As the youngest of five children, Joe Boucher learned a lot from his older brothers and sister – how to ride a bike, how to navigate the miles of forest behind their house and how to skate and play hockey. But one thing he didn’t really pick up from them is how to speak French.
Although both of Boucher’s parents were of French-Canadian descent and spoke French with each other, it was once illegal to teach French in school in the US state of Maine, where the Bouchers lived. And so his siblings, amongst themselves, defaulted to English.
“Shame was heaped upon French speakers as being second-class citizens,” he recalls.
