French Louisiana

The Lafayette, Louisiana Museum, home of Alexandre Mouton, President of the Secession Conference, 1861

I (Bonnie) live in the southwest corner of Louisiana, the heart of what is known as "Cajun" country. When I was growing up here, French was commonly heard in and around my home town, most of the merchants and businessmen spoke French or had someone around who did as so many of their customers spoke only that language. After the spread of American affluence and television, the language died out except in remote areas and country pockets, but a determined effort in the 1950s and 60s by a local congressman by the name of James Domengeaux created an agency called CODOFIL--the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana. CODOFIL is still strongly promoting Louisiana French language and culture, and the degree of its preservation that exists is the result, and the result of the determined efforts of young Louisianians of French heritage who have appreciated and promoted their culture. The popularity of Louisiana French music, now widely appreciated as a unique cultural expression along with Creole and African-American musical forms has ensured that Louisiana's distinctive French-influenced cultural gumbo has survived. "Cajun," though, is widely misunderstood outside its home territory--even in the state at large. "Cajun" on menus throughout the U.S. and lately way too often in London and even in provincial England simply means drowned in red pepper. Those of us who know the richness and subtleties of true Cajun cuisine run like mad when we see "Cajun chicken" or other such frights on British or New York menus--we know it will be a travesty of any of our proud culinary dishes.

Over 500 years old, Lafayette's Cathedral Oak has presided over a unique blend of cultural influences.

A visit to southwest Louisiana and to "Cajun Country" is a visit to a complex cultural pocket containing a blend of Caribbean, African-American, French, Spanish and Anglo influences, spiced lightly with Irish, German, Vietnamese and other strains. From town to town, even close neighbors less than twenty miles away, cultural dominance can change. Franklin, for example, with its many Greek-revival plantation-style nineteenth-century homes and moss-draped oaks, was formerly dominated by southern Anglo-American elites. Now populated by the descendents of early planter families and of their African slaves, it remains a pocket of American plantation culture only a few miles away from both the French areas to the west and the bayou regions to the east. Driving through the southern regions of Louisiana is a drive through time-warps of multiple cultural colors.
        And all of this is not to say anything about New Orleans, America's unique port city, the city that almost everyone first thinks of when one hears "Louisiana." New Orleans is truly sui generis and worthy of its own entry. But if anyone is looking for a European sideroad, he or she should certainly look here, to Louisiana, starting with the Queen City perhaps--no one should die without experiencing it--but going on beyond, into the regions where the cultural European past still lingers, still resonates, still fascinates.
         A trip to Louisiana is in many ways a trip to a foreign country, and equally compelling.  It is quintessentially American, yet not like the rest of America.  It is southern, yet unlike the rest of the American south.  Its languages are English, often spoken with a strong accent, various varieties of French like yet unlike the mother tongue.  Its cuisines are rich and proud; food is a religion here.  The oil rig spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a far greater disaster than the national news media generally recognizes. Its threats not only to the environment and to the economy is dire, but its threat to one of America's richest unique cultures is heartbreaking.

After a hiatus of more than two years, I am hoping someone out there will still be interested in reading our blog. I have just returned from my first trip back to Europe since 2008--the longest time between trips for me since the early 1980s. A year in Washington, D.C. and a prolonged re-entry following kept me not only from traveling, but from having much to add to a blog that involved exploring fascinating roads and by-ways. But I have learned that the U.S. has just as many interesting sideroads, with many, many connections to Europe. So I am going to continue to expand the interpretations of the term "sideroads of Europe" to include those in the U.S. that invite European discoveries in other ways. That was one of the many things my year in D.C. taught me. I have been a shameless Europhile for so long--I guess that comes from being educated from the age of 12 by an order of French nuns and from living in a region of the country that proudly proclaims that it preserves the French language. Southwest Louisiana is one of those European side roads, so often both American and yet different.
France in late May, early June 2010, after a two-year absence--was similar: familiar, yet different. I found the streets of Paris dirtier than I had ever seen them, but the spirit of the Parisians as energetic as I remembered. I was there, sadly, to empty the apartment my family has enjoyed for over eleven years, a sad task that involved sifting through memories of so many pleasant experiences, even those that would probably have been trying but for the excitement of place. Sifting through STUFF and trying to figure out what to do with it wasn't easy either: what does one do, for example, with a ten-year old, burnt-out ten-inch television set? But we sold the apartment to friends, which made it much easier to part with it in so many ways. And I found that all of my wonderful, varied friends acquired over the years in Paris jumped to the task of helping, rallied round strongly, and solved all the problems, the television set among them. One wonderful friend simply came to pick it up and take it to the "dechitrie", wherever in the nooks and corners of Paris that might be found.
It wasn't all hard work, so later posts will detail some of the interesting moments. But on June 5 I closed the door for the last time, left the doors and the street that I have greeted with such joy for so many years, and said good-bye to the 12th Arrondissement street that I think is one of the most beautiful in the city.