French culture has a strong influence in New York City. With the plentiful restaurants and cafés, high fashion, and a growing community of expats, the city is nothing short of a French lover’s paradise away from France. However, NYC’s love affair with France, and specifically Paris, is not one-sided. The French have established a large community in the city, which has then spread the influence of French culture more vastly in New York. France has had a connection with New York since pre-colonial times, with Huguenots settling in the Dutch colony of New Netherlands (later part of New York) and the most notable example being the gifting of the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island in the middle of New York Harbor. Today, amongst many other sponsors, the French Cultural Embassy as well as the not for profit organization, Alliance Française, hold major public events, such as the Bastille Day festival, which not only bring the French community together, but also create cultural awareness in the rest of the city.

For my Springboard project, I will analyze the relationship between French culture and New York City on a narrative-based level, meaning an emphasis on personal stories over cold, hard statistics. This approach will be explained further in-depth later in this topic proposal. Another focus that I want to iterate is the one on present day rather than history. While it is important to note how history has shaped the current presence of French culture in New York City, my goal is to articulate how the culture is perceived and experienced today.

Before tackling my research questions, it is important to define who I refer to as the “French community.” The French can include Parisians, for example, who seem to display the most interest in New York City. However, it can also include immigrants from francophone countries. This identification of “immigrant” also brings about the problematic discussion of who is considered an immigrant, an expatriate, and a foreign national? Is that a social class construct? And whom do I want to focus on in this project? To focus on French citizens of native French descent and francophone communities can prove to be unwieldy. In an effort to narrow down my research group, I will focus more or less on the traditional/native French culture and hopefully across all socioeconomic classes. A major part of the project will also focus on the image that Americans perpetuate of France. In that sense, there will be a slight emphasis on the upper class. However, this is a complicated area of my research. As of now, the boundaries of my research group are still unclear because much of it depends on whom I am able to contact and who has more information about them readily available. My aim is not to try and incorporate as many kinds of people as I can. Instead, I want to focus on a small group and allow my research to open the way for a bigger discussion.

The three major questions that I will center my research on are as follows: 1) Why has the French community established itself in New York? What is fueling the current obsession of New York City amongst the French, and specifically, the Parisians? 2) What has the French community done to create a new home in the city? What have members of the community done on a large scale to recreate a sense of familiarity while simultaneously integrating themselves into another community? How are the members of the community asserting themselves in such a culturally diverse place as New York? 3) How has Francophilia, in turn, also influenced the growth and prevalence of French culture in New York? This question is important in determining what is authentic in the French culture of New York City. How can we tell the difference? There is a strong interrelation and exchange between the actual French people and the people who romanticize France. They both help promote the prevalence of French culture and keep it relevant.

The goal of my project is to create a reference of the French community mainly for people interested in the culture/community and potentially for French tourists and new residents as well. I want to develop a website/blog hybrid that compiles various components of the culture to serve as a what-to-do guide and as a publication of personal experiences. These two features combined separate this project from other blogs and city guides. The different aspects that I will focus on in the culture are food, art, film, literature, fashion, and most importantly, public events. This site will also utilize digital maps to possibly create a walking tour and timelines. In keeping with the personal and narrative theme, in addition to the data I collect, I will also incorporate my personal work, such as photos, videos, and short essays/reviews. As opposed to more academic work, my project takes a broader, more general audience. From my research, I hope to also engage anyone with an interest in public events and personal interactions. I would like my project to serve as a starting point in taking the big aspects of a city and making them feel a bit smaller in scale.

The narrative-based approach that I will be taking can best be described as a personal reaction and interpretation of French culture in New York City. I will gather anecdotal evidence through interviews from expatriates/immigrants, foreign students, and tourists as to why NYC attracted them. Another form of research is to analyze statistical data and studies on trends in the popularity of NY amongst Parisians above all. However, I want to ground my research more on personal narratives as I am basing the project on how the stories of individuals come together to create a bigger picture. In this case, those narratives are of the French community and New Yorkers who experience French culture and how they, in turn, shape the place around them. Rather than focusing on hard statistics and pure fact, I want to collect the personal stories, experiences, and opinions of the community. This will help bring about the personal side of the community and make my research more relatable on an individual scale. Instead of making grand assumptions about the community, I want to showcase the nuances within it.

To conduct my research on the different aspects of New York’s French culture, I will gather information from reviews, magazine and newspaper articles, and blogs, in addition to anecdotal evidence. A good reference website is http://www.timeout.com/newyork. This website successfully compiles major events in New York City and is a great resource for cultural activity. It is something my project aspires to emulate, however, it still lacks the narrative quality that I want to convey. Some other major resources that are specific to the development of French culture in New York are http://fiaf.org/, http://frenchculture.org/, http://albertine.com/, and http://www.frenchheritagesociety.org/. These are all excellent websites that offer a wide range of events and information, however, they are each their own entities and therefore usually only promote their own events. The problem with this to a casually-curious person of French culture is that 1) they would have to know these websites to find the information, 2) they would have to search multiple websites to find relevant information, and 3) a lot of the events are exclusive and therefore not suited for someone who is simply curious. That last point might deter people from further pursuing their budding interest. Therefore, I aim to encourage people to open their eyes to this community and culture without needing to feel a serious commitment to researching.

On an academic level, this topic does not directly relate to my field of art history, but it does connect to my French major. More importantly though, it draws upon my personal and potential career interest in event planning, public engagement/community-building in cities, and documenting personal experiences through art (i.e., mediums of blogs, photographs, and videos). Although the French population in NYC is significant and the French culture, specifically in terms of food, has a strong presence in NYC, there is not that much information in the public domain that effectively compiles the French experience into a website. Nor is there a website that takes the presence of French culture in New York and looks at it from a narrative perspective. I would like to contribute a personal guide to this culture while incorporating my artistic interests in photography, film, and writing.