A Place in the Sun
Haiti, Haitians, and the Remaking of Quebec
A richly drawn portrait of Haiti in Quebec, of Quebec through Haiti, and the ways in which migrants transform societies.
La description
“This important book illuminates a little-known and important story, offering a richly nuanced portrait of the Haitian immigrant experience in Montreal. ” – Laurent Dubois, author of Haiti: The Aftershocks of History
What is the relationship between migration and politics in Quebec? How did French-Canadians’ activities in the global south influence future debates about migration and Quebec society? How did migrants, in turn, shape debates about language, class, nationalism, and sexuality? A Place in the Sun explores these questions through overlapping histories of Quebec and Haiti.
Reviews
"This important book illuminates a little-known and important story, offering a richly nuanced portrait of the Haitian immigrant experience in Montreal. An exemplary work of cultural and social history, it will be of interest both to specialists on Haiti and Canada and more broadly to those interested in thinking about migration and politics. " Laurent Dubois, author of Haiti: The Aftershocks of History
“A Place in the Sun is an important contribution to Quebec, Canadian, and Haitian history. It brings the “other” Quebec into conversation with the dominant nationalist narrative, and in the process changes that narrative. It forces us to reconcile the past with our present, and to imagine possible futures that reflect the reality that there are many peoples who have made Quebec, and in the process made Quebec their home.” Montreal Review of Books
“Meticulously researched, A Place in the Sun utilizes an impressive array of archival collections, oral histories, and other forms of media to provide a rich picture of the migrants’ political life in Quebec. Scholars of the Haitian diaspora as well as of Quebec’s political history will certainly find the book to be a must-read, but it will also be of interest to anyone thinking about social movements, migration, intellectual history, or Canada’s place in the world. As Mills shows, Haitian migrants in Quebec impacted a much wider part of society than might have been expected.” American Review of Canadian Studies
“Building on his earlier book, The Empire Within: Postcolonial Thought and Political Activism in Sixties Montreal, Mills shatters simplistic, mainstream understandings of North-South relationships, describes the colonial legacy of Quebecers in Haiti, and shows the responses from Haitians and their allies in Quebec to such colonialism and racism... As a Quebec scholar and as an activist of Haitian descent, I make sense of who I am and of the work I do in relation to the history of the communities to which I am bound. As such, Sean Mills deserves great credit for his contribution to the story of how my generation has emerged.” The Literary Review of Canada