Translation provided of earlier message released. In order to well inform all of you: The Reasons we hold for our passionate attachment to our Louisiana Creole identity. As a writer and scholar of things Creole, I appreciate these good references to of which I am well aware. The origin of the word ‘creole’ for some racists who do not understand the historical and multi-ethnic contexts maybe ‘frightening’ or disturbing. But, for us to whom this word remains attached to our families, our rich and multi-ethnic heritage commonly and universally shared and quite deserving of celebrating and honoring, it is unthinkable to think of replacing it with a plastic and politically born word, (Cajun) born out of the Jim Crow period, and which (pretensions) continues to steal the true and ancient origins of Louisiana’s culture and to deny the black cultural component of our heritage and culture which we all hold in common; blacks and whites and which this (Cajun) cultural label continues to insinuate has an Acadian origin, is a duplicity well-known for the last forty years in “Acadiana”. The Acadians were the last ethnic group to be established in Creole Louisiana. They were no more than 10% of the overall population of Louisiana at their arrival and did not know the culture of gumbos and smoked meat even as this culture does not exist in Canada to this day. But the elderly and the well-educated are not fooled by this regional mythology. It is not only extremely absurd, in the face of Louisiana’s well-documented colonial history, but this tendency reveals again that the Lafayette tradition (the capitol of “Cajunism”) of fooling the public and the entire world from the full cultural history of Louisiana in order to profit, remains alive and well, with no regard for the larger truth of our multi-ethnic and shared culture and this ‘Cajunist script’ continues to deny that the children of the first Acadians all became creoles and that they continue to hold on to it in evidence of their adoption of their unique Louisiana creole identity as did all of the ethnicities, before and after their arrival, and which is in full evidence in the courthouses across the State. The large salaries, the tourism, and commerce were unknown in this region dubbed “Acadians” since 1971; but, these things do provide numerous reasons to want to perpetuate these fraudulent ethnic and commercially crafted ideologies. Commerce and greed cannot understand the loyalty and the dignity held among we who cherish our true history and cultural heritage which unites us to the entire creole world without regard for color; a difficult fact to comprehend by those who don’t have/share the values of our historic and interracial culture. It is neither hatred of people of color, nor ignorance of our history, nor greed which will turn us in ‘Cajuns”. We remain creole, ‘born in the colonies’ where this unique culture and its diverse ethnicities succeeded in creating a new people-exotic Louisiana, Creole Louisiana-which only became “Cajun” after 1968 in order to conform to American social order (of black and white) under the pretense of wanting to celebrate the poor Acadians who had brought precious little to the indigenous Louisiana culture.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 16:34:03 +0000