Link to Partial Recording of the event. Due to Technical Zoom difficulties, the first portion of the event did not record.
Meet the Panelists:
Patrick Lacroix, Ph.D., is the director of the Acadian Archives in Fort Kent, Maine, and a graduate of the University of New Hampshire. Originally from Cowansville, Quebec, he has taught at colleges in Canada and the United States and has worked with Franco-American groups across New England. He is the author of John F. Kennedy and the Politics of Faith and "Tout nous serait possible": Une histoire politique des Franco-Américains, 1874-1945, both published in 2021. His most recent article, published this year in the Journal of History, addresses French Canadians' ambiguous place in the United States' racial and ethnic landscape.
Abby Paige (she/her) is a writer and theater artist of Frend-Canadian, Scottish, and English descent whose ancestors came to what is now Vermont from the north, through Quebec and l'Acadie, and from the south, via Massachusetts Bay Colony. Born and raised in Chittenden County, she is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada. For the past 15 years, Abby's creative work has often explored Franco-American history, the Quebecois and Acadian diasporas, borderlands, and identity. She is the Drama & Book Review Editor for the online Franco-American literary journal, Resonance, and the author of two Franco-American plays forthcoming in a bilingual edition from the University of Maine Press. Abby lives in Burlington with her family.
Anonymous Panelist: The St. Joseph's Orphanage Restorative Justice Inquiry made tremendous strides in assuring that the child welfare system more closely monitored children under the supervision of state government. Processes such as the inquiry mentioned above should be made more available to Vermonters who were a part of institutionalized systems or in foster care, as being involved in the St. Joseph's Inquiry was incredibly healing for me. I would recommend it for others.