the Hôpital Française took place, and pros
pered thereafter to such an extent that the entire debt was
paid off by 1984. In 1926 there were one thousand members,
and the Society was in a very solid financial situation, so
that it was then possible to build an annex with complete
equipment. Since then the hospital has remained unchanged,
although it is still considered to be a fine, modern hospital
in every way, being rated in Class A by the American Medical
Association and by the American College of Surgeons. At pre
sent there are seventy-five beds, a maternity ward, and se
veral operating rooms. Even during the most difficult times
this unique enterprise has prospered, accumulating “larger
and larger funds each year, until now there is in the trea
sury the sum of over two hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
The French Hospital is an outstanding example of
French solidarity. Although practically every immigrant
group unites to form a benefit society, it is seldom that
such a group can band together to build up a large-saale in
stitution such as this. We realize, of course, that the
French of 1870 were not the ordinary immigrant group; they
were the stalwart pioneers who were gradually amassing solid
fortunes, so that the French Colony of that era^ -was on the
64
whole, a very wealthy unit. The Société today is not nearly
so prosperous, and there are definite signs of deterioration
and of apathy within the organization; which of these is
causa, and which effect, is difficult to ascertain, toe of
its officers explained that a great number of former members
are dropping out, and that those with the most money are
failing to contribute to the society; the old pioneer stock
is gradually disappearing, and the descendants feel no such
need of national solidarity as did their fathers. Gradually,
also, many of the French in Los Angeles proper are discon
tinuing their membership, so that in time the society will
probably consist entirely of the farmers and shppherds of
outlying communities, such as Puente and Chino. At no pe
riod in its history has the Société Française de Bienfaisan
ce Mutuelle felt the lack of solidarity which it is experi
encing at the present time.
In addition to this large organization are the small
er benefit societies, already mentioned. The Légion Fran
çaise began in 1893 as a patriotic society, the members of
which were to wear special uniforms and in general to assume
a militant aspect, in order to impress other nationalities
3
who "think that France has lost its power." This group was
then perhaps the most intensely nationalistic of all within
3
News Item, Le Progrès. April 6, 1893.
65
the French Colony, a fact only too well evidenced by the bit
ter controversy, in the year of its founding, over the admis-
4
sion of a German Jew into the Legion* One year later the
national feeling appeared to be even more intense and fiery
articles appeared almost daily in the papers;
The celebration of the Légion Française marks the be
ginning of a new era for the French Colony. The French
of Los Angeles are no longer as exiles upon this foreign
land; today they form a body, a personality having a
life all its own. Their rallying point will henceforth
be this flag, emblem of-the Mother-Country which is no
longer absent.^
Let us show the members of the French Colony and also
all of the populations surrounding us, that, during the
single year in which we have been organized, we have
done everything possible to reaeal ourselves before all
as young soldiers of our beautiful France.6
As the militant spirit of the old guard began to disappear,
and with the arrival of new groups of French immigrants, the
society became simply another benefit organization, with
monthly payments and compensation during sickness.
The women of the French Colony were slow to organize,
but in 1916 the wives and sisters of members of the Légion
Française formed their own benefit society, known as the
Société de Secours Mutuel des Dames de la Légion Française.
Ail members had to be either of actual French origin or able
4
Le Progrès. December 21, 1893.
5
Ibid.. April 12, 1894.
6
Ibid.. March 15, 1894.
66
to speak French, and were eligible, through monthly payments,
to receive either death or sickness benefits.
CHARITABLE ORGANISATIONS
In 1903, the women of the French Colony organized, in
connection with the French Hospital, the only charitable in
stitution in the whole nationality group. This is, and was,
the Société de Charité des Dames Françaises, which is one of
the most active of all French organizations* Since the
French Hospital itself has never offered service to needy
persons, the women felt the necessity of having some center
from which to carry on various ventures in order to help
fello-countrymen who might be in some kind of temporary dis
tress. Funds for their purposes are raised through social
activities, such as community dances, picnics, or card par
ties, or through private donations from the wealthier mem
bers of the Colony. The society, on the basis of a yearly
membership, has, in addition to the regular officers, five
or six Commissaires, or investigators, who perform the actu
al relief work. Their most important function is, perhaps,
that of an employment service; one of the officers has stat
ed that, because of the excellent co-operation existing be
tween the Society and members of the Colony who are in a
position to offer employment, it has been possible to place
almost every person who has applied to the organization for
67
employment during the past year. For the most part, the ap
plicants are either single men or single women; the men are
usually cooks or kitchen workers, waiters, mechanics, or la
borers, and the Society manages to find placement for them
in hotels or restaurants, or in wholesale houses. The women
are usually laundresses, dressmakers, or housemaids, and are
very easy to place, for French dressmakers and French maids
have always been in demand. Even the more intricate employ
ment problems are solved by these enterprising Dames de Cha
rité. For example, one woman, who had recently been desert
ed by her husband, and, having led the extremely sheltered
life of a French gentlewoman all of her life, was incapable
of filling any kind of ordinary position, and appeared at
first to be without any marketable resources which could
make a living for her and for her small son; she was further
handicapped by not being able to speak Shglish, so that she
could scarcely attempt to enter the business world. After
several thorough interviews it developed that the woman had
a knack for making a very special kind of cheese. Promptly
one of the Commissaires interviewed a very influential mem
ber of the Colony who is an important dairy owner; it was
arranged that the woman was to market her product through
this firm, thus receiving a steady income and remaining inde
pendent of any charity.
Other activities of this organization eonsist in help
68
ing French people to buy their own homes, to find lodging
for those stranded in the city, to procure clothing for those
who cannot purchase it, to help people in sickness, and to
furnish toys and clothing for needy children at holiday-time.
The resourcefulness and the ability to make and to maintain
useful contacts within the Colony itself might well be an
example to the professional social work agencies in the city.
The Dames de dharitë have arramged to place indigents in the
French Hospital in time of sickness because, through their
efforts, several leaders of the Colony furnish money to main
tain a certain number of free beds for those in need, in
spite of the fact that the hospital itself offers no free
service. By means of an arrangement with several lodging
houses or missions the society also is able to place tran
sients at a minimum charge. The destitute aged are placed
in the home of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a French or
der which, although excepting the aged of all nationalities,
is thoroughly French in spirit, performing its religious
services and reciting the Litany in French; the French nuns
in the home make it possible for the aged French to have a
sense of being chez eux. The Mother Superior has stated
that the eight French persons living there at the present
time, although they mingle freely with all other nationali
ties, often gather together to speak their own language, and
have for confession their own French priest who comes to
69
them from the Benedictine Monastery at Montebello.
One of the traditional activities of the Dames de Cha
rité is the "Arbre de Noel de la Colonie," the Christmas
Tree celebration which is held each year in the Brunswig
Building at 501 North Main Street, the owner of which is one
of the foremost members of the Colony. Here, at Christmas
time, a program is presented by members of the various
French clubs, and toys and much-needed clothing are distri
buted to as many as seventy-five children* The Dames are
busy all through the year gathering used clothing not only
from the French of the city but from every possible source*
This supply is kept at the home of"'one of the officers, who
distributes it, not only to children at the holiday time,
but also to adults during the year. During the past year,
for example, fifteen suits of clothing were given to men in
need. No official records of any kind are kept by the Socie
ty, nor are attempts made to determine the actual need, ex
cept by casual inquiry, so that it is possible that the Dames
de Charité duplicate some of the work done by social agencies.
However, very little actual cash relief is given, since the
treasury could not support this expenditure. Beside the
clothing which is given away, bread and milk are distributed
daily to the French families who have not enough food, but
there are seldom more than six or seven families receiving
food at any one time. All of the work of this Society is
70
carried on with a complete disregard for the organized soci
al work of Los Angeles City and County. No attempt is made
to utilize other social agencies which might be better equip
ped to handle the problems presented.
It really does not matter to us whether or not a per
son is getting help somewhere else. You see, we know
that a French person would never come to useat all if he
were not in desperate need. So, we would never think of
sending him someplace else. We do not question at all,
we just give. Besides, it is not so very much that we
are giving, is it? So it really doesn’t matter if he
gets something somewhere else also* But it would not be
right to let a Frenchman go hungry, when there are other
Frenchmen here to help him. The French people here would
never let one of their compatriots remain long in want.
We feel that it is our duty to help a Frenchman.^
There have been made many conflicting statements re
garding the attitude of the French toward charity. While
the members of the Dames de Charité have stated repeatedly
that the French Colony as a whole is extremely generous in
actual donations and in willingness to help compatriots,
fether French persons have complained bitterly that, not only
will a Frenchman refuse to aid a countryman in distress, but
he will even attempt to thrust him farther down. The expla
nation of the disparity between the two opinions appears to
be that the French concept of charity is an impersonal one;
the wealthy Frenchman may be perfectly willing to set aside
a sum of money to be given to the needy as a group, but the
7
Interview No. 34.
71
actual presence of a compatriot in need is distasteful to
him, for it is an invasion against his own comfortable feel
ing of security. Thrift and saving are of primary import
ance to the French mind ; they are an insurance against the
necessity of ever having to become dependent upon anyone
else; it is therefore repugnant to the group to be confront
ed by one of its members who has not lived according to the
group concept; it is indeed an affront to the mores of the
group. This is one very good reason why there is such a
noticeable lack of destitution and of pauperism among the
French in Los Angeles* "We know that we can never ask help
from our own French people; that is why we have to be care-
8
ful in saving for the future*" One of the wealthy members
of the Colony who has always donated large amounts to the
work of the Dames de Charité not only refused himself to
help a compatriot asking for assistance, but also, according
to one version, made it impossible for him to get help any
where else:
Is it not unbelievable that a Frenchman, no matter
where he is born, whether in France or in Los Angeles,
should not exert himself In behalf of another Frenchman
who is in need of aid? My husband and I, we have found
this to be so, for when we were here but a short time,
we found ourselves in difficulties; we addressed our
selves to several influential Frenchman, but not one
would help us* Indeed, they tried to push us farther
down. But we do not need their help any longer. Dieu
a
Interview Mo. 20,
72
merci! We would rather starve than ask help from a
Frenchman again.9
The attitude of the group"as a whole toward dependency acts
as a deterrent for those persons who might become pauperized
if they belonged to a nationality group which was less se
vere in dealing with its members who had lost sight of the
group values. No one^among the French who were interviewed
was able to say which attitude was cause and which effect;
whether there was so little dependency in the Colony because
the French were not charitably disposed and therefore had no
adequate welfare organization, or whether the French were
not charitably disposed and had no welfare organization be
cause they were unaccustomed to having their compatriots in
distress, and did not, therefore, see any necessity for mak
ing provision for them. In any case, it appears that, al
though there are no statistics to prove it, of all national
ity groups in the city, the French have, in proportion to
their number, the fewest persons requiring aid either from
their own group or from the recognized public or private
agencies.
LE CLUB FRANÇAIS OF INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE
Many of the French societies have been organized for
a purely social purpose, and their meetings consist either
9
Interview No. 21.
73
of dances or parties, or of literary and artistic programs.
One of the largest of these is the Club Français of Interna
tional Institute, a branch of the Young Women^s Crhistian As
sociation, which is the central meeting place for all for
eign-speaking people. Most of the meetings of the French
Club are in the nature of community dances. It is interest
ing to note that they are not at all like American dance
roupes, to which only young couples come; to the French Club
come persons of all ages, usually whole families together,
prepared to enjoy themselves immensely by indulging, not on
ly in the fund of dancing itself, but in that form of broad
humor and joke-making which is known in French as esprit
gaulois and in English as the Rabeleisian manner. The music,
too, is in a lively strain, and consists of a single instru
ment, the accordion, played with much gusto by a musician of
Latin origin, who keeps time with his feet, which are encas
ed in yellow, high-buttoned shoes. As may be easily imagin-
j
ed, the older, pioneer families seldom, if ever, attend the
dances of the French Club, whose members are those accustom
ed to the more simple pleasures of life, which would, un-
10
doubtedly, prove boring to the former. It is apparent,
moreover, to the observer, that the children of the members
10
The members of the pioneer families tend to follow
the recreation habits of Americans, who are growing farther
and farther away from community recreational activities.
74
of the French Club, being accustomed by now to American
dances, are also bored by the entertainment and come only be
cause it is their parents’ wish that they do so. Several
boys and girls here explained that they came because "it
makes the old folks happy."
ARTISTIC AND LITERARY SOCIETIES
At the opposite extreme we find the exclusive artis
tic and literary circles, the large number of which bears
witness to the fact that French culture still has an unpre
cedented vogue in this country, for, whereas the other types
of organization are exclusively French, and require, under
official rulings, that French be the only language spoken,
and that members be either French or of French descent, the
artistic and literary circles always include Americans, and
generally have more persons in their ranks of other nation
alities than they have of French nationality. Most of these
societies are an attempt to revive the old French salon,
which has always been unique as an institution. In some
cases it has been the tendency for them to devolve into mere
lecture-series, rather than to become the scene of sparkling
wit and spontaneous repartee. The salon idea is again wit
nessing a renaissance, however, in Hollywood, with the ad
vent there of a large number of titled French from Paris,
who are beginning to find that life is much more comfortable.
75
as well as much less expensive, in California than it is in
Paris. In such societies as the Cercle Paris. the Cercle
Français Artistique et Littéraire, the Salon Français de
Hollywood, and the Théâtre Français we find for the most part
those persons who are connected with the cinematic art. The
Théâtre Français is particularly in vogue at present, for,
under the direction of the well-known French actress, Madame
Adrienne d’Ambricourt, the group presents the finest modern
French drama at régulai^intervals at the Domino’s Club in
Hollywood.
L’ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE
The most important of the artistic and literary socie
ties is the Alliance" Française, which is a branch of an in
ternational society, with its headquarters in Paris. The
national organization was first founded in 1892, and was call
ed the Alliance Française. Association Nationale pour la Pro
pagation de la Langue Française dans les Colonies et à l’E-"
tranger; it was recognized as a public good by a decree of
the President of the French Republic in 1886. Since that
time repeated efforts were made to establish a branch at Los
Angeles, _and exhortations were sent here from the French Pre
sident himself, praising the French of California for their
fine patriotism during l’année terrible throughout the pe
riod of the Franco-Prussian War the French had nobly support-
76
ed the French cause), hut stressing the further duty of spr
spreading the French language throughout the civilized world:
"For do not forget that people not only welcome, but they
also demand, the products of a nation whose language they
speak." During the early Nineties, the eminent Frenchman,
Daniel Lévy, who had been instrumental in starting a branch
of the Alliance in San Francisco, made regular visits to
this city in the attempt to arouse the patriotism of the
French in Los Angeles, and the French newspapers were loud
in their reproaches against the apathy of the French Colony:
Both in San Francisco and in Los Angeles there is a
large number of Frenchmen who, although still speaking
the language of their fathers, are absolutely incapable
of writing it, and often even of readi^ it. In a few
years, unless a remedy is found for this state of af
fairs, it will be as completely unknown to them as it is
to any Yankee.Ü
Due to the efforts of M. Lévy, by 1896 the Alliance was fi
nally functioning in Los Angeles, maintaining thirteen
classes of French in the public schools, with three hundred
and eighty-four pupils enrolled. The society became dormant
very soon, however, and was not reorganized until 1904, when
again classes were begun in the schools, with all necessary
literature furnished by the French Government, and with
teachers furnished by the local Alliance Française. The
classes were held after school hours in all schools where
11
Le Progrès. December 1, 1894.
77
there was a sufficient number of pupils desirous of learning
the language; the price for the instruction was one dollar a
month.
One could not recognize the Alliance Française, ac
cording to one of the charter members, in the Alliance Fran
çaise of today. Because of great disagreement as to the pur
pose and aim of the society, it has lost many of the origin
al members, that is, those who felt that it should be a demo
cratic organization for the benefit of the entire French Co
lony, and that its programs should be arranged with that end
in view. One of the later comers, who grew to be extremely
influential in all matters pertaining to the Colony, decided
that this group should be a more exclusive one, and began
the practice of inviting only certain members to closed meet
ings at his own-home. This resulted in great bitterness on
the part of the opposing camp, whose forcis then withdrew
completely, as well as on the part of that class composing
the membership of the Club Français at International Insti
tute, from which the French look toward the Alliance and
laugh scornfully at their compatriots "who think that they
12
are intellectuals." The Alliance remains today an exclu
sive, and as far as the French Colony itself is concerned,
an ipiffectual organization, although it does serve a defi
nite purpose in bringing together a Franco-American intel-
12
Interview No. 10
78
lectual group. To it belong only the élite of the Colony,
the wealthier families, the pioneer families, and those per
sons connected with schools and universities. Their func
tion is to offer lectures by prominent guests and to welcome
French celebrities who come to Los Angeles. One has the im
pression, when attending their functions, that here is in
deed a survival of the French salon, and the fact that meet
ings are usually held in the President’s Suite at the Univer
sity of Southern California strengthens that impression.
One is transported almost to eighteenth century France, where
men and women of the nobility discoursed brilliantly on in
triguing topics. Here as there the subject itself is of no
mement— that which is of real importance is the opportunity
for the individual to display his sparkling dialogue and
thoroughly French esurit. There is nothing to compare with
this anywhere. It is a typically French phenomenon, for
this nation is conversationalist to a marvelous degree. The
love of conversation is one thing which helps to maintain
the cultural solidarity of the group. There is for them no
pleasure in discoursing in any other language but their own,
for the French are not particularly apt as linguists, and
find it difficult to learn other languages. Moreover,
theirs is a language which admits of a precision of expres
sion and fineness of description impossible in any other.
When two French persons begin to converse in French they
79
expand visibly and glow with pleasure at the mere exercise
of speech. It is a necessity for them, therefore, to meet
with their own people.
THE FRENCH WAR-BRIDBS
One of the most interesting and one of the most com
pact, if small, societies in the French Colony is that of
the French War-Brides. This is a very recent organization,
having been founded during the American Legion Convention in
Portland, Oregon, in 1932. The Los Angeles chapter of the
national unit is made up of about sixty members, all of them
French women of about the same age, since the rules of the
society demand that they must either have married their hus
bands in France during the World War, or at least that they
must have met them at that time. It is very natural that
they should be closely united as a group, for they have com
mon interests and common problems. Although their official
activity consists only of monthly luncheon meetings with for
mal programs, and a yearly banquet, the group holds frequent
unofficial meetings. It is among this group, also, that we
find the most difficult problems of maladjustment and of ma
rital difficulty. The War-Brides all gave similar pictures
of their arrival in this country and of their desperation at
finding themselves alone in a world of strangers. One of
them began to weep even now, after fifteen years have passed.
80
at the memory of her arrival. The greatest difficulty, in
every case, was in entering the American family; these
French girls were all struck by the coldness of their wel
come and have never forgiven it. As one of them described
the scene:
I came from France on the transport with my husband,
and when the ship docked, a lot of small boats came out
to meet it, all of them carrying big signs, saying "Hel
lo, Tom," and "Hello, Dick." I felt completely left out
of everything, but I thought that as soon as we got to
my husband’s family everything would be all right. I
waited outside on the sidewalk, as I did not know what
would happen; -1 saw my father-in-law come out to meet my
husband, and- all he said was "Hello, Johnny," and he
shook his hand as though it was a cold fish. My brother-
in-law was digging in the garden and he just looked up
and said "Hello," and then went back to work again. And
my husband’s family had not seen him for two and a half
years|F3
The question of language has sometimes been a difficult one
in these Franco-American marriages. As one War-Bride ex
plained it, "It is simply a matter of who is the laziest; if
the husband is lazy, the wife learns English; if the wife is
14
lazy, the husband learns French." Although most of the
children of these marriages are not taught French, they are
brought up in the French manner, and the large majority of
them are sent to parochial school, as their mothers had been
sent to the convent school in France. The children of the
War-Brides are not numerous, however, and the one War-Bride
13
Interview No. 4.
14
Interview No. 2.
81
who is the mother of seven is the laughing-stock of the whole
group, most of the members of which have no more than one or
two children, and, most often, none at all. The national
president of the War-Brides, who lives in Los Angeles, feels
definitely that, with very few exceptions, the marriages of
these women have been very unhappy, because of the enomaous
differences in the way in which husband and wife have been
brought up. The French girl is ordinarily very domestic, and
extremely devoted to her home, while the American man is ac
customed to women who are "good sports." The French girl is
generally very religious and regular in attendance at Mass,
while the American man often loses his sense of religious
duty. The French girl is especially shocked at the utter
disregard of family and at the disrespect shown toward one’s
elders; these attitudes are utterly incomprehensible to her.
She cannot understand the coldness of the American nature,
for she is accustomed to much affection and emotional display.
In the case of every one of the War-Brides, the immigrant
girl was thrown into American society without any preparation,
and the experience was a tremendous shock. It is a solace,
therefore, that she can associate with other French girls
who have had the same experience. The society of the French
War-Brides plays, therefore, an important rôle in the lives
of these women, for while it is maintained as a purely so
cial club, it is at the same time a refuge offering the
82
of being chez elle.
RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS
The French War-Brides are probably the most religious
group in the entire French Colony, for the Colony as a whole,
is not highly organized upon religious lines. There is no
French church as such, either Protestant or Catholic, and
the French who desire to go to religious services must go to
one of the American institutions. There are only two orga
nizations with a devotional aim in view; these are the Mis
sion Evangélique Française^ and the Comité de la Messe Fran
çaise. or Catholic Circle. The first is simply a part of
the Bible Institute and does not differ from the rest of the
organization either in purpose or in function, except that
the French language is used. The French who come to the Bi
ble Institute are generally those of a transient class, who
are strangers in the city, for the well-established French
citizen is seldom missionary-minded, and seldom interested
in proselytism. The Catholic Circle, on the other hand, is
working diligently toward the revival of a group religion.
Through the efforts of its members arrangements have been
made whereby a French mass is held on the first Sunday of
every month at the Catholic Church of Saint Anselme, at
Seventieth Street and Vaua Ness Avenue, where a sermon is
preached in French by a Belgian priest. In the evening the
83
Circle holds a social hour, with various entertainments.
The money taken in here is placed in a fund'which, it is hop
ed, will enable the Cercle Catholique Français to build a
church of its own, as well as a parochial school for French
children. The plan is formulated in a small circular which
is being sent to the French of Los Angeles:
This Circle. . . .has for its goal the establishment
of a Mission with priests of our nationality to preach
the Gospel in our own language, this beautiful French
language, which has done more than any other in the evan
gelization of the world; to work to accumulate funds des
tined for the purchase of a piece of property, for the
construction of a chapel, a rectory, and school; in a
word, to establish a religious center from which the Ca
tholic faith will radiate, aiding in the development of
the French Colony, at Los Angeles.
No group of French origin can develop itself, or
spread French culture and so arrive at its legitimate as-
pirationsy without having its own priests and its own
church. The French Colony will not be complete until
the Circle will have reached its goal.l^
At present there are not more than eighty members of this
group, and the number of those who come to the French Mass
regularly is much less, often not.more than thirty. The
most active workers complain bitterly that the old pioneer
families have no interest in their religion, for the simple
reason that when they first came to.Los Angeles there were
no facilities for church-going, and the habit of regular at
tendance at Mass was soon lost, so that the children of such
15
See Appendix, p. 113.
84
families have no religious interests whatsoever. The Cercle
Catholique Français is composed, therefore, almost entirely
16
of the French "petit bourgeois" society.
FRATERNAL ORDERS
The work of the Catholic group is thwarted to a very
large extent by the activity of the several fraternal orders,
such as the Cour Française des Forestiers d’Amérique, the
Grove Gaulois, and the Vallée de France. These orders a±e
all either a branch of Free-Masonry itself, or at least of
the same general type, and, quite naturally, their members
are not particularly faithful church-members. It is rather
unusual for the French to have so many fraternal societies,
for in their own country they would be little inclined to
join such groups having secret rites. In this respect the
French have become greatly Americanized, for no sooner did
they land upon American soil than they began to organize
their fraternal orders. Indeed, most of the orders mention
ed above have a membership which consists almost entirely of
men from the pioneer families, men who have belonged to them
for decades of Los Angeles history.
16
i.e., the lower middle class.
85
POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS
A fair majority of the men who belong to the frater
nal orders, as well as of the more recent comers to Los An
geles belong to political organizations, which are usually
quite common among immigrant groups, but which play an im
portant rôle in the French Colony. The tendency of the
French to be extremely politically minded follows, very na
turally, their tendency to be a nation of newspaper readers.
Although French women have not the interest in politics and
government that American women have, due to the fact that in
France Itself they were never allowed a voice, and hence do
not claim their privilege of suffrage here (only the merest
handful of French women in Los Angeles having ever register
ed for voting), French men possess a keener interest in, and,
indeed, a keener insight into, American politics than do Ame
rican men. Politics pay an important rôle in the life of
every Frenchman. When we consider that in other nationality
groups but scant attention is paid to either international,
national, or even local, politics, we are somewhat astonish
ed to find how great an interest in politics is displayed by
the French. The largest portion of most French newspapers
published in this country, as well as in France itself, is
devoted to news of government. From the earliest days of
the Colony in Los Angeles the French were urged by their
86
leaders to make use of the ballot; every edition of the
French paper carried articles stressing the necessity for
the French to be naturalized, and published daily the names
of those French persons who had received their citizenship
papers. "It (naturalization) is, in our opinion, the only
way in which to make felt the rights and the influence of
the French in the midst of the American population. _ In this
country of decentralization, every voter possesses a power-
17
ful weapon: the ballot." In a community survey made of
Los Angeles in 1918 it was found that the foreign groups
having the largest number of persons naturalized were those
coming from the British Isles, from Germany, and from France.
The British had a percentage of 87.7 naturalized, the Ger
mans a percentage of 86.1, and the French a percentage of
18
80.4.
It is not surprising, therefore, to find, in the
French Colony, very active political clubs, such as the Cer
cle Lafayette, which has a membership of about four hundred.
During the electoral campaigns this club has a tremendous
influence, and it is hoped, according to the statement of
one of its members, that in time this influence will be as
17
Le Progrès. June 8 , 1892.
18
A Community Survey Made of Los Angeles City, p. 35.
87
pronounced as that of the Lafayette Society in Ban Francis
co, where the French have a solid vote of six thousand. Al
though in the early days of the Colony many of the French
themselves ran for office (two of the earliest mayors of the
city being Frenchmen, Damien Marchessault and Joseph Masca
red, at the present time the Lafayette Society is primarily
concerned with promoting the interests of parties sponsoring
American candidates. It has been intimated that the Lafayet
te Society, and, through it, the entire French Colony, is un
der the control of two or three of the wealthiest Frenchmen,
who direct French political activities according to the best
interests of their own businesses. In any case, the French
political societies have become thoroughly Americanized in
their methods,of campaigning and rallying, and are quite un-
French in character, for political bally-hoo is almost un
known in France, where it is more common to find individuals
haranguing, rather than group-steering as we find it here.
REASONS FOR EXTENSIVE ORGANISATION
When we consider the large number of French societies
in this city, it seems almost impossible to reconcile with
it the statement that the French are not a club-minded peo
ple. Yet it is true that the French in France would never
think of organising to the extent to which they have done it
her. Every Frenchman interviewed appears to be quite
88
disgusted with great array of voluntary associations, and
emphatically exclaims that two at the very most would suffice.
The French all agree that this is entirely an American pheno
menon, and that "these Frenchmen all went crazy the minute
they landed in America. They all want to be somebody, and
if they cannot be president in one society, they immediately
19
form one of their own." "Le tempérament français est très
20
frondeur. " (The French temperament is essentially non-con
formist) , The very fact that the French were so unused, in
their own country, to belonging to clubs is responsible for
the signal lack of success oÛ the larger part of the local
organizations. The French are too highly individualistic to
be willing to submerge their own personalities under the per
sonality of the group as a whole; being excessively volatile,
moreover, (and in this they resemble their Italian neighbors),
it takes very little provocation to estrange #ie Frenchman
from another. Since every member of each club wishes to run
that club according to his own very definite ideas, he is
soon forced to establish one of his own where he can be pre
sident. All of these societies, with their numerous off
shoots, have tended to intensify the class divisions within
19
Interview No. 42.
20
Interview No. 26.
89
the Colony, since members of one class will only belong to
certain of the clubs, while members of the other classes will
21
keep as far away from those clubs as possible. The leaders
of the Colony are generally agreed that the situation is a
sad one, but they do nothing to remedy the state of affairs;
they merely shrug their shoulders and remark, "Que voulez-
vous? They have to have some place where they can display
22
their oratory.’ . ’
21
For further discussion of social distance, see
Chapter p. 90.
22
Interview Ho* 36.
CHAPTER V
SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
The French are a strange combination of extreme soli
darity and extreme individualism, both of which characterist
ics tend to keep them from complete assimilation into the
American community. As has already been stated, the French
are not exactly that which we may term an immigrant group.
It is, therefore, not because of a necessity of banding to
gether in order to face a wolrd new and strange that the
French have remained culturally intact for so long; it is
rather because they feel that no one but a Frenchman can
ever fully understand a Frenchman; this sentiment has been
echoed again and again in interviews with members of the
French Colony here. We have already explained the belief
in the high degree of national superiority which is a part
of the French heritage. We remember that the average mid
dle-class Frenchman is an intellectual, alert and interest
ed in things happening in the world; we remember the com
paratively small amount of illiteracy in France at all
periods of its history; we know that most of the emigrants
from France have had at least a rudimentary grammar school
education. We might suppose, for these reasons, that the
cultural distances in the French group would be smaller
91
than those in any other nationality group. This is far from
being the case.
SOCIAL DISTANCE
At the present time the French Colony in Lps Angeles,
while it is recognized by the French themselves as a unit,
having a president at its head, is composed of àt least two
classes, with lines of demarcation drawn according to seve
ral kinds of social distance, by which is meant "the degrees
of sympathy and understanding that exist betvfeen people ge
nerally," either between persons, or between groups, or be-
1
tween a person and a social group. Another definition of
social distance is "the amount of voluntary shared activl^
2
ty." No matter which of these definitions we prefer to ac
cept, we may say that there are great distances ; operating
within and without the French Colony. When we consider that,
on the one hand, there are the old pioneer families, with
generations of California history behind them, and, on the
other, the more recently arrived immigrants, we can readily
see that the one group could not willingly accept the other
1
R. E. Park,"The Concept of Social Distance," Jour
nal of Applied Sociology. VIII, 339-344.
2
Meyer Nimkoff, Social Distance between Child and
Parent (Doctor’s dissertation. University of Southern Cali
fornia, 1928).
92
as its social equal. The early settlers came almost without
exception from the south of France, and were men of the soil,
putting their faith in the land. Peasants they were, but
the French peasants, of the Alpine stock, have always formed
the backbone of the country; once settled upon their land,
they are seldom uprooted, thereby laying the foundation for
a long line of descendants and unassailable tradition. Thus
it is that this stock, settleing in Los Angeles, gave rise
to many of the oldest tradition-bound families of the West.
To this society have been added from time to time the newer
intellectual group coming in, such as professors in colleges
and universities, the artistic group coming into Hollywood
to enter the Motion Picture Industry, either as stars, or in
other capacities, and the diplomatic group having its center
in the French consulate. Although the additions to the pio
neer class could not qualify on the basis of historical
background, their background of learning, travel, and ensu
ing cosmopolitanism have entitled them to become members of
the old established group. It is this class which is re
sponsible for the formation of the various literary and ar-
3
tistic circles which we have listed in the French Colony.
Quite naturally they would have nothing in common with the
immigrant class, which has not only come from an entirely
3
See Chapter IB, pp. 58-59.
95
different part of France, but is made up either of small
tradespeople, or of laborers. We see, first of all, that
the lines of demarcation correspond with different periods
of emigration and with different provincial sources.
PROVINCIAL SOURCE
Provincial source plays an important rôle in the so
cial distance existing among the French. The enmity between
the north and south of France is almost equal in intensity
to that between North and South in this country during the
Civil War, It is, of course, the result of different racial
origins, northern France being peopled mainly by Nordic and
Germanic stocks, and the southern part of France by Latin
and Semitic stocks. There 'are extremes of temperament as
there are extremes of physical appearance. It is not
strange, therefore, that the first French who came to Los
Angeles, and their descendants, should stress their southern
origin when confronted by the newer immigi-ants coming from
the industrial centers of the north. Before 1870 practical
ly every member of the French Colony in Los Angeles was
either Basque, or from the provinces of Béarn, Hautes-Pyré
nées, or Basses-Alpes, all of which are in the extreme south
of France. Indeed, even in the Nineties there were so many
Basques that a Basque newspaper was published in Los Angeles,
the California-ko Eskual Herria. the only exclusively Basque
94
newspaper in the world, and the official organ of the Bas
ques in the United States, in Mexico, and in the Antilles.
At this time also, the hotels in. Los Angeles, almost all of
which were owned by French people, bore such names as Hôtel
Henri IV (Henry IV of France, often called Le Béarnais, ori
ginating in the province of Béarn), Hôtel des Pyrénées, Hô
tel et Café des Alpes, and Hôtel du Lion d’Or. When, after
the War of 1670, the inhabitants of Alsace and of Lorraine
had their choice of remaining French or of becoming German
citizens, many loyal French emigrated from those provinces
to California, thereby adding a new racial element to the
French Colony of Los Angeles. It was at this time that dis
sent and disagreement along the lines of provincial origin
began to appear. When, in 1892, there was organized the
Fraternité Alsacienne et Lorraine. the censure appearing in
the press was very strong; the editor felt that a poor pre^
cedent was being established, and that the formation of a
provincial society "is the indication, if not of a schism,
at least of an estrangement among members of the French Colo
ny, and one of its results will be to render still more nar
row this detestable spirit of local rivalry which tends to
4
separate, one from the other, children of the same country,"
Soon the emigrants from the two unfortunate provinces began
4
Editorial, Le Progrès^ August 24, 1892.
95
to merge with the older settlers, and a process of unifica
tion set in, only to be once more disturbed by a new group
of emigrants.
After the turn of the century, French immigrants to
California were no longer coming from southern France, from
the small agricultural villages or market towns; people be
gan to come from the large cities of the north or center of
France; their intention in coming was quite different from
that of the earlier French in Los Angeles; they were not
particularly interested in acquiring land, or even in becom
ing permanently established. They were coming simply to
find better positions in industry or to set up small trades.
Because they have not been as spectacularly successful as
their predecessors they have become increasingly envious of
the good fortune of the latter, and even now give vent to
their feelings in no uncertain terms. More than one of this
group has expressed his disgust that "These peasants, who
were a very stupid lot, and knew nothing about business,
just struck it rich, while we, who come from the big cities,
6
can barely make a living." This class, finding it impossi
ble to be admitted into the society of the élite, organized
their own groups, the most important of which is the Club
Français of Iternational Institute^ whose members shrug
6
Interview No. 20.
96
their shoulders and explain that ’ ^Some of these rich French-
6
men are too high-hat to associate with us." There is, how
ever, one day in the year when all of the French in the city
come together; this is the-Fourteenth of July, Bastille Day.
At that time, all French organizations unite in having a
picnic, with patriotic speeches and typically French tab
leaux, the whole culminating in a grand ball in the evening.
As one member of the Colony remarked, "On that day we are
7
just French, and nothing more." But this is the single oc
casion when social distances are lessened; and when the day
is passed, the normal attitudes are resumed, and social dis
tances widen again. One Frenchman of the "higher" class ex
plained that this was inevitable, and that the same would be
true of the French in their own country.
Why should I associate here with those v/ith whom I
would never associate in my own country; we have nothing
in common, neither education nor background. Just be
cause they are French and I am French does not mean that
we have an existence in common.®
GGCÜPATIONAL DISTANCE
Occupational distance also plays an important part
6
Interview No. 22.
7
Interview No. 28.
8
Interview No. 28.
97
within, the French Colony. Here we can distinguish three
classes— the pioneer group already mentioned, and the immi
grant group, divided into the laborer class and the trades
man class. The laborer class is distinguished from the
other two by the fact that it is the only one which owns no
property. The pioneer group belongs to a kind of "landed
gentry,’ Î while the tradesman group is a group of small home
owners, known as the "petit bourgeois" In their native land.
This prosperous middle-class is composed of those French
people who have learned to develop specialties in the mother-
country and have come here to open small shops. They do not,
however, engage in business for sheer love of it, as so many
Americans of the same class do; they go into it with a
single and neatlypformulated ambition, namely, to make just
enough money so that one may buy a little home in the
country and retire there, after a suitable time, to live on
a modest, but ever-assured income. These people, therefore,
lead an orderly, well-regulated, if simple, existence, and
do not demand too much of life.
The laborer class, on the other hand, leads a more
unsettled and irregular life, having to depend on others for
their employment. In speaking here of laborers, we do not
refer to the exclusively manual labor type. In a classifi
cation of employment the lowest group is that of the day-
laborers, diggers and delvers, with nothing to offer but
98
physical endurance; the next group above this is that of
workers without specialized skill, but bearing some respon
sibility, such as factory hands or truck drivers. The third
group is known as the aristocracy of the manual laboring
9
class, a class of skilled workers. It is to this group
that the majority of French workers belong; they may be
cooks, bakers, mechanicians, or electricians, and, as euch,
must have had a certain definite training. Being skilled
workers they seldom lack employment but their work is of a
nature which forces them to move about constantly in search
of a new position, so that they cannot become firmly esta
blished in any one community. It is this class which fur
nished the transients among the French people. They could
not hope, therefore, to enjoy any great degree of social
intimacy with the other French groups, for the "petit bour
geois" class is a permanent one having its own inner circle,
while the third class, being, after all, only descendants of
French pioneers, and, as such» quite far removed from indi
genous French culture, identify themselves with American so
ciety rather than with French society.
RELIGIOUS DISTANCE
There is another kind of distance manifest in the
9
A Community Survey Made in Los Angeles City, p. 56.
99
French Colony, namely, that which Professor Bogardus de-
10
scribes as religion-atheism distance. Discounting the mi
nority groups of Protestant and Jews, for they are extremely
few in number, we may say that the French Colony is divided
into two camps, those who adhere to their religion, and
those who do not, with the latter gaining rapidly in numbers.
The distance between the two is increasing, for as more and
more members of the Colony grow away from the Catholic
church the more militantly do the others uphold their faith.
This phenomenon is not peculiar to the French of Los Angeles
for it is observed among all French communities, whether in
France or in this country. The distance is intensified,
moreover, by the fact that the atheist group is also the in
tellectual group or intelligentsia, that is, those who can
not accept without questioning, while the religious group is
the one which accepts ideas on a basis of faith. Between
these extremes of emotion and intellectuality there is a gap
which cannot be bridged.
I do not see how anyone can believe any longer in re
ligion. Do you know, when I first became an atheist?
During the war. When I heard that a special delegate of
the Pope was holding a Mass in Berlin to pray for a Ger
man victory, and at the same time another Papal delegate
was praying in Paris for the French to be victorious, I
ceased to believe. No thinking Frenchman could adhere
10
Emory S. Bogardus. Social Distance, a Syllabus
(Los Angeles: University of Southern California, revised edi
tion, 1935), p. 19.
loo
to his religion any longer. That is why atheism is in
creasing among the French, for they are not emotional
and cannot give themselves over to Catholicism with emo
tional fervour. Most French people are intellectual and
have to reason things out.H
Although social relations within the group are charac
terized by a variety of social distances, these are all
eclipsed by the great national distance which separates the
French as a whole from all other nationality groups. Though
the French may differ among themselves and wander in differ
ent directions, there is a single concept which always
forces them to present a united front against the world.
The intense feeling of national superiority is undoubtedly
one of the primary causes of all those phenomena which we
judge to be peculiarly French. The underlying factor in the
striking absence of those problems usually found in a for
eign group within our midst is as traceable to the national
pride as is the extremely small percentage of emigration
from France.
As the French social instinct culminates in the
French religion of patriotism, French individual vanity
becomes conceit whenever the Frenchman contemplates
France or the foreigner. The egotism which he personal
ly lacks is conspicuously characteristic of himself and
his fellows considered as a nation. Nationally consider
ed, the people composed of the most cosmppolitan and con
formable individuals in the world distinctly displays
the provincial spirit.1 2
11
Interview No. 26.
12
Brownell, op. cit., p. 281,
101
When we consider the heights from which the French of
Los Angeles look down upon the American community in which
they are living we cannot understand how it is that they con
tinue to remain. The French, of course, are frank to admit
that from a material standpoint they could not live nearly
so comfortably in France as they can in Los Angeles.
The French who return to France can no longer live
there; they invariably return to Los Angeles. From the
material point of view it is all right in America, but
from the intellectual point of view there is no compari
son. 1®
The French Colony will probably continue to function in Los
Angeles, as a group of supremely law-abiding citizens, but
for them, patriotism will always toean loyalty, not to the
United States, but 'to France.
IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS
1. There are certain implications in the findings of
this study which may prove to be of value to ccmmunity orga
nizers and to social workers, especially those dealing with
nationality groups. The Sheriff of Los Angeles County has
been heard to remark that "if Los Angeles were inhabited on
ly by Frenchmen, there would be no need of a system of laws
14
or of punishment." What it is that makes of the French
IS
Interview N04. 33.
14
Interview No. 11.
102
Colony a supremely law-abiding group? The only possible ans
wer is that the intense feeling of national pride keeps the
Frenchman from disgracing his beloved Patrie. From this one
may argue, therefore, that if such a feeling of national
pride could be fostered in other immigrant groups, it might
be possible to decrease, in time, the number of problems now
found in those groups. Again, if the foreign-born in our
midst could be made to realize the value of their own nation
al culture, and the contribution which that culture could
make to the American nation, the immigrant would gain a
greater sense of "belonging" to his adopted country, Ameri
canization has, perhaps, stressed America too much, and has
neglected the country of origin. In fortifying a nationali
ty group by means of its oim national heritage we are cre
ating also a group of potentially desireable American citi
zens.
2. When we see that, among the French, the strong
familial solidarity that is largely responsible for a con
spicuous lack of problems in the French Colony we realize
that social work could, perhaps, do much to foster such a
solidarity in other nationality groups, as well, fqr most of
the immigrant groupsicoming to this city come from European
countries which hold to family life quite as much as does
France. The problem is, of course, that of diminishing so
cial distance between first and second generations. Here,
103
perhaps, an increased program of shared activity and communi
ty gatherings might be helpful,
3. There are certain deficiencies also to be found
in the organization of the B"rench Colony which may be indica
tive of a similar lack in other nationality groups. As assi
milation is slowly taking place the French are losing some
of their most desireable values. In the first, the fact
that children of French parents are not being taught the
French language, is deplorable, for the use of French in the
home would naturally tend to uphold the familial solidai*ity.
4, Even more important is the tendency of the mem
bers of the Colony to split up into small dissenting fac
tions. Twenty-three small organizations can never be so ef
fective as one or two large organizations. Eventually, if
the process continues, the French Colony may lose a measure
of its national solidarity and become lost as a cultural
unit in the American community. It remains, therefore, for
social workers and for community organizers to point out the
necessity of retaining immigrant heritages as important fac
tors in American culture.
SEL EC TE D B I B L I O G R A P H Y
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. HISTORICAL
FRANCE, AND THE FRENCH
Barzun, Jacques. The French Race. New York: Columbia Uni
versity Press, 1932.
Bardoux, Agénor, La bourgeoisie française. Paris: Calmann
Lévy, 1893.
Brownell, William^ French Traits. New York: Charles Scrib
ner fs Sons, 1919.
Cherel, Albert, La famille française. Paris : Editions Spes,
1927.
Cohen-Portheim, Paul, The Spirit of France. New York; E. P.
Dutton and Company, 1933.
Demolins, Edmond, Les Français d ^au.1 ourd ^hul : les types so
ciaux du midi et du centre. Paris: Firmin-Didot, n. d.
Eisenmenger, Gabriel, La Haute Provence. Digne; n. £., 1914,
Fouillée, Alfred, Psychologie du peuple français. Paris:
F. Âlcan, 1898.
Granger, Ernest, La France— son visage^ son peuple. Paris:
Â. Fayard et Cie., 1932.
Hayes, Carlton, Freine e. a Nation of Patriots. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1930.
Hill, Helen, The Spirit of Modern France^ World Affairs
Pamphlets #5. Foreign Policy Association and World
106
Peace Foundation, 1934.
Lavedan, Henri, famille française. Paris: Perrin, 1917.
Sabatier, Paul, France To-day, its Religious Orientation.
Translated by H. B. Binns; New York: E. P. Dutton and
Company, 1913.
Seignobos, Charles, Histoire sincère de la nation Française<
Paris: Rieder, 1933.
Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley, French Perspectives. Boston
and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916.
Sieburg, Friedrich, Dieu, est-il Français? Traduit de X»Al
lemand. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1930.
Siegried, André, France, a Study in Nationality. H* Mil
ford, Oxford University Press, 1930.
. . . ., Tableau des partis en France. Paris: B. Grasset,
1930.
Tardieu, André, France and America. Boston and New York:
Houghton Mifflin Sompany, 1927.
THE FRENCH IN AMERICA
Bancroft, Hubert H., History of California. San Francisco:
The History Company, 1890.
De Massey, Ernest, A Frenchman in the Gold Rush. San Fran
cisco: California Historical Society, 1927. Translated
by M. E. Wilbur.
Fosdick, Lucian, The French Blood in America. New York:
107
The Fleming H. Revell Company, 1906.
Lévy, Daniel, Les Français en Californie. San Francisco:
Grégoire, Tanzy et Cie., 1884.
lerou, Henri, Coins de France en Amérique. Paris: E. Bas
set et Cie., 1912.
Thwaites, Reuben Gold, France in America. New York and Lon-
dpn: Harper and Brothers, 1905.
Wyllys, R. K., The French in Sonora (1850-1854). Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1952.
THE FRENCH IN LOS ANGELES
Almanach des Français en Californie. Georges Lanson, Edi-
- teur, 1925.
California Commission on Immigration and Housing, A Communi
ty Survey Made in Los Angeles City. San, Francisco:
1918.
Catholic Directory and Census of Los Angeles City, 1899.
Loyer, Fernand, and Beaudreau, Charles, Le Guide Français
de Los Angeles et du Sud de la Californie. Los Angeles:
Franco-Amerlean Publishing Company, 1952.
Société Française de Bienfaisance Mutuelle, Statuts et Règ
lements . Los Angeles, 1926.
NEWSPAPERS
Le Courrier Français. Los Angeles, January - April, 1936.
108
Le Courrier du Pacifique. San Francisco, January - April,
1936.
Le Progrès. Los Angeles, January, 1889; April, 1892; Octo
ber, 1896.
L^Union Nouvelle. Los Angeles, 1892, 1895, 1876, 1898,
1900, 1901, 1902.
B. SOCIAL THEORY AND CULTURE
Bogardus, Emory S., Social Distance. A syllabus published
by the University of Southern California; revised edi
tion, 1935.
Day, George M., The Russian Colony in Hollywood. Unpub
lished Doctor^s dissertation. University of Southern
California, 1930.
Fairchild, Henry Pratt, Immigrant Backgrounds. New York;
John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1927.
Hankins, Frank, The Racial Basis of Civilization. New York:
Alfred Knopf, 1926.
Kirschner, Olive P., The Italian in Los Angeles. Unpub
lished Master^s thesis. University of Southern Califor
nia, 1920.
Lindeman, Edward C., Social Discovery. New York: Republic
Publishing Co., 1924.
Park, Robert, The Immigrant Press and its Control. New
York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1922.
109
Park, Robert, arid Miller, Herbert, Old World Traits Trans
planted. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1921.
Ripley, W. Z., The Races of Europe— a.Sociological Study.
New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1899.
Ross, E. A., Social Control. New York: The Macmillan Compa
ny , 1904.
Sorokin, Pitirim,- Social Mobility. New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1927.
Stoddard, Lathrop, Racial Realities in Europe. New York:
Charles ScribnerSons, 1924.
Sumner, W, G., Folkways. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1907.
Thomas, W. I., and Znanieoki, Florian, The Polish Peasant
in Europe and America. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1927.
Voget, Lamberta M., The Germans in Los Angeles County. Cali
fornia. 1850-1900. Unpublished Master^s thesis. Univer
sity of Southern California, 1933.
Wissler, Clark, Man Eind Culture. New York: Thomas Y. Cro
well Company, New York, 1923.
Young, Pauline V., Social Heritages of the Molokane in Los
Angeles. Unpublished Master’s thesis. University of
Southern California, 1926.
A P P E N D I X
APPENDIX A
FOREIGN-BORN WHITE POPULATION IN CALIFORNIA
a
BY SELECTED COUNTRIES
1930
COUNTRY NUMBER
ENGLAND 85,019
GERMANY 81,840
FRANCE 21,319
SWITZERLAND 20.063
TOTAL 810,034
a
Figures taken from Report of United States Census
Bureau, 1930.
APPENDIX B
FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION (WHITE) IN LOS ANGELES
b
BY SELECTED COUNTRIES
1930
COUNTRY NUMBER
GREAT BRITAIN & 32,448
NORTH IRELAND
GERMANY 18,094
FRANCE 3,478
SWITZERLAND 2.150
TOTAL 181,848
b
Figures taken from Report of United States Census
Bureau, 1930.
112
APPENDIX C
COMPARATIVE NUMBER OF FRENCH FOREIGN-BORN
c
IN CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO AND LOS ANGELES
1930
CALIFORNIA 21,319
SAN FRANCISCO 6,461
LOS ANGELES 3,478
C
Figures taken from Report of the United States Cen
sus Bureau, 1930.
Total French White Stock in the United States 471,605
Number of Foreign-born French - 1930 135,232
Number of Native White French - 1930 336,373
APPENDIX D
d
FRENCH POPULATION IN LOS ANGELES
1930
Total French White Stock 11,119
French foreign-born 3,478
French Native White 7,641
d
Figures taken from Report of the United States Cen
sus Bureau, 1930.
ërrrlp OIatl|nltqup Jîrattrata
bg Sjdb Attg^hs, Olalîf.
Id
Ce Cercle, déjà connu sons le nom de Société de la Messe
Française, a pour but rétablissement d’une Mission avec des Prêtres
de notre Nationalité pour prêcher l’Evangile dans notre langue,
cette belle langue Française, qui a fait plus que toute autre, dans
r évangélisation du monde. Travailler à accumuler les fonds desti
nés à l’achat d’un terrain, construction d’une chapelle, presbytaire,
école. Ein un mot fonder un foyer religieux d’où la foie Catholique
rayonnera, aidant au développement de la - Colonie Française, à
Los Angeles.
Nul groupe d’origine Française peut se développer, répandre
la culture Française et arriver a Ses aspirations légitimes, sans avoir
ses Prêtres et son église. La Colonie Française ne sera complète
que lorsque le Cercle aura obtenu son but.
Fiers de nos origines, de notre histoire glorieuse, et voulant les
perpétuer, le Cercle Catholique Français a été fondé pour les main
tenir, en jettant les fondations d’une Mission.
Toute personne Française ou d’origine Française est invitée
à devenir membre du Cercle, pour aider à atteindre le but proposé.
A cet effet, des réunions sociales et amicales réunissent les membres
en une grande famille, travaillant pour la realisation de ce grand
pro j et.
Un autre but est d’aider dans leurs devoirs réligieux, ceux
qui ont besoin d’assistance, les m ettant en contact avec des Prêtres
Français. De se réunir à une messe avec sermon en Français, autant
que cela sera possible.
Tous, Chèrs Amis, vous pouvez nous aider, soyez nos colla
borateurs. Parlez de notre Oeuvre a vos parents, a vos amis ; faites-
leur comprendre le but, faites-vous les Apôtres de notre future
Mission.
Abstract (if available)
Linked assets
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Rubin, Mildred Stella
(author)
Core Title
The French in Los Angeles: A study of a transplanted culture
School
School of Social Work
Degree
Master of Science
Degree Program
Social Work
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
Americanization,businesses,Crime,culture,delinquency,employment,Family,fraternal orders,French war-brides,home ownership,Le Club Francaise,Morality,mutual aid societies,OAI-PMH Harvest,political organizations,Population,press,provincial source,Religion,religious distance,religious organizations,social distance,Social Sciences,voluntary associations
Place Name
California
(states),
Los Angeles
(city or populated place),
Los Angeles
(counties),
USA
(countries)
Format
application/pdf
(imt),
iv, 113 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm.
(aacr2)
Language
English
Contributor
Digitized by ProQuest
(provenance)
Advisor
McClenahan, Bessie A. (
committee chair
), Neumeyer, M.H. (
committee member
), Young, Erle J. (
committee member
)
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m18
Unique identifier
UC11313094
Identifier
EP65559.pdf (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c39-336810 (legacy record id),usctheses-m18 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
EP65559.pdf
Dmrecord
336810
Document Type
Thesis
Format
application/pdf (imt),iv, 113 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm. (aacr2)
Rights
Rubin, Mildred Stella
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA
Tags
businesses
delinquency
fraternal orders
French war-brides
home ownership
Le Club Francaise
mutual aid societies
political organizations
provincial source
religious distance
religious organizations
social distance
voluntary associations