By Graduate Student Daniela Edmeier, Department of History

To say that France has a complicated history with ethnic difference would be an understatement. Pick up any historical publication on France and its empire, and you would likely find anecdotes on the 2004 French law banning “conspicuous signs” of religious practice in French public schools, which most argued purposely targeted the hijabs of female Muslim students. France’s own history undermines declarations of the homogeneity of the French population defined by national belonging rather than diverse ethnicity. This history is not unique to France, but in the wake of the end of the Second World War and the independence of its former colonies, it is one that many would argue contemporary France has not fully come to terms with. 

This summer, I visited the Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer in Aix-en-Provence, France, to do archival research for my dissertation on ethnic identification and politics in French settler society in colonial Algeria, graciously funded by the Migration, Mobility and Immobility Project. Scholarship on the settlers up to this point has not examined the heterogeneity of the European settler population in colonial French Algeria and consequently how the politics of this difference continued after French naturalization laws changed in 1889 to include those Europeans born on French soil. My research is concerned with the migration of Spanish citizens to colonial Algeria, their naturalized descendants – derogatorily termed “néos”, and their incorporation into settler society. Coming predominantly as political refugees or impoverished day laborers, they formed a unique population, one that was both European, but which French colonial administrators perceived as “lacking” qualities that inspired confidence in their national loyalty. 

My research seeks to argue that ethnic difference continued to have a continued salience for both the way the French colonial government viewed and treated this population, as well as how these settlers related to the French state – long after these “néos” became legally French in 1889 and many fought for France during the First World War. The archives I examined in Aix revealed that national categorization and self-imposed identification did not always align. Ultimately, my research will illuminate various tensions between national and cultural identities, the fluctuating lines of social inclusion and how flexible national belonging was and continues to be.

Researchers approach their own topics for a multitude of reasons: identifying a lack in the historiography, genuine interest and academic passion, an emotional investment, the list goes on. While the first few mentioned factors have definitely influenced my research, as a child of a Costa Rican immigrant to the United States, many of my questions are guided by a personal endeavor to understand the dynamics of migration. When I read primary sources that say that the Spanish were treated as “second-hand citizens” or fired “in spite of their merits, because they are named Muñoz, Lopez, or Martinez,” I cannot help but recall being in the sixth grade and remember my mom crying — telling me that she got fired from her job as a receptionist because her employers believed that people would not be able to “understand her accent,” even though she spoke fluent English. While this research will not fully answer my concerns regarding migration, I do hope it will uncover previously understudied social networks that pose interesting, new questions for how we understand and think about migration and social incorporation.