Is Québec “Latin America”?

As people from various cultures and locations and languages interact with one another, a common shock is that the same term can be understood so differently. Rather than calmly asking one another, “What do you mean by that?” rage and defensiveness often boil up before conversation.

The very question, is Québec Latin America, is so absurd, how can I even ask it? I ask because it is an absurd question to those who insist Québec, obviously, is not, usually in English and Spanish, and to those who insist that obviously Québec is, usually in French.

Allow me to lay my cards on the table. I am Québécois. I am not “Latino.” But as far as whether or not my home is Latin America, I would humbly and meekly say, “What do you mean by that?”

To those south of the US/Canada border, Latin America’s definition seems to “obviously” Central and South America. Which raises the question, then why not just say that. The term is not geographic, but cultural and linguistic, and arguably racialized. But the Caribbean also throws consistent understandings of Latin America in doubt. Surely Puerto Rico and Cuba are Latin America? But is Jamaica? Aruba? Martinique? Haiti? Is all of South America Latin America? What about Guyana or Suriname?

I am a white Québécois language nerd. Sticking in my lane, on the question of whether or not anyone else is Latin American, I willingly defer to their own self-understandings. But self-understanding still hinges on definitions.

Latin America, if defined as “places in the Americas primarily settled by Romance-language speaking peoples,” would include Québec. And not some of the Caribbean and South America. It was once so-defined. And this is where our confusion originates.

To the shock of many south of the US/Canada border, Québec has been part of Latin America — according to some people — as long as the term has existed. It is French-speakers who seem to have originated the term and popularized it in the 19th-century. Michel Chevalier argued in the 1830s that a shared “Latin” culture of Romance languages and dominant Catholicism united French, Spanish, and Portuguese speakers in the Americas against Anglophone culture. In the 19th-century Spanish speakers, first primarily in Mexico, began using the term Latin America, to emphasize a shared not Anglo identity.

If Latin American means not Anglo and Romance-language-speaking, Québec is clearly Latin American. And it is based on this definition, and the fact that this definition is quite old, that many in Québec will, shockingly to those to their South, call themselves Latin American. And for the past almost two centuries, others have consistently called the Québécois Latin American, too. And Cajuns in Louisiana! Perusing travelogues of Anglophone tourists and journalists to Montréal and Acadie and New Orleans, you read references to our “Latin” spirit and joie-de-vivre spanning across the decades.

So why is it so scandalous, and even offensive to some, when Québécois do this? Well, because as true as it is that “Latin American has always meant Québec,” it is also true that over time, it has meant Québec less and less to others who use the term.

When a (probably white) Québécois says, “I am Latin American!” repeating a self-definition passed through generations to a Latin American who sees nothing “Latin” about our home, both sides are often confused and offended.

Québécois calling ourselves Latin American overlook that as pedantically and historically “correct” as we may insist we are, the rest of the Americas have been using the term differently ever more for decades. They do not mean us. And when we wedge ourselves into the label — even if in our own sphere we never had realized we had been kicked out —it is seen as cultural appropriation.

However, insisting Québec is not Latin America requires those who use the term to wrestle with what exactly they do mean by it, if not face-value meaning of the two words Latin and America.

In Québec we have strived for centuries to defend and preserve our language and culture, to not be assimilated and erased. I have seen in person and online the first time a Québécois is told they are not Latin American. First they are confused. Confused why they are not. Confused why the person who told them they are not is also mad at them. Then often defensive, and then mad themselves. It is not a positive intercultural experience for anyone.

A Latin American from Central or South American may see their culture being erased by the term being used so widely as to include Québec. Québécois may see our culture being erased by being excluded from a family we have spent centuries proudly calling ours.

All identity labels have at least two component parts, implicitly. They tell us who we are, and who we are not. It is hurtful when someone uses a label we use for ourselves in a way that we do not identify with.

The way they use the label reflects on us. Many people, for example, would rather accuse those who disagree religiously of being “not real Christians” or those who disagree politically as being “not real Americans” than they would want to expand their understanding of Christianity or America to include those with whom they disagree.

Labels that are used simultaneously to unite broadly different cultures and regions are double-edged swords. Too broad, they mean nothing. Too narrow, they also mean nothing.

A few years ago, I was the sole Québécois at a gathering of young clergy explicitly about antiracism work in the church. A new colleague I had not previously met from Puerto Rico said something to the group, including me, about “all you Anglos.” I was offended, but mostly intrigued. In a follow-up question, he explained that obviously I was “Anglo.” Because to him, it meant white and not Spanish-speaking. I told him in Québec, he would probably be called an Anglo, because he had a US passport and did not know French. Both of us rooted a significant part of our identity in being “not Anglo,” and yet, both would call each other “Anglo” for not being from our home.

I no longer would be offended if someone in Puerto Rico called me Anglo. I would not love it, but I would understand what they likely meant. Even in our mutual misunderstanding, we did actually share a story of a culture wrestling with preserving its language and identity within a larger economic power.

Our words are important. Our words matter. But it is unrealistic linguistically or politically to expect all cultures and places to use the same words the same way.

When first confronted with another culture’s radically different use of a shared term, it is easy to dismiss them as wrong and ill-informed or even malicious. It is harder to ask follow-up questions and wrestle with decades, or even centuries, of different discourses arriving at different conclusions.

The uncomfortable reality for all parties is that different people mean different things when they say Latin America. Rather than fighting about who is in and who is not, I hope we can all ask, “What do you mean?” and give an honest answer and build honest relationships.

So is Québec Latin America? In the conversation of what does that mean, I believe a Québécois and an Argentinian may never find the answer, but they may figure out exactly what they do and do not have in common in a way that builds connections without appropriation or exclusion.