In this post, I describe my visit to the Musée de
l’Histoire de l’Immigration last Wednesday interspersed with stories of three
incredible advocates for immigrants’ rights in France whom I have had the honor
of meeting. The day after I visited the museum, I interviewed one of them who
is the author of a book published last year on dignity for the undocumented, a
book which is available at the museum.
There is a lovely park to the southeast of Paris called the Bois
de Vincennes with two little lakes in it and many paths, easily accessible
from the metro station, Porte d’Orée. I went there today to go to the
Palais de la Porte d’Oree which houses the Cité nationale de
l'histoire de l'immigration, or the Museum of the History of Immigration in
France which has only been open since 2007. In spite of a light and rather chilly drizzle,
lots of people were walking in the park, and quite a few were entering the museum.
An article in
the New York Times about
the museum’s opening explains some of the contradictions I have encountered
regarding immigration and social identity in this country; it also pans the
museum for opening before it was ready. The exhibits seem to have improved
immensely since its opening, as described in a more recent article
in Jeune Afrique, written at the occasion of the museum’s official inauguration
just last December (2014) by President François Hollande 7 years after its opening. The authors
refer to it as “the museum that wanted to exist,” beginning as a slightly
disorganized space with few visitors and now, slightly more organized and
welcoming almost 300,000 people per year.
Three women I have met in Paris have impressed me with their
knowledge and advocacy for full rights for immigrants in France. Two of them
are associated with a Children’s Center in a quartier where many people of West
African origin live, and the third person is former educator and an author of a
book on the sans-papiers, or undocumented immigrants here. I am interviewing the latter tomorrow at her
house in northeastern Paris and will write more about her soon. Full rights
includes the right to education, employment, housing, health care, and most
importantly, citizenship.
I got to the museum around 1:30 and went straight to the
gift shop to find the book Les grands by Sylvain Prudhomme, one of several
being considered for this year’s Literary Prize of the Porte d’Orée
to be awarded in June. Prudhomme will be giving a talk there about his book in
mid-May that I hope to attend. I ended up with two additional tomes, one called
Moi raciste? Jamais! (Diallo & Sassoon,
2015), and the other, a journal named Hommes & Migrations published by the
Musée
with articles about West African immigrants to France. I took my purchases to
the café/resto
for lunch before visiting the exhibits.
I’ve been thinking about inviting the director of the
Children’s Center and her board member out to lunch to thank them for their
openness and generosity. From my first email, they have always responded with
enthusiasm and hospitality to my inquiries. The director, whom I will call Hélène,
is always pulled in several directions at the same time but nonetheless makes
time for me. Just this morning, I received an email from her letting me know
that the woman who used to be principal at a middle school near their center
has agreed to be interviewed by me. This is really great news in light of the
slowly turning wheels of the French bureaucracy that has thus far prevented me
from accessing schools in that neighborhood in spite of Hélène’s
efforts.
As you climb the elegant stairway to get to the museum’s
exhibits, there is a timeline reviewing the history of immigration in France.
It’s a powerful display, showing that immigration has been an ingoing and
long-term phenomenon, not a recent result of globalization/mondialisation. It
reveals some historical quirks, such as the fact that Picasso was denied French
citizenship in 1940.
The exhibit space itself is not well-marked so I started in
the “Dons” section, full of “Gifts” from the public related to immigration,
detailing family histories related to immigration. There are countless identity
cards and passports, photos and relics showing the history of Italian, Polish,
Portuguese, and more recently, South American immigrants. There are few
artifacts from immigrants from African countries.
The main exhibit shows the history of immigration in France
but seems to be divided into thematic topics. My favorite piece was an
installation of bunk beds, maybe six or seven stacked up, with ladders from the
floor to each bunk and African pagnes as covers on each one, and plastic market
bags hanging from each bed. It addressed the difficulties in finding adequate housing
that African immigrants in particular have encountered in Paris.
Although that installation by a Camerounian artist portrays a
critical stance toward an issue that current immigrants to France face, it is unclear to
what degree the museum itself holds a critical stance. And maybe therein lies
the problematique: the museum leadership needs to clarify and strengthen its stance, its point of view,
its tone. It cannot be neutral.
