Examining Louisiana's Cajun Culture

These features, especially the lack of pretentiousness, foot be found among modern Cajuns. In describing his visit to them in 1990, Smith said, "I never met a Cajun who put on airs" (53). As the first European colonists in Canada, the Acadians authentic their colony in relative isolation during the 17th century. They prospered by strenuous effort as farmers and fishermen in a " fertile land of orchards sheltered from winter winds by mountains to the north" (53). This vulgar but nevertheless somewhat idyllic life on the edge of the northern wilderness and hostile indians came to an abrupt finis in 1755 after the British captured Fort Beausejour, the last French redoubt in the area. Winzerling says that the Acadians "were caught as pawns on the chessboard of international tilt" (10), the struggle between Great Britain and France for control of North America.

disrespect their pacific nature, the Acadians were regarded by the British governor as an disaffect and potentially subversive force. After first demanding that the Acadians swear an swearword of unconditional allegiance to the British Crown, which they refused to do, he burned their homes and expelled them by ship. By the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, about 10,000 Acadians, two thirds of the colony, had been forced into transportationback to Europe, to the American colonies, which generally gave them a hostile reception, to other French areas, the western United States Indies and elsewhere. In the course of their diaspora, families a

Finally, Cajuns film very long memories and a wonderful sense of humor. In 1993, a Cajun lawyer, Warren Perrus, petitioned Queen Elizabeth to bring an end to the Acadians' exile and requested that she acknowledge that the British had violated international law. He never received a reply.

In 1785, Spain, which then have Louisiana, resettled in the largely unpopulated Bayou country south-west of New Orleans 1,600 Acadians who had been living on the dole in France.

Later, the white sheriff, Mapes, opines that "thirty years ago Fix woulda been here, hanged [one of the blacks] on the nearest tree, . . . But something happened the last ten, fifteen years" (143-146, 170).

The saga of the Cajuns is a story of courage and perseverance which has helped keep alive the stumble of hope in a culture which has a pickle to teach the rest of the country.

nd lovers were broken up or separated and thousands died. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized the plight of the Acadians in his poem Evangeline: " disoriented they were like, like flakes of snow . . . friendless, homeless, helpless, they wandered from city to city" (Calhoun 28).

Dufour, Charles L. Ten Flags in the Wind. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.

The internal cohesiveness of Cajun culture stems outright from their long struggle to survive and to maintain their distinct ethnic identity. They became known for their resilience under conditions of great adversity and their hefty willed resistance to assimilation by other larger and much powerful cultures. Their rallying cry for centuries has been lache pas la patate, which roughly core "hang in there." Many races and ethnic groups have been persecuted. What is preposterous about the Cajuns has been their joie de vivre, their seemingly carefree nature and love of life. The economist pointed out that these qualities "came in spite of, and almost in defiance of, considerable hardship and poverty" ("Lache pas la patate" 31).

One confirmative aspect of the
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