Focus 2004.tif


32 FO(1jJ on German SludieJ 

G S · .. 'T".I._ G,rnfank " .. [osai&. Cul/llral and Lillguistic Divmi!l ermao tOoes. • f./C • • 

in Sodt!J. ContributiOnl;n Erhll;c Studiu 33_ Ed, Carol Aisha Blackslurc­

Belay. London: Greenwood Press, 1994. 45-55. 
The Cul tural Hyphen: Transgression and Translation 

in the Narra tives of Self of 
German-Speaking Exiles to Canada 

Patrick Farges 

The language of lmnsllluon envelops lIS content like a royal robe 
with ample fold I .. . J and mus remainS unsuiled to Its content, 

ovcrpowcnng and alien. 
Walter Benjamin (75) 

I n March 2003, I met Willie G. at the Canadian Jewish Cong ress 
Archives in [V{ootreal. Willie G. was born in 1921 in Fiirth, 

Germany. Although his fami ly had been living in Germany for at 
least [wo gencrnoons, all members of the family car ned a Polish 
passpo rt, which had to be renewed regularly at the Poush Consulate 
in Munich. The family was j ewish, aldlOugh not religiously 
obser-nm, and the children grew up speaking only G erman: an 
example of "assimilated jews"? After Hiuer came to power, living 
conditions changed dramatically for \Xlillie G:s famil y, and after 
'Kri:;[ail nachr,' leaving Germany became imperative. juSt befo re lh e 
outbreak of lhe war, \'(lillie G. was granted a visa t? jo in his falhe r in 
England, and evenrually joined lhe Polish Army in exile, tho ugh he 
did nO[ speak a single word o f Po lish. After lhe war, the Canadian 
government o fft':red to take approximately 4,000 Polish war veterans 
[Q be employt':d as farm labm, and so Willie G. came to Quebec. I lis 
story is one of displacement and uprooting, of crossing borders and 
cultures. One o f the most visible markers of displacement in \Xh llie 
G:s life seems [0 be his slCugglc with language. As he putS it: 

As far as that goes., it's very in teresting wilh 
languages: I'm a hybrid. German is my mOUler 
language, I spoke English in England, then I had to 
learn Polish in the Army, then T spent a year on lhe 
farm speaking a fai rly good French already. And so, 



34 Fond on G~rttJan S (<<diu 

you know, that is one of dle different imegrarions. 
you know: First from German into Polish, from 
Po lish into English , from English into French, you 
know, so that's one o f the integration problems and 
you end up not speaking any language good. At the 
moment, I don't speak good German, I don't speak 
good French, 1 don't speak a good English. 

In the interviewee's discourse. 'hybridicy' appears as a cenual concepr 
of self-definition and is rypical for the feeling of existential and o ftcn 
tragic, geographic and cuiwral displacement. The n~w en.vir~ (~:nent 
and the new language remain forever a somewhat unSUited robe 
with ample folds" (Benjamin 75) for the displaced subjecl. 

The presem paper is rooted in the imerdisciplil~a[y field ,o f 
migration srudies (Brwell and Hollifield), and deals. WHh a s~ec .. fic 
form o f involumary migrants: refugees from Nanonal SOCialism 
after \933. This particular type of migrarion is often caUed 'exile: 
The paper is pare of an on-going research project in exile srudies, 
and it is cemered on German-speaking refugees in Canada, for 
whom the country of exile became a new home. Since Wolfgang 
Benz's groundbreaking, micro-historical w~rk on ".ordinary peopl~," 
there has been a shift of paradigms WIthin exile studies: SOCial 
approaches as well as issues of acculturation, integration .and identity 
negoriation , have been brought 10 the fore. The 200 1 Iss~e of. the 
journal Exi![onchll1lg: an inltrnaliono/u jahrbneh, for inst~nce, IS ej\o~ed 
" Bet\l.'een Assimilation and Persecution, AcculturatJon and JeWish 
Identity." Conducted in pan as an o ral history, the project is based 
partially on personal interviews conducted be£wecn 1999 and .200~. 
Thus it aims at rendering lhe exiles' narratives and at resurrec ung lfl 
lhe present the "voice of (he past" (Thompson). Several oral history 
projects about exiles have been conducted in past years, foe example, 
by Hempel and Backhaus-Lautenschlager. However, .lhey~ often deal 
with well-known 'milieus' of exiles, like New York City. I'or reasons 
I will outline later, including the coumry's biculrural tradition and 
its official multiculruratism poticy since 197 1, T will argue that the 

Canadian case shows distinct features. 
AbeUa and Troper have shown that Canada's attitude wwards 

European refugees in lhe 1930s was less than satisfacrory. ReccOlly, 

The Culrural Hyphen: Translation and Transgression 35 

Puckhaber established that Canada accepted 4,89 1 German­
speaking immigrants between 1933 and 1945 (40). Given Canada's 
immigration policy in those years, most of them can be considered 
refugees from National Socialism (puckhaber 41). In addition to 

persons who individually found entry into Canada, mostl y "through 
the backdoor" (puckhaber to), the interviewees mainly belong to 

two groups of exiles. The nrst gtoup is composed o f Jewish farmers 
fro m the Sudeteruand, a region that was pan o f Czechoslovakia at 
the time: rhese men and women immigrated as extended family {O 

the Hamilron area in Ontario in 1939 (lggers and Tggers 31 -43). The 
second group consisrs of Germa ns and Austrians who had initially 
fo und refuge in Great Bri tain. However, in view of Nazi Germany's 
military successes at the beginning o f rhe war, the fear of a " fifth 
column" of saboceurs spread over dle United Kingdom, reaching 
a peak in 1940. Articles about Nazi saboceurs in Belgium and the 
Netherlands fueled this fear to a grea t extem. Jong underscores " the 
conuast between the activities ouribed to dIe German Fifth Column 
and its aetna/work" (v). In reaction , Churchill decided to cegisrer and 
categorize all "enemy aliens" on British soil, and to imecn some of 
them in May 1940, altho ugh they were in great part refugees from 
National Socialism themselves (Kushner and Cesaran i). SOme 2,000 
men were sent overseas to Canadian internment camps, where they 
spent several mo nths before being released in Canada (Draper). 
About half permanently settled in Canada after their release, while 
lhe o ther hal f rerurned to lhe United Kingdom or went to the 
United States (Koch). 

The rhematic focus of this project IS p laced on 
acculturation and the re-composing of identities, as lhe tl:chnique 
of the perso nal interview ca plUres how the informants d iscursively 
construct their social and cultural identities, how they make sense 
of their lives. Conflicting simultaneous identities, bridges between 
past and present, interactions wilh the social environment appear 
to be key aspects of the na rratives of sel f. Willie G.'s condensed 
formula appears emblematic: " Here J was, an 'Osrjude' with a 
Po lish passport." In the narration of self, past and present appear 
intimately intricate. Jdentiry is not chosen, but ascribed by ot hers, 
and memnymically designaced by the passport. Ye[ the identity 
carried by the passport - 'Polish' - cOlluadicts Willie G.'s social and 



36 Font! on G~rman Stlldies 

cuhural practice.. To define his siruario n in Nazi G ermany in (errnS 
that had a tangible meaning aT me time, he resorts to me derogatory 
term of 'Ostjude' thereby resurrecting in his own discourse the 
hostile voices of rhe past. 

The purpose of this paper is no t to fit the interview ees' 
statementS imo a 'master narrative of exile' consu ucted around 
themes such as 'home,' 'leaVlng: 'arrival,' o r 'integration: as is often 
the case in o ral histories o f mig rants (e.g. Stave and SUlhedand). 
The goal is (0 analyze how displacement and border crossin gs ~re 
absolutely central in aU stages o f the interviewees' lives. FOUOWUlg 
Grinberg and G rinberg's psychoanalytic diagnosis of "delayed 
uaumas" afAicting migrants and w es, 1 argue d12t fo rced mig ratio n 
leads (0 a fundamemal nar rative ruprure. This cupNee is consrantly 
re-enacted in everyday life and has EO be repeatedly overcome in 
order to regain a sense of identi ty. This can only happen through 
a translation of social and cultural codes-through a transgression 
of boundaries. How do agents make sense o f meir lives as thq 
interact with meir social, culrural and instirutional environment? 
How are cultural traits and codes translated individuaUy? First, I 
will analyze border crossing as both a real event thar consranuy 
determines me narratives' imecnallogic, and as a cognitive tool that 
retrospectively helps understand one's siruarion. T hen I will focus 
on the Lllleracove, face-to- face, dimensIon o f identiry, as identity 
is constructed dlaiogiclll1y and socially by constan dy transgressing 
social and culrural borders. Finally, T shall underline how IIldividual 
strategies of acculrura tion and identity (e-composing h~ve 
challenged domJnant categories, lilliS crossing insciruuonal barners 
speci fi c to posrwar Canada. 

Borde r Crossi ng as a Real and Imagined Event 

The perception of borders and boundaries is an operation o f 
comparison, o f partial recognition and distancing. In the interviews 
J conducted, se\'eral rypes of bo rders are menuoned: geographical, 
cultural, linguistic, social, and religious. Hismricai o r social changes 
are often perceived by rhe agenrs - and hence narrated - as 

modifications in their wo dd-mapping: 

The Culnu:alllyphen: Translation and Transgression 

I was born in Furrh and we were Po lish citizens 
living in Germany, even though my fa ther was born 
in Germany already. But because his grandfather 
came from Galicia, which was the: Aust.rian ­
Hungarian Empire so/ and Poland, after the war, 
became th e succeSSOr stalC of this pan , Cracow 
(\X';llie G.)' 

37 

Some bordcrs are visible, and they arc made tan&Jble by objects 
like passports, while others are inviSible but nonetheless perceived. 
Crossing some borders happens force fully, ' uansgressing' omers, 
like a religious one, is lhe result o f a decision: ;'1 was from a secular 
famil y: that means we went to synagogue, but wei you know, In [he 
beginning, my father wasn't orthodox, but he became orthodox later 
0 11. And I, the moment I came to England, I became very secular" 
(Wilhe G ). 

The crossing of borders is a moment of initial transgr<':ssion 
that forever strucru res one's personal slOry 1i\[0 'before' and 'after,' 
in 'here' and 'mere.' It becomes an existemial moment o f sclf­
re Rection, the beginning o f a new narrative of self. I t IS only because 
one can look back and [eRect upon one's lafe that one realizes what 
Changes have taken place: 

\'{fir sind mit l nach Belgien ge Rogen. Nach Belgicn 
geRogen, dann uber England. In England bin ieh 
erst drauf gekammen, wie schon es bei uns zu 
Hause war. Dass es so was Hiissliches gibt, hatte 
ich nie gewussL Also dIe l\ lldlands. Alles verraucht 
und nichts Grimes und dann November. Und dann 
mit clem Schiff von Liverpool nach Montreal. Unci 
als WlC im Saint-Lawrence wa ren, da war es schon 
aU5zuhaltcn, abcr dIe ganze Zeit davar war 50 
miserabel. (lggers lmerview) 

r lere, the main theme is the crossing itsel f, as space is divided in to 
a 'home' space, a 'middle' space (ironically enough lhe journey 
th rough the f3nush Miltlands) and the new, wek offimg shores 
of Q uebec. NO( only does the evenr define the interViewees' 



38 forol on Gtrmon Studies 

chro nolOglcal and geographical univers~, it also sha,pes th,e narrative 
itself. Displacement is a reality in the lives o f rhe mferV1ewee~ ~nd 
there is material evidence that testi fi es to it, such as the re malmng 
accent _ in o ne's native tongue o r in o ne's second l al~gllage. and 

. . bo.L .nd the very structure of the narrauves that are someomes m Ul ~ 

construc[cd around this evem. . . 
At the same time, displacement becomes a cogruuve filte r 

thro llgh which the interviewees in thei.r narration try ro come to 
terms with conflicting cultural barriers or dual codes .. For one 
interviewee an e.'I:-internee who worked for me Can2{han Army 
after the ';ar as a medical officer o n the ship Q ueen t-. l ar~, the 
invcned journey across the Atlantic Ocean becomes a [~earungful 

. hi ti<e .L·ough which he can take revenge on hi sto ry: event In s I ' , Uk , 

And all of a sudden, several people came to the 
dooa:, the cap~in of the ship v.'1rn uniform, and 
his assistant in uniform and cwo or three elderly 
gentlemen in civvies. So the captain says to m~; 
"Good anernoon, doctor, I'd like you to mee t Su 

John Anderson." "Sir John. And?rs~n?" He. was the 
Home Secretary in 1940 In Bmatn who 1I11erned 
us! He \vas gIVen lh e responsibility of ~el.,ding us 
to Canada and Australia. And so I was Sllong here, 
acrosS me Atlantic Ocean fo r the second time m 
my life, from East to West; the first time I was his 
guest, rhe second time, he was my guest. (Chutes 

C) 

The su essed parallel of the (\1,'0 siruations and the switch [Q the 
present tense build a bridge over space and ume. O nly u~e second 
crossing by ship gives l.he firsr one its fuU meaning. I ~ spIre of the 
fatefu l displacement of exile, the second border crossmg was ",eallt 

JQ bt so [har the imerviewee's life as a whole would II101u leI/it. In 
another narrative, it IS the new envuonmem of Montreal, Canada 
that ser\-es as a yardstick by which to measu.re ~he o ld ho me o f 
Furth Germany: "You see, Numberg-Furth IS like r-. lontreal and 
Saint-Laurent used to be, many years ago, used to be apart, but 
now eve rything is, yOll know, grown together, so you don't see 

11\e Cultural Hyphen: Translatio n and Transgression 39 

no more borders" (Willie G.). In an opera cion of spatia-temporal 
comparison, the d isrance belWeen Montreal and Sa ini-Laurent, 
and their respective starus o f merropo lis/suburb, arc paralleled to 
Nurnberg-Furth. But thro ugh narrative mea ns o f actualizatio n, 
like the phacic-conative ''You see," Monuea l-Sainr Laurent acrually 
srands for Nurnberg-Furth . 

Within the space of me interview, existencial displacement 
is rendered through rhe narra tion of certain crucial episodes o f 
o ne's li fe. O perations o f transfer and uanslation lake place, as the 
interviewee bridges past and present and the o ld world and Ihe new. 
Crossing a bo rder is both a strucruring and some times uaumauzing 
event, as wdl as a narrative means of crea ting coherence. The 
narrative does not simply represent the facrs, it also participates 
in their making. In retrospect, the agenrs try to gain m astery over 
sometimes absurd and t['3gic evenrs in order to regain a sense of 
identity, which can only be gIven by the coherence of the IIlncr 
narrative. Neurologist Oliver Sacks poims o ut: "We have, each o f 
us, a life-slory, an inner narrative-whose continuity, whose sense, 
is our lives. It might be said thar each o f us constructs and lives 
a 'na rrative,' and lhal this narrative is us, our identities" (110). 
Yet crossing borde~ also leads to a renewed perception o f one's 
culruml affiliations through COntact and ullerac(ion wl\h the Olher 
culture(s). 

IdcflIiry: Transg ression and Interaction 

JUSt like !.he peecepoo n of bo rders, the feeling o f 'belonging' IS 

shaped by transgression. The experience o f displacement forces 
the exile to re~think the parameters and bOllndarles o f Ius/her 
Identity. All of a sudden, one is put in a self-reflex.ive situauo n in 
which the limits belWecn rhe social and cultural g ro ups become 
visible. This transgression isolates the individual from his usual 
socia l embeddedness: ''The UldlViduation of the agent occurs in a 
moment of diSplaccment" (Bhabha 185). This is especially true foc 
the younger genen.rion of eXiles - those who had to leave beforc o r 
during their teen-age years: "Fur lIns, ich meine, die ganze JlIgcnd, 
ich meine, wenn man alte r war, iSl irgendwie so cine Weir zcrstort 
worden, aber meine Welt baHe doch richcig! gar nidll richtig 



40 Foats on German Studiu 

angdangen" (Gregory B.). Tn his re:Aecuon about mulcicul~ralism, 
Charles Taylor, following a Bakhcinian impulse, descnbes t~lC 
formation of one's identity as follows; '~'(!e define our idenuty 
always in dialogue ,"vith, sometimes in struggle against, the things 
our significant others want to see in us" (33). Identity thus appears as 
dialogically constructed, and individual identity in parcicular as pacuy 
constituted by collective dialogues. The "significant others," to use 
{he term coined by George H. Mead, are the individuals or groups 

surrounding us, those we choose as parmers in the dialogu~. " 
The fe-composed identity is then dependent on daily mee­

ro-face interaction" (Coffman, "Face Work" 5) with "significant 
odlers." Among the questions that reveal a sense of 'not belonging: 
there are: "Ja wo kommst du ner?" (Gregory B.), or "Jede erSte 
Frage in Kanada, oder sparestens die zweire, war immer:. 'Wl~a( 
churcn do you go to?' "(Iggers Interview). In me process ~f. Identlry 
re-composing, me inRuence of rhe 'others' is a deter~IIllng on:. 
The interpellation mechanism serves as a way of checking on ones 
belonging to me community. It implicidy reminds dIe newcomer 
of the collective norms, and at the same time, re-institutes lhem 
in an interactive, performative act. It is interesting to note how 
the imcrviewces themselves resort to a direct quoution of dIe 
interpellation, as if they were 'ventriloquacing' the n.ormative 
collective voice. The second interviewee goes even funher tn the act 
of 'venrriloquation,' as she switches from German to English. . 

In most of the interviews, rhe issue of language-based identity 
i.s referred to, as it appears to be the most immediate experience 

of a change. Tn that respect, the remaining accent revealed in [~e 
interaction wim others is a life-long marker of difference, a material 
sign of displacement, a 'stigma' in the Goffmanian sense. like a sc~r, 
a mark, or a physical handicap, the accent is a visible sign of SOCial 
exclusion from the dominant group ("Stigma" 9). Language becomes 
the locus of a split identity. Even if integration into Canadian sociery 

is the ultimate goal, the 'others' - 'lhey', ' £hem' - will always kno~ 
that one is nOt a native Canadian. Even after several decades spent In 

an English-speaking, or a French-speaking, environmem, the accent 
is still heard and the Row of words is not always perfectly nalural: 

"The words Roar in an uncenain space," to quote Eva Hoffman's 
eloquem phrase in Lost in Translation (108). At the same time, the 

The Cultural Hyphen: Translation and Transgression 4 1 

mother tongue has been affected by the inrerfcrence with the 'olher' 
language(s): 

leh habe cinen deurschen Akzent im Englischen, 
und icll habe cinen deutschen Akzent im 
Franz6sischen, und ich habe einen iIgendwie 

fremden Akzent im DeU[schen das heillt wenn , , 
iell ein paar Wone in Deutsch sage, merkt man 
das nichr, wenn ich cinen VonIag in Deutsch gebc, 
dann merken die Leute, da ss Ich hin und wieder 
nachdenken muss, und das richtige Won komml 
nicht, und dann ist hin und wieder die Betonung 
auch nicht dIe richtige. (Gregory B.) 

The accent forces rhe exile to constantly renew his loyalty to the 
counfry of adoptio n, as it always raises real o r imagined suspicio n: 

" I m,can, they realized right away from my accem, r spoke a good 
English, but with a very/ still speak with a very broad German 
accent" (Willie G.). 

Identity is the p roduct of a constandy renewed imeraction 
between the cultural groups in cOlHan, an explo ratory pendular 
movement that crosses culrural boundaries. In an autobiographical 
a~ticlc=, Helmut ~allmann, who belongs to the group of eX -internees, 
gIVes the followlIlg de6mtion of identity: ' 'l St Identiral eme Sache 
~er personHchen Wahl oeler cine objektive, vom Willen unabhiingige 
fatSache - Jude, Deutscher, Kanadier? feh glaube. zwischen 

drei Arlen def Idenulal umerscheiden zu konnen: unfreiwillige, 
erzwungene und selbsrgewahhe" (20). Each of the components o f 
identity foUows speci6c rules. The involuntary idelllity is gi\"en by the 
early environmen( (fam.ily, mother tongue), the forcefully imposed 
idemilY is linked to institutional intervention, and the chosen 
identity is a way of resisting and o f creating 'elective af6nities.' 
P~n of the individual strategy of identi ty re-composing is to play 
WIth rhose categories, according to time and place. The interactive 
component of identiry constfllction leads to shi fts in modes of 
identification. Identity is ahvars multi-layered and stJ:areg ica lly, and 

hence discursively, oriented, and it needs to be clarified either from:a 
position of marginal.llY or by an attempt at aligning with the center. 



42 Po(I/! on Germon Studies 

An important point must be given particular attention here: 
(he interview itself is a space of face-[Q-fJlce interaction. 1t becomes 
the space of a retrospective construction of meani~g thr?ugh 
memory and phrasing, and the inte['2ction between the mterVle~[ 
and the interviewee is pan of this process. Both agents have speofic 
agendas that are negotiated and uanslared into specific dfans 
of 'face-\vork: More man once 1 have been llIsked abOut my own 
background. My typical answer is d13[ I am half German, half 
French, raised in one country, but first spoke the language of the 
Q[her caunuy. Paradoxically, stepping across a border opens up a 
space of m_between_ness. By purting myself in such a space. s? 
familiar to the interviewees I hope. of course, to be able 10 elien 
'insider' information that is signincam (0 both rhe interviewee and 
the interviewer. 

Identity appears as a discursive and ephemeral stabilization 
of a series of identifications that occur when one is in contact 
with culrural nQ[ms. Aeeulruratioo is a nc:vcr-ending and open­
ended strategy of alternative affiliations. Aware of boundaries and 
limitS, the agent crosses the borders of social and culruml gcoups 
whenever he/she feels it is necessary. According (0 the degree o f 
sociabiliry, this process can be either painful or smooth. Flexibility .in 
the process of social and cultural identification does not ne<:essanly 
mean a loss of social and cultural identity: 

I-I eule ist man also Quebecer, ooer man ist 
Kanadier, und Ich bin also Quebecer. Aber wenn 
leh im englischen Kanada bin, mach ich da safon 
mil, und in Toronto gebe ich Voruage iiberQlIehec, 
ve.rsuch das den Leutcn zu erkJarcn und hier bin 
ich ganz bereit allch Deutscher zu sein, ia, fiir mich 
ist da u-gendwie nicht., ieh meine, wenn man das 
Privileg hat, gebildet zu sein, Zugang zu Buch~ rn 
"tu haben und wenn man ein InteUektue.ller 1St. 
dann lann man sidl das auch leisten. Und da kann 
ich ohoe wei teres hier miunaehen uod wenn also 
die Einigung Deutschlands hier vom deurschen 
Konsulat gefden wird, im November, da geh ich 
dann auch hin, nariirlich. (Gregory B.) 

The Culmral Hyphen: Translation and Transgressio n 43 
Cultural norms are produced, uanslated and appropriated o n an 
individual level. Through their meaningful pt'2ccices. social agents 
chaUcnge some of the political and instllUtionaJ cattgorles that are 
usually thought of as given. In the Canadian comext, where various 
cultural areas are interacting, dli5 process acquires a particular 
dimension. 

Translating Instillu ionaJ Categories 

Alongside rhe 'objective' data about acculturation or integration, such 
as the degree of linguistic proficiency, the socio-professional Slarus, 
and the participation in nerworks, agents experience aceulruration in 
differentiated ways. For o nc o f them, the acculturation process was 
experienced at the level of me classroom: 

When I well[ to school In England, and that's 
where the acculturation comes in, you know, I had 
(0 change my whole outlook on hfe, from Berlin (Q 

Oxford. For instance, we were alW3Ys in the same 
classroom in Berlin, but Lhey had mathematics 
in one room and English and Latin, history and 
geography III other rooms, so I was quite confused 
(he first day. And so, nobody said anything, nobody 
said anything. And Lhere were a great number of 
unwnuen rules In the school and you had to find 
om the hard way what you could and what rOll 
could not do. (Charles C.) 

Changing the approach [0 acculmration is already a way of 
challenging instiruuonal categories as they appear 111 censuses or 
statistics. In the imerviewee's narrative of self, culmral transgression 
'ns experienced as a set of unwrinen wits in school. 

For anothcr interviewee, a theologian, dcveloping a 
<Bruckenpersonlichkeir' (a bridge personality). and systemaucally 
taking sides with the 'Ausgeschlossenen' (the excluded), is a form 
of personal reSlsrance against poijucal and insriruuona l ca (cgooes 
(Gregory B.). Individual statements appear as ref~ccions and 
per~~nal franslations o f domi.nant discourses. For the theologian, 
pollucal commitment and tcumenism are v.rays of challenging what 



44 FoCUIon German Stlldiu 

h \I £h "un-political cosmopolitans whose home is the market". 
eeas e '( --) me 

He combines personal ethics - 'minna~he~ ~o paruclparc a~ . 
criterion of social belonging - with an msmutlonal, macw-pohucal 
f mework specific [Q Canada. The rivalry between Anglo-Cana,da 
~d the Province of Quebec is cenual to his discourse. A [ the ,ask :f an over_simplification, the Quebec issue can be summanzed 

as a conflict be[Wcen twO visions: onc that defines Quebec as a 
_ .,. hio'oricaUy consciruted Canada versus one that sees the 

nanon mat .. hi . 1 
Quebecois as an ethnic group among others. Beyond the slone,a 

d
- - of ,he .onflict the issue became even more acute 111 lmenSlOn ... , . . I 

the comext of the policy of " mulciculruralism within a bilingua 

framework" [frudeau 8546). . . 
j\o[ ulticulruralism in Canada is not only a reality, It also hecame 

a leading political concept and a fi nancial issue in the, t ~70s ~~d 
1980s (d, Li), Herirnge programs were starred, and ,ethnic :denooes 
became visible, Canada o ffic iaUy rejected the melnn~ po t ~o ncepl 
in favor of a diverse 'mosaic.' On the one hand, t~tS poliCY gave 
birth to various cultural mani.festarions, o n the other, It forme~ a set 

f fixed ethnic identities, The interviews reAect the compleXJty of ° - l' f "hyphenated 
h ' d bate as they center on the p rob emauc terms 0 

l Ise, "" 'Gh sare 
Canadian" and "hyphenated ethnics." For '\villie "t esc term 
derogatory, used as markers of discrimination, They are, however, 

'meaningless' to him as he explains: 

Meaningless, because you take/ in that buildin~, 
because you speak [ 0 somebody, you JUSt ~on t 
know who he is, or where he comes frorn. Ellher 
they/ their French is/ I know that he's ~ nor a 
Canadian-born, because when he speaks h ench , 
he speaks Parisian French, that's how 1 differentJate 
bet\veen a Canadian·born and, and, and somebody, 
you know. But if you speak to the children of these 
"hyphenated ethnics," you wouldn't know where 

they come from, you see, 

In a somewhat contrndictor y manner, difference on the ~a~is 0: 
1 

- - - , oLe "arne time acknowledged and refused. \'(IlUte G. s 
etln1Cltylsa UI " hI' 
discourse reflects the dialectic of multiculruralism. T houg Ie IS 

The Cui rural H\')?hen: Translation and Transgression 45 

very aware of differences, as crystallized in an accent fo r ins tance, 
these differences are nonetheless insignificant to hi",. He refuses 
and challenges lhe globalizing discomse of multiculturalism, where 
differences arC made visible only 1O be equalized. -10 fight lhe 
lixedness of hyphenated identities, he poin tS to the dynamic process 
of in tegration, evoking the second generation. 

I n L e u o f a Co nclus ion 

The inrerviews with exiles show Ulat the narratives of self are 
p roductive sites of cui rural translation, T he production o f culture 
takes place at the point of negotiation between individuals, groups 
and institutions. Accullmation appears U1US as an open·ended 
process of negotiation where representations are constantly shaped 
by face · ro-face interacuon. BOllndaries between 'here' and ' there: 
'we' and 'them,' are constan tly crossed in the p rocess of adaptation . 
T he existential and forced border crossing that me exiles from 
Nazism have experienced can be seen as an initial moment of 
self·refiexivity. T he crossing leads them to an initial moment of 
transgression and individuation in which cuirural norllls had to 
be re·defined and identities re·composed. They re·invenl their 
"everyday life" by using pragmalic 'arrangements,' those 'micro­
resistance' mechanisms programmatically defined by Michel de 
Ceneau in The Praclia of Everydtq uJe. As a result, culture appears 
as an everyday, performative practice o f values, procedures and 
gesrures in a COntext of social inte raction, Analyzing the narratives 
of self is but one mode of examining this practice of culture. 

J have tried to voice the emergent categories of analysis as they 
arc used by the interviewees themselves. T his leads me to rema rk 
upon how diffic.ult it is to write about individual phenomena of 
cultural translation and lransfer without being either tOO impersonal 
or tOO unrepresentative. Although I have quo ted from several 
imerviews, 1 have allowed o lle voice, Willie G.'s, to express itself 
more than the others'. Always at the fringe of social and cultural 
groups, always stigmatized, his ext:raordinary personal trajectory 
is emblematic, but nOl exceptional. Not only are ' [iminaliIY' and 

'hybridity' modes of perception of our 'posHnodern' condition, 
tbey are also exis rendal and historical situations. T he hn,hen 



46 Foat.I on German Sludiu 

('"Bindestrich) rim characterizes the identity of 'h)1lhenarcd 
C~nadians' serves both as a bridge between the Canadian presem 
and the German paS( ('Bindc-,), and as a marke r of difference within 
Canadlan society (-strich'). 

UniVtrSiq of Paris 8 

Notes 

, Quotes from Imcrviewees are: [;lkc:n from the U2nscciplS of oral 
Ul(Cn'1Cws. Tnmscripaon is an attempt:iU rcndering. though imperfecuy, 
some fearore:s of orabty. Most of me rime people do not speak In full 
sentences. On! speech differs (rom written speech, and hence some 
convcnuons for tranScription eltisr. The slash, for instance, inrucatcs [hat 
the informant corrected Or interrupted himscl( 

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