Résumés
Abstract
How did a lover’s letter help to negotiate physical absence, separation, and migration? How can words of romantic love and yearning contribute to historians’ understanding of amour-passion, letter-writing, and transnational relationships? And, finally, what do they tell us about ordinary lives and migration experiences? In this article, I argue that love letters written by everyday writers in a context of international migration are extraordinary historical documents. These cultural artefacts offer a plethora of insights on transnational communication, the romantic love that infused such epistolary narratives, the challenges that ordinary lovers faced in their separation, and how letter-writing helped them to negotiate a lover’s absence. Letters written by women and men in the context of Italian postwar migration to Canada are employed to illustrate my points.
Keywords:
- Migration,
- letters,
- transnational communication,
- love relationships
Résumé
Comment les lettres d’amour ont-elles permis de surmonter la séparation en contexte migratoire? Comment nos connaissances historiques sur l’immigration et les relations transnationales peuvent-elles être approfondies par l’analyse de ces missives romantiques? Finalement, que nous révèle ce courrier intime sur la vie quotidienne et l’expérience de l’immigration? Dans cet article, nous soutenons que les correspondances amoureuses des gens ordinaires constituent des documents historiques et culturels d’un grand intérêt. Ils offrent une foule d’informations sur la communication transnationale, l’amour romantique, les défis d’une relation à distance et le réconfort que de tels échanges peuvent apporter. Nous nous appuyons pour illustrer nos propos sur des lettres rédigées dans le contexte d’après-guerre de l’immigration italienne au Canada.
Mots-clés :
- Immigration,
- échange épistolaire,
- communication transnationale,
- relations amoureuses
Parties annexes
Bibliography
- Ahearn, L. M., 2001. Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, & Social Change in Nepal. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press.
- Albertine, S., 1992. “Heart’s Expression: The Middle-Class Language of Love in Late Nineteenth-Century Correspondence”, American Literary History, vol. 4, no 1, p. 141-164.
- Altman, J. G., 1982. Epistolarity: Approaches to a Form. Columbus, Ohio University Press.
- Baily, S. and F. Ramella, 1988. One Family, Two Worlds. An Italian Family’s Correspondence across the Atlantic, 1901-1922. New Brunswick and London, Rutgers University Press.
- Beattie, J. and H. Buss (eds.), 2003. Undelivered Letters to Hudson’s Bay Company Men on the Northwest Coast of America, 1830-57. Vancouver and Toronto, University of British Columbia Press.
- Beck-Gernshein, E., 2007. “Transnational Lives, Transnational Marriages: A Review of the Evidence from Migrant Communities in Europe”, Global Networks, vol. 7, no 3, p. 271-288.
- Blegen, T., 1955. Land of their Choice: The Immigrants Write Home. St. Paul, University of Minnesota Press.
- Cancian, S. (forthcoming). “‘My dearest love...’ Love, Longing and Desire in International Migration”, in M. Messer, R. Schröder and R. Wodak (eds.), Migrations: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. New York and Vienna, Springer-Verlag Editions.
- Cancian, S., 2010. Families, Lovers, and their Letters: Italian Postwar Migration to Canada. Winnipeg, University of Manitoba Press.
- Cancian, S., 2007a. “Intersecting Labour and Social Networks Across Cities and Borders”, Studi Emigrazione/Migration Studies, vol. 166, p. 313-326.
- Cancian, S., 2007b. Transatlantic Correspondents: Kinship, Gender and Emotions in Postwar Migration Experiences between Italy and Canada, 1946-1971. PhD Diss., Concordia University, Montreal.
- Constable, N., 2005. Cross-Border Marriages: Gender and Mobility in Transnational Asia. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Constable, N., 2003. Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and “Mail Order” Marriages. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press.
- Dauphin, C., 1991. “Les manuels épistolaires au XIXe siècle”, in R. Chartier (ed.), La Correspondance : les usages de la lettre au XIXe siècle. Paris, Fayard, p. 208-272.
- Dauphin, C., P. Lebrun-Pezerat and D. Poublan, 1995. Ces bonnes lettres : une correspondance familiale au XIXe siècle. Paris, Editions Albin Michel.
- De Beauvoir, S., 1997. A Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algren. New York, The New Press.
- De Haan, K. A., 1998. “He looks like a Yankee in his new suit.” Immigrant Rhetoric: Dutch Immigrant Letters as Forums for Shifting Immigrant Identities. PhD Diss., Northwestern University.
- Elliott, B. S., D. A. Gerber and S. M. Sinke (eds.), 2006. Letters across Borders: The Epistolary Practices of International Migrants. New York, Palgrave Macmillan.
- Erickson, C., 1972. Invisible Immigrants: The Adaptation of English and Scottish Immigrants in 19th Century America. Coral Gables, FL, Miami University Press.
- Errington, E. J., 2007. Emigrant Worlds and Transatlantic Communities: Migration to Upper Canada in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. Montreal and Kingston, McGill-Queen’s University Press.
- Farhni, M. and Y. Frenette, 2008. “‘Don’t I long for Montreal’: l’identité hybride d’une jeune migrante franco-américaine pendant la Première Guerre mondiale”, Social History/Histoire sociale, vol. 81 (May), p. 75-98.
- Fitzpatrick, D., 1994. Oceans of Consolation: Personal Accounts of Irish Migration to Australia. Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press.
- Franzina, E., 1979. Merica! Merica! Emigrazione e colonizzazione nelle lettere dei contadini veneti e friulani in America Latina, 1876-1902. Milan, Feltrinelli.
- French, W., 2003. “‘Te Amo Mucho’: The Love Letters of Pedro and Enriqueta”, in J. M. Pilcher (ed.), The Human Tradition in Mexico. Wilmington, DE, Scholarly Resources, p. 123-135.
- Frenette, Y., M. Martel and J. Willis (eds.), 2006. Envoyer et recevoir. Lettres et correspondances dans les diasporas francophones. Québec, Presses de l’Université Laval.
- Gerber, D., 2006. Authors of their Lives: The Personal Correspondence of British Immigrants to North America in the Nineteenth Century. New York, New York University Press.
- Gibelli, A., 1998. L’officina della guerra: La Grande Guerra e le trasformazioni del mondo mentale. Turin, Bollati Boringhieri.
- Goody, J., 1998. Food and Love: A Cultural History of East and West. London and New York, Verso.
- Grassi, M., 1990. “Des lettres qui parlent d’amour”, Romantisme, no 68, p. 22-32.
- Hanna, M., 2006. Your Death Would Be Mine: Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War. Cambridge (MA) and London, Harvard University Press.
- Helbich, W. and W. D. Kamphoefner, 2006. “How Representative are Emigrant Letters? An Exploration of the German Case”, in B. S. Elliott, D. A. Gerber and S. M. Sinke (eds.), Letters across Borders: The Epistolary Practices of International Migrants. New York, Palgrave Macmillan.
- Hirsch, J. S., 2003. A Courtship after Marriage: Sexuality and Love in Mexican Transnational Families. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press.
- Hoerder, D., 1999. Creating Societies. Immigrant Lives in Canada. Montreal and Kingston, McGill-Queen’s University Press.
- Jabour, A., 1998. “‘The Language of Love’: The Letters of Elizabeth and William Wirt, 1802-1834”, in L. McCall and D. Yacovone (eds.), A Shared Experience: Men, Women, and the History of Gender. New York and London, New York University Press, p. 119-140.
- Kamphoefner, W. D., W. Helbich and U. Sommer (eds.), 1991. News from the Land of Freedom: German Immigrants Write Home. Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press.
- Kim, M., 2010. “Gender and International Marriage Migration”, Sociology Compass, vol. 4, no 9, p. 718-731.
- Liu, H., 2006. The Transnational History of a Chinese Family: Immigrant Letters, Family Business and Reverse Migration. Rutgers, Rutgers University Press.
- Lyons, M., 1999. “Love Letters and Writing Practices: On Écritures Intimes in the Nineteenth Century”, Journal of Family History, vol. 24, p. 232-239.
- Lystra, K., 1989. Searching the Heart: Women, Men, and Romantic Love in Nineteenth-Century America. Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press.
- Mahler, S., 2001. “Transnational Relationships: The Struggle to Communicate Across Borders”, Identities, vol. 7, no 4, p. 583-619.
- Miller, K., 1985. Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
- Miller, K., A. Schrier, B. D. Boling et al., 2003. Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan: Letters and Memoirs from Colonial and Revolutionary America, 1675-1815. Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press.
- Nelson, R. K., 2004. “‘The Forgetfulness of Sex’: Devotion and Desire in the Courtship Letters of Angelina Grimke and Theodore Dwight Weld”, Journal of Social History, vol. 37, no 3, p. 663-679.
- Princigalli, G., 2009. Ho fatto il mio coraggio. Montréal, Productions Héros Fragiles.
- Ramirez, B., 1999. “Clio in Words and in Motion: Practices of Narrating the Past”, Journal of American History, vol. 86, no 3 (Dec.), p. 987-1014.
- Ramirez, B., 1984. Les premiers Italiens de Montréal : l’origine de la Petite Italie du Québec. Montréal, Boréal Express.
- Sayers, J., 2002. “Darling Francesca: Bion, Love Letters and Madness”, Journal of European Studies, vol. 32, p. 195-207.
- Scardellato, G. P., 1985. “Italian Immigrant Workers in Powell River, B.C.: A Case Study of Settlement Before World War II”, Labour/Le Travail, vol. 16, Fall, p. 145-163.
- Thomas, W. I. and F. Znaniecki, 1918-1920. The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. Boston, G. Badger Press.