2023-09-03 16:00:00
EXCLUDED BX1 | In the heart of Wisconsin, in the North of the United States, there is a small town called Brussels, in homage to our capital.
About a thousand inhabitants, a few farms, fields and large forests: welcome to Brussels, Wisconsin. This small town, located a three-hour drive from Chicago, near the Great Lakes, is home to a large Belgian community. Thus, many of the inhabitants of this city descend from Belgian immigrants.
Theresa Alexander is one of them: in her garden bordering Green Bay, an arm of Lake Michigan, this descendant of immigrants from Grez-Doiceau and Perwez, who continues to speak Walloonexplains to us that “my grandmother emigrated in 1871, and we lived with her for a long time. But she only spoke Walloon, and a little French“, thus forcing the young Theresa to learn these languages from another continent. Today, among the Brussels community, few still speak Walloon : “only fifteen to twenty people still speak it fluently. Many say they still understand it, but can no longer hold conversations“, she explains to us.
A center for Belgian heritage
Nevertheless attachment to Belgium remainsin this small American village: in 2010, Theresa’s son, Joe Alexander, founded the “Belgian Heritage Center”, a center dedicated to the Belgian heritage in these regions, and to the preservation of the use of Walloon. In this center, sheltered behind a large monument dedicated to the first Belgian emigrants and equipped with a large black-yellow-red flag, we discover the stories and photos of our compatriotsleft to populate Wisconsin as early as 1850.
“They had to build roads here, and then clear the land. They cut the trees to make planks and roofs: it was titanic at the time!“, says Joe Alexander, founder of the Belgian Heritage Center. During the nineteenth century, the Belgians settled in the region, building their homes. They also founded, all around Brussels, other cities with curious names : Namur, Rosiere, Champion (originally called “Aux Premiers Belges”), Walhain and Luxemburg.
The village of Brussels in 1914 | Photo kept by the Belgian Heritage Center
The first Belgians to take up residence in Wisconsin also bring their traditions, including an annual fairend of August : “the fair has been reduced over the last fifteen years. But when I was young, it lasted three days!“, explains Joe Alexander, “There is a mass in the church, and then celebrations for the autumn harvest“.
Other Brussels across North America
Still, Brussels, Wisconsin, is not an isolated case: across the North American continent, there are three other Brusselsone in Illinois (United States), and two others in Canada (Ontario and Manitoba).
“The Belgian emigrants left with their religious traditions, their language, all the elements of their heritage. And of course, giving names like Brussels or Namur is a way of emphasizing the link that attached them to Belgium.“, says Serge Jaumain, professor of contemporary history at the ULB and specialist in the United States.
Who were these Belgians who left to populate North America? The complete explanations of Serge Jaumain
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