tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660857958535448139.post6605916445583739529..comments2024-03-23T15:48:15.416-05:00Comments on Bayou Teche Dispatches: Notes on the Birth of Cajun Ethnic IdentityShane K. Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00454946054965548589noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660857958535448139.post-90330562753729793482023-02-23T15:31:06.237-06:002023-02-23T15:31:06.237-06:00Robert,
Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful ...Robert, <br /><br />Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful reply. <br /><br />My own understanding of Cajun ethnicity is that while the word "Cajun" comes from the word "Acadian," the words are definitely not synonymous: in other words, Cajuns and Acadians are not the same people.<br /><br />Rather, a Cajun to me is a descendant of Acadian exiles who settled in Louisiana, as well as (importantly, I think) a descendant of all the other ethnic groups with whom they and their ancestors intermarried in south Louisiana. <br /><br />So to me the word "Cajun" denotes a sort of "one from many" idea.<br /><br />As I wrote in my 2003 book "The Cajuns: Americanization of a People":<br /><br />'Of the roughly 15,000 Acadians displaced from Nova Scotia, about 3,000 sought refuge in south Louisiana, settling in a region eventually called “Acadiana”. There they intermarried with other ethnic groups on the semitropical frontier, including French, Spanish, and German settlers, and even a small number of Anglo-Americans and Native Americans. They were also influenced by Afro-Caribbean slaves and their descendants, who, like the Cajuns, shared a French-Catholic heritage. This cross-cultural pollination transformed the region’s white ethnic groups into a single new ethnic group, the Cajuns. . . . It include[s] persons not only with Acadian surnames like Breaux, Guidry, Hebert, and Theriot, but French surnames like Begnaud, Fontenot, and Soileau; Spanish surnames like Castille, Miguez, and Romero; German surnames like Hymel, Schexnider, and Stelly; and Scotch-Irish and Anglo-American surnames like McGee, Miller, and Walker. Elements from all these groups contributed to the new ethnic landscape, but Acadian culture remained the predominant influence. This is demonstrated by the persistence of French as south Louisiana’s primary language until the mid-twentieth century. Cajun musician Dennis McGee thus rightly claimed, “McGee, that’s a French name. I don’t know anyone named McGee who doesn’t speak French.”'<br /><br />As for Cajuns being Creoles: I agree, if we define "Creole" as meaning "a south Louisiana native of French-speaking, or less commonly Spanish speaking, Roman-Catholic heritage." Clearly, Cajuns would fall into that "Creole" group, because they are indeed "south Louisiana natives of French-speaking, Roman-Catholic heritage." <br /><br />This being said, I don't think the Cajuns' status as Creoles makes them "not Cajun." As I write in one of my blog articles:<br /><br />'Cajuns are to me a subset of Creoles, just as, say, Cherokees are a subset of Native Americans, Ashkenazim are a subset of Jews, and Mexicans are a subset of Latinos. But this does not mean Cajuns do not view themselves as distinct from other Creoles. They clearly do and arguably have done so since their origin as an ethnic group. Sociologist Jacques Henry of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, for example, has observed, “The definition of Cajun ethnicity has been on-going since the arrival of Acadian exiles in Louisiana. It has taken place amidst the economic, social and cultural changes that have happened since the eighteenth century.”' <br /><br />For more, see https://bayoutechedispatches.blogspot.com/2019/06/of-cajuns-and-creoles-brief-historical.htmlShane K. Bernardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00454946054965548589noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660857958535448139.post-57209008899400129542023-02-23T06:35:35.177-06:002023-02-23T06:35:35.177-06:00Excellent article. I came across the same claim ab...Excellent article. I came across the same claim about Cajun identity not existing until the 1960’s and for a time I started to believe that. However, in my own research, I came across mentions of the term Cajun as far back as the 1860’s and Cadien in Louisiana French as far back as the 1850’s just as you have. I think possibly its birth came along sometime in the mid 19th century and from what I understand from evidence I’ve read, it was resented by Acadian descendants for a good while as it was frequently an insult, so the adoption of it as an identity likely came at a much later time than they were identified as, possibly the early 20th century. There is evidence of 20th century informants speaking in French about being called Creoles and now adopting the Cajun identity (it seems even during the Cajun Renaissance of the 1960’s civil rights era, many were adopting the Cajun identity then). <br /><br />But there is another topic at hand, which you touched on a bit. It’s that “Cajuns” today are mixed with other ancestries besides Acadian. We can see in the historic record, they intermarried with the Louisiana French Creoles (white colonial Louisianians of French and Québécois descent. Most were from the part of the Louisiana colony in what is today Louisiana state, but some migrated from French Mobile and French Upper Louisiana from Kansas to Illinois all of which were part of the Louisiana colony) and the group became a mixed Acadian-French Creole group. Then that group absorbed 19th century French immigrants and white French Caribbeans mainly from St. Domingue (French colonial Haiti, which had a sizable white population before the Haitian revolution) as well as some admixture from Spaniards and Germans of the Louisiana colonial population and their descendants. In my research, there are more non-Acadian surnames among today’s “Cajuns” than Acadian surnames. <br /><br />So in reality, the “Cajuns” of today are not Cajuns (Acadians), but are white Louisiana Creoles of mixed backgrounds with a predominance of French-related backgrounds. Couple that with the food and culture which is a mixture of influences from all the main groups of peoples that settled Louisiana (French, Québécois, Germans, Spanish, Acadians, Africans and Native Americans, plus bits from later peoples of other ethnicities), nothing today can be factually defined as Cajun. Not the people, not the culture, not the food. It’s a giant false advertisement. It’s all Creole. So that leaves us with a mass of Cajun-identified people today so what do we do with them? We bring the truth to light and educate them via writing articles annd blogs about it, making videos about it, social media about it. Get the word out and we can reverse it just the same as it was accepted in the first place. <br /><br />Thanks for reading. Robert Duprénoreply@blogger.com