AHC: Large scale French immigration to the United States

How to get more French immigrants coming to America along with Irish, Italians, etc? And why is it that the U.S. never had a sizable French population outside of New Orleans?

New Orleans and Louisiana as a whole received a large amount. However, this area is unique within the US; thus it cannot be applied as examples.
 
New Orleans and Louisiana as a whole received a large amount. However, this area is unique within the US; thus it cannot be applied as examples.

I do think that you might be able to get more emigration from France, its stability notwithstanding, assuming you could get links formed between France and richer areas. Basques and Bearnais OTL went in large numbers to the Southern Cone, while Alsatians took part in the general emigration from the valley of the upper Rhine.

in For All Nails, for instance, I suggested that on account of the profound instability in France in the 19th century, very many if the Bretons who emigrated to points elsewhere in France OTL went to Quebec in that TL.
 
Just to flip the script, so to speak, but what if we chsnge the US a bit, instead of France? For example, a scenario in which Quebec is part of the US and has entered under terms very amenable to the Catholic French population. Basically, if the US as a whole is seen as less anti-Catholic and Anglophone, we might see more immigration.
 
Just to flip the script, so to speak, but what if we chsnge the US a bit, instead of France? For example, a scenario in which Quebec is part of the US and has entered under terms very amenable to the Catholic French population. Basically, if the US as a whole is seen as less anti-Catholic and Anglophone, we might see more immigration.

Catholics from other countries didn't seem to have a problem immigrating to the US. There just were not that many French people that wanted to emigrate in the first place.
 
Catholics from other countries didn't seem to have a problem immigrating to the US. There just were not that many French people that wanted to emigrate in the first place.
Yeah, you need a lot of Catholic immigration to have the kind of anti-Catholic backlash that America had in the nineteenth and even early twentieth centuries. French folk would fit in just fine. The question is if they would settle somewhere like New England, move out West, or congregate in pre-existing French communities, like New Orleans. I guess it would all depend on what their finances look like as a group... how rich were the average emigrant? Dirt-poor like the Irish or relatively mobile like the Germans?
 
Well, for the French Canadians that settled in the US, New England was a popular destination. Western Massachusetts, and those parts bordering Quebec itself are quite French.

My home town used to vote on ethnic instead of party lines, every election had a Polish and a French candidate. Even in the 50s, it was not uncommon to speak French in the home. Hell, even in the 90s, my grandfather and my principal would discuss my performance in school in French. Oh, and said school was St Joan of Arc. So... super French.
 
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