Transcription
[Music] New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Lafayette, American cities with very French names. The main cities of Louisiana. It was a certain René Robert Cavelier de La Salle who, in 1682, explored the Mississippi basin, took possession of the territory in the name of King Louis XIV, and named it, in his honor, French Louisiana. At the beginning of the 18th century, it was gigantic. It stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. But wars would gradually reduce this territory. France had to cede western Louisiana to Spain and Canada to Great Britain. Some of the French-speaking inhabitants of these northern territories, called Acadians, would even immigrate to present-day Louisiana, where they would be called Cajuns. This progressive dismantling would end in 1803. The First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, sold Louisiana to the very young United States for 5 million dollars, plus 10 million for New Orleans. However, French-speaking immigration would continue, coming notably from the Antilles and the Caribbean. Planters accompanied by their slaves, and French would mingle with Creole. But despite the importance of the French-speaking community in the state, from 1916, it was forbidden to use French in schools. In 1921, the Louisiana Constitution no longer authorized the use of any language other than English. The Cajuns became increasingly isolated. A century later, they still represent almost 10% of the population of Louisiana, even if the use of French is gradually being lost from generation to generation. Some are still fighting to preserve the language and traditions. Return Ticket to Cajun Country. This is a report by Fanny Allard. Louisiana, land of adventure. Here, influences are Creole, French, Native American, and Acadian. But French-speaking culture is what unites Louisianians today. Near Lafayette, in the south of the state, French is spoken with an accent. It's Cajun French, named after this people of the Americas who have lived here for three centuries. Honeybee swarm. Jourdan Thibodeau is a child of Louisiana. He built this farm more than ten years ago in the marshes and lives here with his wife and two daughters, just a few kilometers from his parents. And a song, "The Heritage Dress." "I was born here, I was born here. It's the Cadillac. Roger Masmoule. When I was little, I said to myself, one day I'll be a Cajun, I'll be a farmer, and all that." This dream, Jourdan realized it by working hard. Raised by a grandmother who passed on French to him. When he speaks of his fellow citizens, he calls them Americans. "And the young people, they want to be more, more like Americans, it's cooler, it's more accepted. But they prefer to be that than something else. For our parents' generation, it wasn't a good thing to be Cajun. It wasn't intelligent. It was just that we were like Mexicans, we were the stars. It was like that for us. And that's why I tried to hold on and forget the Cajun traditions and the language." Jourdan is a swamp cowboy. When he's not hunting alligators, he raises cattle and rides horses, far from the cities. It's his way of defending his heritage, perpetuating traditions. "For me, it's just continuing to be like my grandfather was, like my great-grandmother was. Live life, live the culture. So continue the same ways, with the same art, the same way of life. With my children, we will gather every evening to eat burgers. And now it's the time." Formerly, southern Louisiana was predominantly French-speaking, as the Cajuns are descendants of the Acadians, those French Canadians driven out by the British Crown in the mid-18th century, who migrated to Louisiana and its thousands of hectares of bayous, or waterways of the Mississippi that surround the land everywhere in the south of the state. Norbert LeBlanc comes from this lineage. "The biggest oak tree in the bayou isn't bigger than that one, maybe five hundred years old, a lot." Like his ancestors 300 years ago, Norbert has never left the bayou. "You can't. We are here, and we are here. I've always been in the bayou. I cut wood with my hand to put it in the wagon. We don't come from outside, it's a corner of the river." No corner of the river holds any secrets for Norbert. At 85, this old Cajun still hunts alligators every week. A few years ago, in the bayou, there were more alligators than men. They can measure up to 4 meters and live 30 years. The price of a good one is 80 dollars. Norbert speaks French because it's his mother tongue, but he practices it little. When he was a child, his teachers forbade him to speak it at school. "When I started school, it was in French. Then in the first grade, the teacher said, 'You can't speak French anymore.' The government said, 'You can't speak French.' It was hard because they told us to speak English. And it wasn't something that was seen here." From 1921, Louisiana led a vast assimilation campaign aimed at Americanizing the state. The constitution banned French in education. Cajuns were stigmatized. "Young people prefer English. It's me. The old world." [Music] Like many Cajuns of his generation, Norbert did not pass on French to his children. In Louisiana, the Baby Boomers, these children of the post-war era, are called the Lost Generation, the one that didn't learn to speak French. This is the case of Francis Pabbi, a painter born in Lafayette to French-speaking parents, who only speaks English. They were too often severely punished by their teachers. Cajuns then abandoned French and, with it, a fundamental part of their identity. Through his paintings, Francis celebrates Louisiana culture, a culture he expresses with the language of painting. For lack of speaking French, in the cemeteries of the south of the state, the names are witnesses to history: Champagne, Broussard, or Thibodeau. These Catholic families have never left Louisiana, their land of exile. "Home." [Music] "My husband, my family, it was Lafayette. I was born there." Jourdan Thibodeau has worked in the meat industry since he was 14. Today, he manages his boudin and tasso production company, local specialties. Here, they cook pork, crawfish, or alligator. In Cajun country, food is sacred and mixed. "It's the best. It's not just words. It's the quality of the food. Then, boudin, it was French, but it changed when we arrived. And it became Creole with the Africans, with other ingredients. And that's why it's so good, because you can take the best of everything." At 35, Jourdan is a fervent defender of Cajun culture, which he claims even in his cooking. "We have never changed anything. It's the same. It's better than our grandparents. If you start something new, it's not the same. We don't need to change something that is good." While French risks disappearing in Louisiana, a movement to rehabilitate the language emerged in the 1960s. [Music] Franco-English immersion programs are developing in schools and allow a young generation of Louisianians to learn French. Will and Drake are part of these young people. Two years ago, they launched Télé-Louisiane, the region's first French-speaking audiovisual media. "In Louisiana, we are very disconnected from our history, our literature, our heritage, which is much richer than we think. And we try to show Louisiana, and in Louisiana, but also in the diaspora, everywhere in the United States and in the world, that it is worth celebrating Louisiana, our music, our culture, our languages." The young media has 18 employees who each week produce a show around a different theme. That day, filming took place in New Orleans, in the French Quarter. On the program: the Creole of color. "What does Creole mean in Louisiana? It's complicated. It means many things to many people. But the term is of Portuguese origin. It used to mean born in the New World." With over 260,000 views this year, the young media hopes to be broadcast on television soon. For Will and Drake, the future of French-speaking culture is them, the young Louisianians. "We don't have a history of French. It's something folkloric. It's something very negative, in fact. It was a success, a cultural success. We didn't have a memory for that. French is our culture. If we want Louisiana to continue to be itself, we must invest in music, culture, language, and other things that make it different and special. I believe that whether black, white, Native American, whatever, I am Louisianian. We have to face it with this heritage." To eat, to pray, to work, to be Cajun is a way of life that this community passes down from generation to generation through oral tradition and music. Jourdan learned to play the violin on his own, without sheet music, but by listening to the elders. As a child, he followed his mother to concerts. Today, he sings with his daughter. "And like that, at home, the days my father told me, 'We are the last people who speak French in Louisiana.' It's really important. So, you have to listen to it, you have to hear it. In his good days, music helped a lot of young people who speak French. And talent in music is also just a great thing that you can't, you can speak it, and it's in your heart. I decided I would sing in French because, for me, singing in English is enough. The old songs that are never sung in French, and they sound better." Jourdan is raising his daughters in French, despite the omnipresence of American culture. It's a daily battle he doesn't intend to give up. "I am here to do this. If it doesn't go as I want with the others, with the next generation, it won't be my role. I've done my job. I'm continuing with my children. And even if they are the last, it won't be me who is the last. It's my responsibility. It won't die with me." And every time I hear my daughters speak French, something special happens. The most important thing is love. Without that, we have nothing. 40 years ago, there were barely a hundred thousand French speakers in Louisiana. Today, there are more than 250,000. Louisianians see themselves as citizens of the United States, but custodians of an identity they promise to defend at all costs. Louisiana, a piece of old France in the New World. And so, that's it for this report from Louisiana, a report you can of course find on France24.com. I'll see you very soon for a new episode of Return Ticket.