All things Cajun

[Isleño]

Isleno is of course correct about the cuisine being an amalgamation, but the Cajuns came in such numbers that most of the cultures they encountered were absorbed into theirs. We are known as Cajuns (i.e., Cadjeins), not the Canadian and local rich antiquarian attempted reimposition of 1700s "Acadiens", but most La. French before 1960 referred to themselves as Français or Créoles, sometimes interchangeably, less often Cadjeins, although quite aware that it was also interchangeable. Btw, Cajun singer/musician Joe Falcon had some Canary ancestry.

Thanks for agreeing with me about the food. However I don’t agree that Acadians came in large numbers. The entire Acadian settlement to Louisiana was just 3,000 people total. To put that number in perspective, 57,000 French arrived in Louisiana in the 18th and 19th century and that’s not including the 20th century. Also, close to 3,000 white St. Domingans arrived in Louisiana (St. Domingue, which was the multicultural French colony that would later become the all black Haiti after the whites left because of the Haitian Revolution), yet you hear nothing about white St. Domingans in Louisiana. The white St. Domingans melted into the population of south Louisiana. My own ancestors that came from the Canary Islands of Spain, were just over 2,000 people and we are but a small proportion of Louisianians today, maybe about 60,000 in total in all of Louisiana. Yet you have about 700,000 people today that identify as Cajun in Louisiana. Acadian descendants in Louisiana only numbered about 16,000 in Louisiana in 1860. There is no way that they could be 700,000 today.

If we examine the surnames of Cajun identified people, we see it’s not purely Acadian surnames from the recorded passenger lists of Acadian migrants to Louisiana. We see a large amount of French surnames that were not part of the Acadian migration, which shows that they heavily mixed with the French in Louisiana. There was also a migration of Mobile French from colonial Mobile when it became no longer French. Some of those surnames are found among the Cajun identified population as well. Then we see a significant proportion of white St. Domingue, Spanish and German surnames as well as many English and Irish surnames and an Italian one here and there. So what we have is, the Acadians heavily mixed with the French, but also that group absorbed Mobile French, white St. Domingans, Spanish, Germans, English, Irish and even some Italian descendants into their group. Knowing all of this, there is no way they qualify as Acadians and therefore should not be identifying as Cajun, which we know Cajun is just a corruption if the word Acadian and should therefore describe a Louisiana Acadian. There are some genuine Acadians in Louisiana and they mostly live in the limited areas of Louisiana that were recorded Acadian settlements, which most of south Louisiana was not. However, the vast amount of people that are identifying as Cajun (Louisiana Acadian) today are far from being Acadians, surely not the same or even mostly the same as the migrant group of Acadians that immigrated to Louisiana. There is a saying in Louisiana, one can be Cajun by blood, by marriage or by the back door”. That’s a an attestment of the multiethnic nature of the Cajun identified group today, they are not Acadians and thus not truly Cajuns.

We know that Cajuns identified as Creoles before the invent of the term Cajun. We also know that the term Cajun was invented in the 1860’s and was primarily used as an insult toward Acadians in Louisiana and was considered as fighting words by a great many of Acadian descendants. Some small group of Acadians however, adopted the term as an identity some point after that. In the Jim Crow era of the 1920’s, the term Creole became polluted for a sizeable portion of French speaking whites that identified as Creole because of the confusion about the word by Anglos that made accusations toward white creoles as having black admixture solely because blacks and mulattoes also identified as Creole in Louisiana. Of course this was not true for most, but the damage was done. At that point, a large amount of creole identified whites in southwest Louisiana switched away from the Creole identity and adopted a Cajun one, despite Cajuns being Louisiana Creoles as well. This increased the Cajun identified population greatly. However, a great many creole whites in Louisiana still identified as Creole well into the mid 20th century. It was especially large in and around New Orleans. However, in the 1960’s during the civil rights movement, mulatto and black Creoles began black pride campaigns surrounding their Creole identity. The local and national Media latched on and so did book authors looking to write about civil rights era black related stories and seemingly overnight, Creole became associated with blacks and mulattoes of Louisiana of a French speaking background to many rather than the Creole whites in Louisiana that the word Creole has been associated with for over 250 years at that point (over 300 years now). Creole identified white creoles still remained after that and still do today, but are greatly reduced in number and are mainly in existence in and around New Orleans and a small part of northern Acadiana (southwest Louisiana).

At the same time in the 1960’s when mulattoes and blacks in Louisiana were pushing a black Creole identity that the Media broadcasted across America, the small group of peoples that identified as Cajuns got together along with some politicians and a language group and convinced many white people of a French speaking background in south Louisiana to identify as Cajuns. People in droves adopted the identity whether they were Acadian descended or not since many viewed the Creole identity to be now polluted. And that is how we got 700,000 Cajun identified people today when we only had a total of 3,000 Acadians settle Louisiana and amounted to only 16,000 in 1860 from natural births inside Louisiana and no more immigration to Louisiana.

[Isleño]

Great thread.

I probably have some distant cousins in Louisiana. There were quite a few Spaniards (mostly Canarians, they are called Isleños because of this) who settled in those lands when it was still Spanish to protect Spanish interests from the British.

I’m a Louisiana isleño and my ancestors came here to Louisiana from the Canary Islands. There are two groups of spanish descendants that exists today here in Louisiana that represent the spanish colonial presence in Louisiana. The first and largest is my group the isleños and the second is a smaller group called the malagueños. The isleños are descendants of Canarians and the malagueños are the descendants of spaniards from city of Málaga and it’s surrounding in Andalucía. We are the sole remaining visible spanish descendant groups in Louisiana. There was a third, a very small one made up of descendants of Castilian government officials, but they no longer exist as a people today because they mixed into some of the French descendant families about 150 years ago that originated in the French Quarter of New Orleans. There is a mestizo group in Louisiana called the Adaesanos, that descend from a mixture of Spaniards, French, Native Americans and Mexican mestizos. However, the isleños and the malagueños are the only two spanish descendant groups in Louisiana.

[Isleño]

Isleno is of course correct about the cuisine being an amalgamation, but the Cajuns came in such numbers that most of the cultures they encountered were absorbed into theirs. We are known as Cajuns (i.e., Cadjeins), not the Canadian and local rich antiquarian attempted reimposition of 1700s "Acadiens", but most La. French before 1960 referred to themselves as Français or Créoles, sometimes interchangeably, less often Cadjeins, although quite aware that it was also interchangeable. Btw, Cajun singer/musician Joe Falcon had some Canary ancestry.

I’m actually friends with Joe Falcón’s great grandson named Wade Falcón. I see him at our isleño festival every year. He has tremendous presentations of his family history.

[Isleño]

Yup! It's definitely separate from your average American cuisine. It's got a lot of spices, seafood, rice, sausage.. a lot of it was actually influenced by the African Creoles that settled there. I'll post some famous Cajun dishes here in a bit

Darling, let me hip you to something… the name of the food cuisine of south Louisiana is called Creole. It’s been called that for hundreds of years. Cajuns are a type of white creole and eat Creole food like other white creoles such as French Creoles, Spanish Creoles and German Creoles as well as black creoles and mixed race creoles such as Creoles of Color. In fact before the term Cajun was invented, Cajuns were called Creoles, and to be exact were called Acadian Creoles. Creole cuisine was influenced by all Creoles, the white ones, the black ones, the mixed race ones, the French ones, the Spanish ones, the German ones, the Acadian ones, not just “African Creoles”.

I’m a white Louisiana Creole of Spanish descent (Spanish Creole) and we are known as isleños and live mainly in southeast Louisiana and we eat the same foods that “Cajuns” eat because we all put in on the food and culture of Louisiana. We are all Creoles. The whites, the blacks, the mixed race. All of us. The French, the Acadians, the Spanish, the Germans, the Africans, the mulattoes. That king cake you showed, that came from French Creoles (white Louisianians of French descent) of New Orleans, jambalaya came from us Spanish Creoles, Etouffée came from Acadian Creoles (Cajuns), seafood okra gumbo came from African Creoles (with a whole lot of influence from the white Creoles of French, Spanish, Acadian and German descent and also from Native Americans. Those influences are roux, trinity, filé powder, and smoked sausage), Courtbouillon (coo-bee-yon) came from French Creoles, the smoked sausage and creole mustard we use along with the potato salad on side of the gumbo came from the German Creoles, red beans and rice came from the white, black and mulatto St.Domingans (St. Domingue was the multicultural French colony that had whites, blacks and mulattoes that existed where the all Black Haiti is today), the Corn Maque Choux came from Louisiana Native Americans etc.

Our south Louisiana food cuisine is a mixture of influences from all the peoples that settled Louisiana. That’s why I often correct people that wrongly call it Cajun food. Cajun is an ancestry (Acadian French), not a cuisine. It’s the same with the music, the culture etc. look at Mardi Gras in Louisiana, that’s from French Creoles from New Orleans, it just spread to others in Louisiana in which southwest Louisiana created a rural version of it. We all share influences here in south Louisiana and all of us are Creoles that put in to create this Creole cuisine of Louisiana. I’m a Louisiana Creole (Spanish Creole) and so are you (Acadian Creole).

[NSXD60]

Thanks for agreeing with me about the food. However I don’t agree that Acadians came in large numbers. The entire Acadian settlement to Louisiana was just 3,000 people total. To put that number in perspective, 57,000 French arrived in Louisiana in the 18th and 19th century and that’s not including the 20th century. Also, close to 3,000 white St. Domingans arrived in Louisiana (St. Domingue, which was the multicultural French colony that would later become the all black Haiti after the whites left because of the Haitian Revolution), yet you hear nothing about white St. Domingans in Louisiana. The white St. Domingans melted into the population of south Louisiana. My own ancestors that came from the Canary Islands of Spain, were just over 2,000 people and we are but a small proportion of Louisianians today, maybe about 60,000 in total in all of Louisiana. Yet you have about 700,000 people today that identify as Cajun in Louisiana. Acadian descendants in Louisiana only numbered about 16,000 in Louisiana in 1860. There is no way that they could be 700,000 today.

If we examine the surnames of Cajun identified people, we see it’s not purely Acadian surnames from the recorded passenger lists of Acadian migrants to Louisiana. We see a large amount of French surnames that were not part of the Acadian migration, which shows that they heavily mixed with the French in Louisiana. There was also a migration of Mobile French from colonial Mobile when it became no longer French. Some of those surnames are found among the Cajun identified population as well. Then we see a significant proportion of white St. Domingue, Spanish and German surnames as well as many English and Irish surnames and an Italian one here and there. So what we have is, the Acadians heavily mixed with the French, but also that group absorbed Mobile French, white St. Domingans, Spanish, Germans, English, Irish and even some Italian descendants into their group. Knowing all of this, there is no way they qualify as Acadians and therefore should not be identifying as Cajun, which we know Cajun is just a corruption if the word Acadian and should therefore describe a Louisiana Acadian. There are some genuine Acadians in Louisiana and they mostly live in the limited areas of Louisiana that were recorded Acadian settlements, which most of south Louisiana was not. However, the vast amount of people that are identifying as Cajun (Louisiana Acadian) today are far from being Acadians, surely not the same or even mostly the same as the migrant group of Acadians that immigrated to Louisiana. There is a saying in Louisiana, one can be Cajun by blood, by marriage or by the back door”. That’s a an attestment of the multiethnic nature of the Cajun identified group today, they are not Acadians and thus not truly Cajuns.

We know that Cajuns identified as Creoles before the invent of the term Cajun. We also know that the term Cajun was invented in the 1860’s and was primarily used as an insult toward Acadians in Louisiana and was considered as fighting words by a great many of Acadian descendants. Some small group of Acadians however, adopted the term as an identity some point after that. In the Jim Crow era of the 1920’s, the term Creole became polluted for a sizeable portion of French speaking whites that identified as Creole because of the confusion about the word by Anglos that made accusations toward white creoles as having black admixture solely because blacks and mulattoes also identified as Creole in Louisiana. Of course this was not true for most, but the damage was done. At that point, a large amount of creole identified whites in southwest Louisiana switched away from the Creole identity and adopted a Cajun one, despite Cajuns being Louisiana Creoles as well. This increased the Cajun identified population greatly. However, a great many creole whites in Louisiana still identified as Creole well into the mid 20th century. It was especially large in and around New Orleans. However, in the 1960’s during the civil rights movement, mulatto and black Creoles began black pride campaigns surrounding their Creole identity. The local and national Media latched on and so did book authors looking to write about civil rights era black related stories and seemingly overnight, Creole became associated with blacks and mulattoes of Louisiana of a French speaking background to many rather than the Creole whites in Louisiana that the word Creole has been associated with for over 250 years at that point (over 300 years now). Creole identified white creoles still remained after that and still do today, but are greatly reduced in number and are mainly in existence in and around New Orleans and a small part of northern Acadiana (southwest Louisiana).

At the same time in the 1960’s when mulattoes and blacks in Louisiana were pushing a black Creole identity that the Media broadcasted across America, the small group of peoples that identified as Cajuns got together along with some politicians and a language group and convinced many white people of a French speaking background in south Louisiana to identify as Cajuns. People in droves adopted the identity whether they were Acadian descended or not since many viewed the Creole identity to be now polluted. And that is how we got 700,000 Cajun identified people today when we only had a total of 3,000 Acadians settle Louisiana and amounted to only 16,000 in 1860 from natural births inside Louisiana and no more immigration to Louisiana.

"Cajun" is not an English-speaking insulting pronunciation of Acadien, but an attempted transcription of La. French Cadjein (kah-jaN, with short nasal, the feminine of which is Cadjénne (not Cadjeinne!), pr. kah-jén, with long nasal, and employing a different suffix, the same seen in English "feminine" borrowed from French, but vowel becoming -é- in La. French: -éne, -énne in final position. )

[Isleño]

"Cajun" is not an English-speaking insulting pronunciation of Acadien, but an attempted transcription of La. French Cadjein (kah-jaN, with short nasal, the feminine of which is Cadjénne (not Cadjeinne!), pr. kah-jén, with long nasal, and employing a different suffix, the same seen in English "feminine" borrowed from French, but vowel becoming -é- in La. French: -éne, -énne in final position. )

Cadien (cadjin) is a shortened form of Acadian in the French language. Cajun is a shortened form of Acadian in the English language. Two separate phenomena. Just like Indian became injun in English, so did Acadian become Cajun. Cajun and Cadien (cadjin) is pronounced differently from each other. Why is it that Acadians in Louisiana despised the name “Cajun” in Louisiana as an insult while taking no offense to Cadien in the French language? Because Anglos that arrived in the state used the English corruption Cajun to insult them in the same way one would use redneck to insult rural southerners. That’s why in south Louisiana today, many peoooe of Acadian descent that have become successful do not like the term Cajun and they identify as “Acadian” today rather than Cajun like their less fortunate brethren. Much of this is moot anyway because the actual number of real Acadians in Louisiana is small since a huge amount of people that claim a Cajun identity are a mixed bag of various ancestries tied together under a French language background rather than actual Acadians.

[NSXD60]

Doesn't much matter, La. French is dying, although it could have been saved, but the local upper classes viewed it as ununified scattered illiterate dialects of proper Euro French and tried to impose the latter in the schools here, only allowing for La. names of native plants and animals, but parents soon lost interest when junior showed off his skills at home by uttering phrases like, "Je suis allé" instead of native "J'ai ité" (I WENT, understandably diphthongized as ZHÉY-TÉ), the "ité" (gone, went), a past participle not in French textbooks has long been mistakenly printed on record labels as "été" (been, was): J'ai été au bal hier au soir, but "ité" is clearly meant here for "I went to the dance last night", because were the meaning "I was", the tense used in La. French, and all French, would be "étais": J'étais (ZHÉ-TÉ, not diphthongized), but to be more distinct:

C'a pas proche été aisé. It WAS not (wasn't) nearly easy. (C'a pr. SAH of course)
C'a pas proche ité aisé. It did not (didn't) nearly GO easy.

ITÉ is cognate with Spanish IDO, both from Latin ITUM (gone).

[Isleño]

Doesn't much matter, La. French is dying, although it could have been saved, but the local upper classes viewed it as ununified scattered illiterate dialects of proper Euro French and tried to impose the latter in the schools here, only allowing for La. names of native plants and animals, but parents soon lost interest when junior showed off his skills at home by uttering phrases like, "Je suis allé" instead of native "J'ai ité" (I WENT, understandably diphthongized as ZHÉY-TÉ), the "ité" (gone, went), a past participle not in French textbooks has long been mistakenly printed on record labels as "été" (been, was): J'ai été au bal hier au soir, but "ité" is clearly meant here for "I went to the dance last night", because were the meaning "I was", the tense used in La. French, and all French, would be "étais": J'étais (ZHÉ-TÉ, not diphthongized), but to be more distinct:

C'a pas proche été aisé. It WAS not (wasn't) nearly easy. (C'a pr. SAH of course)
C'a pas proche ité aisé. It did not (didn't) nearly GO easy.

ITÉ is cognate with Spanish IDO, both from Latin ITUM (gone).

Do you live in Louisiana? Where are you getting this information? I ask because it’s radically different than the information I know and I’m born and raised in south Louisiana. The reason French is dying in Louisiana is a mixture of different historical scenarios. The Greater New Orleans area has a different scenario than Acadiana and both share a scenario that they also share with the Isleños of Louisiana with Spanish. In the city of New Orleans, non-French speaking people migrated into the area with the Louisiana purchase from other states in the US south. These people were Anglos/Scots-Irish. They rapidly gained control of politics in New Orleans and pushed for greater control of the language of the city and pushed English very hard. This contributed to the beginning of a decline in spoken French in New Orleans. The French speaking whites in New Orleans known as French Creoles then imported 10,000 St. Domingans that were being forced out of Cuba by the Spanish government. St. Domingue was the multicultural French colony that had whites, blacks and mulattoes that existed where the all-black Haiti is today. The Haitian Revolution caused the bleeding of whites to Cuba, Louisiana and France. Louisiana had small amounts of St. Domingans that arrived before 1809, but in 1809, 10,000 St. Domingans arrived in New Orleans. 1/3 were white, 1/3 were mulatto and 1/3 were black. This pushed the French language back to a dominant position until the 1830’s and 1840’s when Irish and Germans settled in the city and German, English and Gaelic combined created a large presence. Later in the 1880’s, Italians would also settle in the city. Italians wound up replacing the French Creoles in the French Quarter (Vieux Carré) and the French Quarter became full of Italians from Sicily and southern Italy, so much so it was nicknamed “Little Palermo” for a while until the Italians were ran out. The French Creoles mostly moved to Bayou St. John (Bayou Saint-Jean) area of Mid-City when the Italians had moved in.

So you have at that point English, German and Italian (and a small amount of Gaelic) taking up more space than the French language in New Orleans. Then in the 1920’s, Louisiana passed a law that banned all non-English languages in schools. This was connected to the Jim Crow laws. This was a big malady on the French and Spanish language in New Orleans, it’s surrounding areas and even all of the state. Acadiana (southwest Louisiana) didn’t experience a huge Anglo settlement (although there was a very small one and it mainly affected the Baton Rouge area and areas bordering Acadiana to the north and west) and although there were some Germans in Acadiana, the Germans were German Creoles (Germans of colonial descent) they became French speaking after a century in Louisiana in which they were in Louisiana since 1721 so the French language lasted longer in Acadiana for all of these reasons I’ve mentioned. But Acadiana was largely affected by the school language ban of the 1920’s. Children were not allowed to speak French or Spanish (or even German or Italian) in schools across the state. This also put a stigmatism on the French and Spanish languages so much so that parents were refusing to teach their children their mother tongue languages for fear of their children being discriminated against by Anglo dominated society. Children used to get whipped in school or made to urinate on themselves if they had to go to the bathroom if caught speaking French or Spanish in school. My great grandmother told me that she had her hands whipped with a long yard stick for speaking Spanish in school in the 1920’s. Parents would use the French and Spanish languages to speak among themselves when they didn’t want the children to know what they were saying. And it is this law that has broken the camels back for the French and Spanish languages in Louisiana that have a colonial Louisiana origin. However, there are still French and Spanish peoples of colonial descent in Louisiana that still speak the old dialects of these languages. I happen to be one (Isleño Canarian spanish for me) but we are losing native speakers fast while retaining a few, this gives for French and Spanish in Louisiana of a colonial Louisiana origin. The influences which I mentioned has badly damaged these languages in Louisiana. For French, there are a couple schools and French language societies in New Orleans and in Acadiana there is a French Language group and French language immersion in some schools (the exact opposite of what happened in the 1920’s). And that’s what happened to these languages.

[NSXD60]

Do you live in Louisiana? Where are you getting this information? I ask because it’s radically different than the information I know and I’m born and raised in south Louisiana. The reason French is dying in Louisiana is a mixture of different historical scenarios. The Greater New Orleans area has a different scenario than Acadiana and both share a scenario that they also share with the Isleños of Louisiana with Spanish. In the city of New Orleans, non-French speaking people migrated into the area with the Louisiana purchase from other states in the US south. These people were Anglos/Scots-Irish. They rapidly gained control of politics in New Orleans and pushed for greater control of the language of the city and pushed English very hard. This contributed to the beginning of a decline in spoken French in New Orleans. The French speaking whites in New Orleans known as French Creoles then imported 10,000 St. Domingans that were being forced out of Cuba by the Spanish government. St. Domingue was the multicultural French colony that had whites, blacks and mulattoes that existed where the all-black Haiti is today. The Haitian Revolution caused the bleeding of whites to Cuba, Louisiana and France. Louisiana had small amounts of St. Domingans that arrived before 1809, but in 1809, 10,000 St. Domingans arrived in New Orleans. 1/3 were white, 1/3 were mulatto and 1/3 were black. This pushed the French language back to a dominant position until the 1830’s and 1840’s when Irish and Germans settled in the city and German, English and Gaelic combined created a large presence. Later in the 1880’s, Italians would also settle in the city. Italians wound up replacing the French Creoles in the French Quarter (Vieux Carré) and the French Quarter became full of Italians from Sicily and southern Italy, so much so it was nicknamed “Little Palermo” for a while until the Italians were ran out. The French Creoles mostly moved to Bayou St. John (Bayou Saint-Jean) area of Mid-City when the Italians had moved in.

So you have at that point English, German and Italian (and a small amount of Gaelic) taking up more space than the French language in New Orleans. Then in the 1920’s, Louisiana passed a law that banned all non-English languages in schools. This was connected to the Jim Crow laws. This was a big malady on the French and Spanish language in New Orleans, it’s surrounding areas and even all of the state. Acadiana (southwest Louisiana) didn’t experience a huge Anglo settlement (although there was a very small one and it mainly affected the Baton Rouge area and areas bordering Acadiana to the north and west) and although there were some Germans in Acadiana, the Germans were German Creoles (Germans of colonial descent) they became French speaking after a century in Louisiana in which they were in Louisiana since 1721 so the French language lasted longer in Acadiana for all of these reasons I’ve mentioned. But Acadiana was largely affected by the school language ban of the 1920’s. Children were not allowed to speak French or Spanish (or even German or Italian) in schools across the state. This also put a stigmatism on the French and Spanish languages so much so that parents were refusing to teach their children their mother tongue languages for fear of their children being discriminated against by Anglo dominated society. Children used to get whipped in school or made to urinate on themselves if they had to go to the bathroom if caught speaking French or Spanish in school. My great grandmother told me that she had her hands whipped with a long yard stick for speaking Spanish in school in the 1920’s. Parents would use the French and Spanish languages to speak among themselves when they didn’t want the children to know what they were saying. And it is this law that has broken the camels back for the French and Spanish languages in Louisiana that have a colonial Louisiana origin. However, there are still French and Spanish peoples of colonial descent in Louisiana that still speak the old dialects of these languages. I happen to be one (Isleño Canarian spanish for me) but we are losing native speakers fast while retaining a few, this gives for French and Spanish in Louisiana of a colonial Louisiana origin. The influences which I mentioned has badly damaged these languages in Louisiana. For French, there are a couple schools and French language societies in New Orleans and in Acadiana there is a French Language group and French language immersion in some schools (the exact opposite of what happened in the 1920’s). And that’s what happened to these languages.

"Do you live in...?"
"Where are you getting...?"
"...radically different..."
1.Really? 2.Not from those who attend self-congratulatory festivals. 3.Heard from tourist-conscious city officials? So, what I've concluded reading between the lines of your above text is: La French=Euro French, Isleno Spanish=Euro Spanish.

[Celestia]