Welcome to Bayou Teche Dispatches. . . .

Cypress logging raft on the Teche, ca. 1910 (postcard).

Bayou Teche Dispatches is a collection of my writings about south Louisiana history and culture. Often it consists of material I could not use in my books for one reason or another, but which I nonetheless found fascinating.

Some entries are more scholarly than others, but all should be regarded purely as essays, not as formal academic works (though often I cite my sources and on occasion I solicit informal peer review).

In most instances I wrote merely to organize my own thoughts. In any event, I hope you enjoy reading these articles as much as I enjoyed researching and writing them.

If you publish information from these articles, please remember to cite this blog as your source and, if applicable, to supply a return link. Please do not repost articles in their entireties, but short block quotations that fall within range of "fair use" are acceptable.

~ Shane K. Bernard

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Table of Contents

❧ French and Creole in Louisiana, 2010-2022:

A Very Brief Analysis

Graphing language use in Louisiana

❧ Disappearing Cajuns and Creoles? 

Ethnic Identity and the Limits of Census Data

The challenge of storytelling by numbers

❧ Race, Language, and Culture: A Note on Identity 

in Louisiana

When did racialization first occur in Louisiana?

❧ Cajun, Creole, Acadian, Arcadian: Classical World Connections to South Louisiana

Cajun country vestiges of ancient Greek and Roman culture

❧ Petit Manchac: A Tale of Two Lafayettes

Fact or a misreading of source material?

❧ State of the Genre: Swamp Pop Music in the 21st Century

How is this south Louisiana/southeast Texas sound faring 50+ years after its heyday?

❧ Born of "Elite" White Reactionism?: Assessing Claims about the Rise of Cajun Ethnicity 

Disputing statements that Cajuns appeared only about 50 years ago

❧ Of Cajuns and Creoles: A Brief Historical Analysis
A look at the relationship between these ethnic groups

❧ Notes on the Birth of Cajun Ethnic Identity 

An effort to clarify this important topic

❧ Thoughts on Cajuns and "Whiteness"

Were Cajuns always, or did they become, "white"?

❧ "Prairie de Jacko": Source of the Name?
Notes on an 18th-century place name along the Teche

❧ Notes on the Founding of Opelousas
Did it happen in 1720 or not?

❧ When Jimi Hendrix Appeared on My Father's Live TV Show 
in Lafayette, Louisiana, January 1965
The rock-guitar pioneer visited Lafayette

❧ Electronic Cajuns and Creoles: Early Television
as an Americanizing Agent
TV's impact on these two ethnic groups

❧ A Tool for Fighting Fake News & Conspiracy Theories: Teach Critical Thinking in American Classrooms
"Not what to think, but how to think"

❧ Portrait of a Cajun Woman: Andonia Thibodeaux 
of Bayou Tigre
An old tin-type photograph leads to a literary find

❧ Another Civil War Gunboat on the Teche: The U.S.S. Glide, aka Federal Gunboat No. 43

A legal document reveals the presence of one more gunboat on the bayou

❧ Now Available: My New Book about Bayou Teche
A narrative history of Bayou Teche and journal of canoeing the present-day bayou

❧ A Railroad History of Avery Island
An article I wrote for someone else's blog in 2010

❧ Sur le Teche: Exploring the Bayou by Canoe, Stage 1
Port Barre to Arnaudville

❧ Rough Rider Redux: A Photo of Theodore Roosevelt in Downtown New Iberia?
A forgotten photo of Theodore Roosevelt in Cajun Country

❧ A Fiction Interlude: My Short Story "The Phrenologist"
A short story about racism set in antebellum New Orleans

❧ A Floating Dancehall on the Teche: The Club Sho Boat
A riverboat that became a nightclub and restaurant

❧ A Meteor over Cajun Louisiana: Window on Atomic-Age Anxieties
Confusing a meteor for an atomic bomb

❧ A Film Documents South Louisiana's Logging Industry, ca. 1925: Responsible Stewardship or Environmental Disaster?
Digitized film about cypress logging along the Teche

❧ A Glimpse from 1968: Historic Films Looked at Cajuns and Creoles in Epic Year
Digitized French films capture an important year in south Louisiana history

❧ Now Available: My Children's History of the Cajuns in English and French Editions
Buy my Cajun book for kids so I can pay off my credit card

❧ "Cajuns of the Teche": Bad History, Wartime Propaganda, or Both?
A 1942 film with excellent images, horrible script

❧ A Snake, a Worm, and a Dead End: In Search of the Meaning of "Teche"
Searching for the meaning of the word "Teche"

❧ Galaxies, Bowling and Swamp Pop: Johnny Preston and The Cajuns in Escondido
Examining a Cajun reference in a chain e-mail about old gas stations

❧ Serendipity and Fort Tombecbe: Cooperation between Historians and Archaeologists
Accidentally finding a map of a fort coincidentally excavated by my friend

❧ Notes on Two Nineteenth-Century Engravings of South Louisiana Scenes
Vintage magazine images of Cajun and Creole women

❧ Finding History Right around the Corner: Heroism on the Cajun Home Front
A nearly forgotten World War II landmark a block from my residence

❧ My Father's Childhood Autograph Book on the History Channel?
When Dad met Hank Williams, Sr.

❧ My Oddball Collection of Cajun Warplane Photos
Cajun-themed combat aircraft

❧ Elodie's Gift: A Family Photographic Mystery
An old tin type image given to me by a great-aunt

❧ The Nike-Cajun Rocket: How It Got Its Name
A rocket named "the Cajun"?

❧ Middle Name or Clerical Error?: Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil and "Gaurhept"
Perpetuation of a historical error

❧ Debunking the Alleged Origin of the Word "Coonass"
Finding a word by accident that wasn't yet supposed to exist

❧ More on That Word "Coonass": A Labor Dispute Trial Documents Its Use in 1940
The earliest known use of this controversial word

❧ "To Err Is Human": Errata from My Books
Everyone makes mistakes

❧ An Old Bull Durham Tobacco Ad in New Iberia, or Palimpsests on the Teche
This vintage advertisement has since been destroyed

❧ Remembering Polycarp: A Cajun TV Show Host for Children
Everyone loved Polycarp!

❧ From Jet Fighters to Football: Origin of the Phrase "Ragin' Cajun"
Where this catchy term originated (as far as anyone knows)

❧ The Elusive André Massé, Pioneer of the Attakapas
An almost mythical explorer of the Teche region

❧ More on the Elusive Andre Massé, Early Settler of the Attakapas District
Revelations about him in a historical document

❧ La Chute: A Waterfall on Bayou Teche?
A waterfall in largely flat south Louisiana

❧ Gumbo in 1764?
The earliest known reference to gumbo in Louisiana

❧ On That Word "Gumbo": Okra, Sassafras, and Baudry's Reports from 1802-1803
More on the history of gumbo in Louisiana

❧ La Pointe de Repos — Early Acadian Settlement Site along the Teche
Colonial-era settlement near present-day Parks, Louisiana

❧ A 1795 Journey up the Teche: Fact, Fiction, or Literary Hoax?
It almost fooled me . . . almost

❧ All the Same Place: Isla Cuarin, Côte de Coiron, Île Petite Anse, Petite Anse Island & Avery Island
Evolution of a place name in the south Louisiana coastal marsh

❧ The Grevembergs, Early Cattle Ranchers of the Attakapas
When someone accidentally transposes two numerals

❧ Tracking the Decline of Cajun French
Research behind the language stats in my book The Cajuns

❧ The Secret CODOFIL Papers
I waited how long for the FBI to release these documents?

❧ Agnus Dei Artifact Found on Banks of Bayou Teche
A religious symbol turns up in the mud at Breaux Bridge

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French and Creole in Louisiana, 2010-2022: A Very Brief Analysis

As a follow up to my recent essay “Disappearing Cajuns and Creoles? Ethnic Identity and the Limits of Census Data,” I have produced line charts representing data for two Louisiana languages, French and Creole, as spoken at home by persons aged five and older. The statistics used to construct these charts derive from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS), compiled annually from 2010 to 2022. (Stats for 2023 and 2024 are not yet available.)

Each language is represented by two charts: one chart is based a one-year estimate, and the other, on a five-year estimate.(1)

On viewing these charts one feature becomes immediately clear: a general decline in the number of Louisiana’s French and Creole speakers.

In particular, for the twelve years ending in 2022, data indicates a 50- or 53-percent decline in the number of French speakers in Louisiana's homes (depending on whether one consults the one-year or five-year estimate). For speakers of French Creole/Haitian, the data shows a 45- or 61-percent drop over the same period (again, depending on which estimate is used; see my below analysis of the ACS's use of the terms “French Creole” and “Haitian”).

Discussing this with others who share my interest in all things Cajun and Creole, the consensus, though speculative, is that the decline stems largely if not solely from the demise of older French- and Creole-speaking persons, combined with an insufficient number of younger French- and Creole-speakers to replace them.

This downward trend — perceptible today even through impressionistic data (such as the dearth of French or Creole heard on the street, in commerce, or in other workday contexts) — explains the fervent “call to arms” among Louisiana’s sizeable corps of language and cultural activists. “Nowadays, our language is flooded, buried, not yet dead but above all desperate,” notes recently founded activist group l’Assemblée de la Louisiane. It goes on: “Language is not the only marker of our collective identity, but it is probably one of the most important and undoubtedly the most threatened.”(2)

Clearly there is no time to lose, yet, as esteemed folklorist and linguist Barry Jean Ancelet has often pointed out, “Chaque fois que l’on s’apprête à fermer le cercueil sur le cadavre de la culture cadienne et créole, il se lève et commande une bière!” Or, in translation, “Every time we prepare to close the coffin on Cajun and Creole culture, the corpse gets up and orders a beer!”(3)

It should be kept in mind that the stats in question are estimates derived from sampling and not the result of direct inquiry of all possible census respondents. Moreover, while it is fact that the U.S. Census Bureau reports the results shown on the following charts (assuming, of course, I convey the data accurately, and I think I do), readers with a healthy measure of skepticism might rightly ask, “Does this census data actually reflect the reality of language use in Louisiana?” That, however, is a topic for another day. (I will, however, give one example of how this census data cannot tell the entire story: My adult daughter, who attended French Immersion schools as a child in the early 2000s, speaks French very well — but she does not speak French “at home,” mainly because she has no one with whom to speak it. As such, the Census Bureau would not count her (or others like her, from children to the elderly) as speaking French. Because of the narrow wording of the language question, the answers it solicits no doubt underrepresent the number of French speakers in Louisiana — though by how much, who can say?)

Regarding the terms “French Creole” and “Haitian” as used by the U.S. Census Bureau: from 2010 to 2015 the Bureau collected language data on “French Creole.” From 2016 onward, however, it apparently ceased to collect data on that language or dialect, and instead began to collect data on what it referred to as “Haitian.” (A vertical red line on the ”French Creole/Haitian” charts indicates where in time this change occurred.) 

It is unclear if, in Louisiana’s case, the Census Bureau regarded “Haitian” as merely “French Creole” by another name. There does, however, appear to be some continuity in the numbers reported before and after the change in terms. It is therefore possible that census respondents considered “Haitian” a reasonable substitute for “French Creole,” especially given historic links between Louisiana and the people and culture of Haiti. I refer to large numbers of Haitians, both free and enslaved, who came to Louisiana in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

I leave it to others to determine why the Census Bureau made this switch and if, in the context of these ACS results, it is valid to interpret “Haitian” as synonymous with (or at least a close approximation to) “French Creole.” Regardless, “French Creole” is now viewed as a misnomer because it implies a dialect of continental French: rather, the tongue is now viewed as its own distinct standalone language called Creole, Kreyòl, or Kouri-Vini. (For more about census stats and language in Louisiana, see my earlier essay “Tracking the Decline of Cajun French”.)

Notes

(1)As the Census Bureau explains regarding the difference between 1-year and 5-year ACS estimates, “Each year, the U.S. Census Bureau publishes American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year estimates for geographic areas with populations of 65,000 or more. . . . For geographic areas with smaller populations, the ACS samples too few housing units to provide reliable single-year estimates. For these areas, several years of data are pooled together to create more precise multiyear estimates. Since 2010, the ACS has published 5-year data (beginning with 2005–2009 estimates) for all geographic areas down to the census tract and block group levels. . . . This means that there are two sets of numbers — both 1-year estimates and 5-year estimates — available for geographic areas with at least 65,000 people. . . [while] Less populous areas . . . receive only 5-year estimates. . . . There are no hard-and-fast rules for choosing between 1-year and 5-year data.” “Understanding and Using ACS Single-Year And Multiyear Estimates,” U.S. Census Bureau, 2018 [PDF document (excerpt)], https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/acs/acs_general_handbook_2018_ch03.pdf, accessed 30 July 2024.

(2)“Declaration of St. Martinville, Louisiana, at the Founding of the Assembly of Louisiana, September 16, 2023,”  l’Assemblée de la Louisiane, https://www.assemblee.la/our-vision, accessed 1 August 2024.

(3)Ancelet is quoted in Jean-Benoît Nadeau, “Mardi gras en Louisiane,” Le Devoir (Montreal), 24 February 2020, https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/chroniques/573560/mardi-gras-en-louisiane, accessed 30 July 2024.