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PHOTO: Deniz Yucel, a Bates College student, has been working with the Franco Center this year, part of a collaboration between the college and museum. (Submitted photo)
LEWISTON — Collaborative hands-on projects for students in partnership with the Franco Center are helping students learn about Franco American culture, people, traditions, and history.
This school year, Bates College professor Mary Rice-DeFosse is teaching French in Maine, a course that leads students to “an appreciation and analysis of what it means to speak French and to be ‘French’ in the local and regional context.”
The Fanco Center appreciates such collaborations, said Denise Scammon, Franco Center marketing director. For instance, Deniz Yucel, an international student at Bates, has organized items in the gift shop and library that staff otherwise would not have the time to inventory. Yucel is multilingual and has written a descriptive paragraph in both English and French about each book in the shop.
“This is an immense help to us,” Scammon said.
Yucel is a first-year student at Bates, double majoring in economics and mathematics. She was surprised by the number of artifacts donated to the center over the years by community members. “Lewiston-Auburn is a small community, yet in the Franco Center, there are enough donated artifacts to call the collection a ‘little museum,’” Yucel said. “I learned about the Franco Americans in my history course and was very interested in learning more.”
She enrolled in French in Maine, and said their stories “came to life for me at the Franco Center.”
Other students help with tours of the Center, which is the former St. Mary’s Church, relating stories about local Franco Americans and their heritage. Students who can speak both English and French, like Yucel, tell stories in French, which is important to center staff, because teachers of French and their students are among those who take tours.
Another important project that DeFosse’s students help with is translating written works from English to French and vice versa. The texts include historical anniversary booklets from the former St. Mary’s Church and its school, exhibit signs, Le Messager newspapers, and Franco American magazines.
“There are so many different things happening at the Franco Center that there is something to do for everybody, from listening to great music to learning about the history of the immigrants to Lewiston,” said Yucel. “People are missing an opportunity to enjoy the offerings of a place this close to them if they don’t visit.”
Scammon said that the displays and exhibits are frequently updated, and at least four times a year the Franco-American Collection at the University of Southern Maine assists with the updates by bringing items from its collection. The updates meet a theme to go along with the four La Rencontre luncheons, Scammon said.
Themes over the past year have included the local Franco American social clubs, including a big display about the snowshoe clubs; notable local Franco Americans; St. Jean de Baptiste; and the Grey Nuns.
“We have so many more themed exhibits planned,” Scammon said. “Deniz is a great assistant in curating items for those displays from the historical artifacts we have collected over the years.”
For information about student collaborations with the Franco Center, contact Scammon at 207-261-5240 or dscammon@francocenter.org. For general information, visit francocenter.org
