Amédé Ardoin, Early 20th Century Louisiana Creole Singer & Accordion Player (YouTube video, information & comments)

AlvisaMinidoruv, Nov 10, 2011

The voice of Amédé Ardoin is so good it's a bit painful. Shockingly beautiful, violently emotional. This side was recorded with Dennis McGee, and is one of my favorites that he did, up there with Two Step de la Prairie Solieau and Amadie Two Step.

Album - "I'm Never Comin' Back"
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The lyrics and English translations for this song are given in the comment section below. 

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post presents information about and showcases a YouTube sound file of early 20th century Louisiana Creole singer and accordion player Amédé Ardoin.  

This post also presents selected comments about Amédé Ardoin from the discussion threads for several YouTube sound files of this historically important Louisiana singer/musician.

The content of this post is presented for historical, socio-cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Amédé Ardoin for his musical legacy. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these sound files on YouTube.
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This is part of an ongoing pancocojams series on Louisiana Creole culture. Click the links that are found below for more pancocojams posts on this subject.

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INFORMATION ABOUT AMEDE ARDOIN
From https://heartoflouisiana.com/amede-ardoin/ "Amede Ardoin" [no publishing date cited, retrieved on August 26, 2023
"Amede Ardoin, a French-speaking Creole music pioneer, can be likened to the rock stars of our generation. His legacy is steeped in both musical brilliance and personal tragedy.

ROCK STAR OF HIS ERA

In the early 20th century, Ardoin, a virtuoso on the accordion, composed and recorded a number of songs that marked the genesis of today’s Creole and Zydeco music. Darrell Bourque, a writer and poet who has extensively researched Ardoin’s life and work, likens him to a rock star of his time.[…]

A TRAGIC END FOR AMEDE ARDOIN

Ardoin’s flourishing musical career was cut short by a horrific act of violence that left him severely injured. Bourque explained that Ardoin was playing at a dance and, “he asked someone to give him a rag to wipe his face.  A White woman, without hesitation, opened her purse and handed him a handkerchief.”  That caught the attention of two White men, whom Bourgue described as racist, “who declared that Amede would never perform again”. The two men followed Ardoin home that night and beat him.  Bourque said, “The story goes that they rolled over his head and neck with a Model A Ford and thought they had killed him.

[…]

BURIED IN AN UNMARKED GRAVE

Ardoin suffered severe brain injuries and was institutionalized at the Central Louisiana State Hospital in Pineville, where he died a few months later. His remains were buried anonymously in a potter’s field. Bourque lamented, “The whole idea of genius ending up unclaimed, alone, solitary, not being able to be in connection with anything that defined his life to a large extent is very touching.”

TRIBUTE TO AMEDE ARDOIN’S LEGACY

The St. Landry Parish Visitors Center near Opelousas has a life-size bronze statue of Ardoin. Artist Russell Whiting created the 1,500 pound piece. The statue was dedicated in 2018 on March 11, Ardoin’s birthday. The statue depicts Ardoin holding an accordion and a lemon, which he used to soothe his throat."...
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Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyIbUD5_7Ko&t=67s for the 2007 YouTube video entitled
"The Death of Amedee Ardoin".

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SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THE DISCUSSION THREADS OF SEVERAL YOUTUBE SOUND FILES OF AMEDE ARDOIN

These discussion threads are given in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only.

Discussion thread #1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJePDKmNcrw [This is the sound file that is embedded in this pancocojams post.]

1. 

2.@joaomiguelxs, 2012
"O, toi, 'titte fille je m'en vas
O, dans la maison tout seul
O, c'est pas la peine tu me fais tout
Ca t'as fait avec moi
J'ai pas d'argent
J'ai pas de maison pour aller
J'ai pas d'ouvrage pour moi rester
O, éou je vas rester?

END

Translation:

Oh, none of my relatives want anything to do with me
Oh, what am I gonna do with you?
Oh, I'm not nearly ready to leave
Oh, it's me alone, me, all alone
I don't know if I'm ever gonna come back
Oh, you cause me so much misery
I'm not gonna come see you

**
2. @deecee4644,2017
"I was introduced to Ardoin's music by an internet friend in Louisiana many years ago and have loved it ever since.  His voice just seems to call to me across the decades through black and white and color film and 78 clay records, vinyl and now finally through digital medium worldwide.   I think Amede would have been humbled and very proud that his music, so short on this planet, has survived for almost 100 years and is enjoyed by probably more people now than he even saw in his short life.  How incredible is that?  What a legacy to leave."

**
3. @1blastman, 2019
"His singing is like a Creole Robert Johnson; I've heard that his accordion playing was incredibly advanced and original for his time. 

I do know that this man was a special talent.  It's so sad that the people he was playing for couldn't appreciate his wonderful ability to bring so many emotions into a song"

**
4. @joaomiguelxs, 2012

LES BLUES DE VOYAGE

O, tous mes parents veulent pas
O, qui c'est je vas faire avec toi
O, j'suis pas proche près partir
O, c'est mon tout seul, moi, tout seul
Je sais pas quand jamais que je vas revenir
O, toi, tu me fais de la misère
Je vas pas'venir te voir

O, tous mes parents veulent pas
O, que moi je vas c'ez toi
O, c'est par rapport à toi
Mon je m'en vas
N'importe éou je vas aller, catin
Tous les autres veulent pas me voir
Boy, j'ai pas d'argent

(continues)"

**
5. @joaomiguelxs,2012
"O, toi, 'titte fille je m'en vas
O, dans la maison tout seul
O, c'est pas la peine tu me fais tout
Ca t'as fait avec moi
J'ai pas d'argent
J'ai pas de maison pour aller
J'ai pas d'ouvrage pour moi rester
O, éou je vas rester?

END

Translation:

Oh, none of my relatives want anything to do with me
Oh, what am I gonna do with you?
Oh, I'm not nearly ready to leave
Oh, it's me alone, me, all alone
I don't know if I'm ever gonna come back
Oh, you cause me so much misery
I'm not gonna come see you"

**
6. @joaomiguelxs, 2012
"translation (cont)
Oh, you little girl, I'm going
Oh, back to my house all alone
Oh, it's no use for you to do
All you've done to me
I have no money
I have no house to go to
I have no work to help me stay
Oh, where will I stay?

(Contributed by David Sousa)"

**
7. @doucetlofts7324, 2015
"Ca Cest si bon cher! son temps créoles obtenir le crédit qu'ils méritent pour une culture qu'ils ont contribué à façonner probablement plus que tout autre groupe dans la région dans la sud de la lousianne."
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Google translate from French to English:
"It's so good dear! Its time Creoles get the credit they deserve for a culture they helped shape probably more than any other group in the region in South Louisiana."

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8.@wadefalcon7344, 2018
"In 1934, the end of the Depressions kicked off a new wave of early Cajun recording sessions. Yet, almost all of these major labels had retired from making Cajun records except RCA Victor.

Read more: https://earlycajunmusic.blogspot.com/2017/03/les-blues-de-voyage-amede-ardoin-dennis.html "

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Discussion thread #2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8QNH_RLXqo Amédé Ardoin Si Dur D'Etre Seul (So Hard To Be Alone) (1934) published by randomandrare, Nov 23, 2014; Amédé Ardoin:Vocals & Accordion

1. @bessieclark7711, 2021
"I have a CD by him. I think he was from Haiti and never spoke English. They say he was the original for that style of Louisiana music. He was treated very badly because of his origin."

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Reply
2. @pfowler8310, 2021
"No not from Haiti he and his family are originally from around St Landry snd Evangeline parish. I’m from that area and know the family.  My family on both sides only spoke creole French, my parents grew up this way. Louisiana was Frances Territory.  Unfortunately many of my ancestors were enslaved, so that’s why they spoke French, France’s territory."

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Reply
3. @CoreyHarrisinterviews, 2022
"@pfowler8310  lâches pas la patate !"

**
Reply
4. @pfowler8310, 2022
"@CoreyHarrisinterviews   I've heard the phrase before"

**
Reply
5. @QUINTUSMAXIMUS,2022
"@pfowler8310  That means don't give up, hold on, even if it's hot like a hot potato."

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Visitor comments are welcome.

What Are The Ethnic & Cultural Differences Between Contemporary Louisiana Creoles & Cajuns? (Part I- Article Reprint/Excerpts)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part I of a two part pancocojams series on the ethnic and cultural differences between contemporary Louisiana Creoles and Cajuns.

This post presents one complete reprinted article and excerpts from two online articles about Louisiana Louisiana Creoles and  Louisiana Cajuns.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2023/08/what-are-ethnic-cultural-differences_25.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. That post showcases two YouTube videos that address the subject of Creoles And Cajuns ethnicities and cultures. Selected comments from the discussion threads of those videos are also included in that post.

The content of this post is presented for historical, socio-cultural, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

****
ARTICLE REPRINT
From https://explorehouma.com/about/cajun-vs-creole/ The Difference Between Cajuns & Creoles [no publication date cited; retrieved August 25, 2023]
"The term Creole can have many meanings, but during the early days of Louisiana, it meant that a person was born in the colony and was the descendant of French or Spanish parents. The term is a derivative of the word “criollo,” which means native or local, and was intended as a class distinction. In present Louisiana, Creole generally means a person or people of mixed colonial French, African American and Native American ancestry. The term Black Creole refers to freed slaves from Haiti and their descendants.

Still another class of Creole originates with the placage system in which white and creole men took on mixed-race mistresses in a lifelong arrangement, even if the men were married or married later. In this arrangement, the women had property, their children were educated and entitled to part of the man’s estate upon his death. In New Orleans, these people made up the artisan class and became wealthy and very influential.

“Cajun” is derived from “Acadian” which are the people the modern day Cajuns descend from. These were the French immigrants who were expelled from Nova Scotia, and eventually landed in Louisiana after decades of hardship and exile. Hearty folks from many backgrounds married into the culture, including Germans, Italians, Free People of Color, Cubans, Native Americans and Ango-Americans. French or patois, a rural dialect, was always spoken. Due to the isolation of the group in the southern locations of Louisiana, they have retained a strong culture to this day.

As to the difference in the cuisines, Creole can be defined as “city cooking” with influences from Spain, Africa, Germany, Italy and the West Indies combined with native ingredients. Cajun cooking is more of a home cooked style that is rich with the ingredients at hand in the new world the Acadians settled into. A one pot, hearty meal is typical in Cajun cooking."

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ARTICLE EXCERPT #1
From https://www.experienceneworleans.com/cajun.html Cajuns and Creoles -- what's the difference? [no publishing date cited; retrieved August 25, 2023]
"This has been an ongoing debate among historians, linguists and Louisianans for decades. It’s a complex and complicated story that involves intercontinental wars, real estate transfers, politics, economics, language and identity shifts that have occurred over the past 300 years.

All Cajuns are Creole by virtue of being descendants of Acadian exiles born in the colony, however not all Creoles are Cajun because many do not have Acadian ancestry....

Today, just like gumbo recipes, everyone has their own version of what it means to be Creole or Cajun. And just like Creole and Cajun, New Orleans remains mysterious and completely undefinable. 

Still, we try our best to break it down for you below.

Cajuns

Cajuns are the French colonists who settled the Canadian maritime provinces (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) in the 1600s. The settlers named their region "Acadia," and were known as “Acadians.”

In 1745, the British threatened to expel the Acadians unless they pledged allegiance to the King of England. Unwilling to subject themselves to the King who opposed the French and Catholics, Acadians refused. They also did not want to join the British in fights against the Indians, who were their allies and relatives.  To dominate the region without interference, the British expelled the Acadians. This eventually became known as Le Grand Dèrangement or “Great Upheaval” of 1755. 

The word “Cajun” is derived from the French pronunciation of “Acadien.”  The French of noble ancestry would say, "les Acadiens", while some referred to the Acadians as, "le 'Cadiens", dropping the "A.”

Over a 21-year period from 1764-1785, approximately 3,000 Acadians found refuge in Louisiana with its strong French background and Catholic heritage. Over time, many existing elements of Creole culture fused with their own unique folklore, music and cuisine.

Cajuns retained a unique dialect of the French language(Cajun French) and are often depicted as a rustic people who make their living fishing, trapping, hunting and farming.   However, Cajuns today primarily speak English and work in every imaginable profession."...

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ARTICLE EXCERPT #2
From https://www.hnoc.org/publications/first-draft/whats-difference-between-cajun-and-creole-or-there-one  What's the difference between Cajun and Creole—or is there one? published October 16, 2020 by Molly Cleaver, editor

"What do we mean when we talk about Cajun Country? The simple answer is that the term is synonymous with Acadiana, a 22-parish region settled in the mid-18th century by exiles from present-day Nova Scotia. About 3,000 Acadians arrived in South Louisiana from 1764 to around 1785, and now, more than 250 years later, their creolized name, Cajun (derived from the French Acadien), can be found everywhere: there’s the Ragin’ Cajuns, the athletic moniker of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (ULL). There’s the Cajun Heartland State Fair, held annually (pre-COVID) on the grounds of the Cajundome. And countless small businesses, from Cajun Power to Cajun Fitness, Cajun Broadband, and Cajun Mart, use the term to ground their names in a sense of place.

South Louisiana’s reputation as Cajun Country …[is] actually a fairly recent phenomenon, the latest twist in a long story about Creole identity and United States race relations. … the region was only just beginning to be known as Cajun Country. For two centuries, “Creole” had been the dominant term used to describe the region’s people and culture; Cajuns existed, but prior to the 1960s they did not self-identify as such in large numbers. For Cajuns were—and are—a subset of Louisiana Creoles. Today, common understanding holds that Cajuns are white and Creoles are Black or mixed race; Creoles are from New Orleans, while Cajuns populate the rural parts of South Louisiana. In fact, the two cultures are far more related—historically, geographically, and genealogically—than most people realize….

Part of the Creole World

When the Acadians arrived in Louisiana, they were forced to adapt to the new environment—starkly different from the cold climate and British rule they had known in Canada. Part of that adaptation—building with rot-resistant cypress, growing rice instead of wheat—meant interacting with Native peoples and other inhabitants of the region. “A lot of people think the Acadians were the first ones here, but they weren’t,” said historian Shane K. Bernard, a curator for the McIlhenny Company and author of The Cajuns: Americanization of a People.  

By the mid-18th century, Louisiana Creole identity had been two generations in the making. Contrary to popular belief today, the term carried no racial designation—one could be of entirely European, entirely African, or of mixed ancestry and still be a Creole. It simply meant someone who was native to the colony and, generally, French-speaking and Catholic. “Right from the start it was a very diverse community when the Acadians arrived,” said Christophe Landry, a scholar of Creole Louisiana. “[The Acadian exiles] intermingled, mixed, and adopted local culture, including Creole identity, within the first two generations.”

Acadians, enslaved West Africans, Houma, Chitimacha, Choctaw, German immigrants, Canadian trappers, French and Spanish settlers—all contributed to a process now known as creolization. Fueled by European colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade, creolization occurred throughout the Latin Caribbean world: different populations, most of them in lands new to them, blended their native cultural practices—culinary, linguistic, musical—to create new cultural forms. Gumbo drew upon West African and Native American sources (okra and rice from the former; filé, or crushed sassafras leaves, from the latter) and French culinary techniques (roux). Creolized French—Kouri-Vini, also known as Louisiana Creole—was, by the 1800s, in wide practice, including among Acadian descendants. The accordion, a star feature of both Cajun and zydeco music, was brought to the colony by German settlers, and its use was popularized in part by the enslaved people working those plantations. 

Creolization, Bernard said, “was the beginning of becoming Cajun. . . . But the fact is a lot of Cajuns today don’t think of themselves as Creole. It all gets back to self-identification.”

[…]

Part and parcel of Americanization in the early 20th century was “its racial corollary,” Jim Crow segregation, Landry wrote in his 2015 doctoral thesis. Well established by the 1920s, Jim Crow separated white from nonwhite, funneling the historically diverse Creole populace into a racial binary at a time when its language traditions were under threat. The “one-drop rule” of racial purity underpinning segregation chipped away at white Creoles’ comfort with the “Creole” label. “With some white Creoles, when they learned the word could be connected to Blacks, they dropped the term,” said Herman Fuselier, host of the popular Zydeco Stomp radio show on Lafayette’s KRVS-FM and a specialist in Creole culture.

During the 1920s the hardening of the racial divide prompted white historians and community leaders to valorize the period of the Acadian expulsion, which is to say, before creolization. As Landry recounts in his doctoral thesis, the dream of Acadie blossomed in the popular imagination: Evangeline, the Longfellow poem from 1847, and two film adaptations of it (1913, 1929) were held up as a Eurocentric Acadian ideal. Tourism to Nova Scotia, based on interest in the Acadians, rose. Underpinning the Acadian craze, Landry argues, was a desire by white Creoles to reach back in time “to a romanticized, commodified, whitened Acadian identity.” 

World War II was a turning point in the process of shifting Cajuns away from their Creole roots and toward the burgeoning American mainstream. Louisiana Creoles had kept a proud distance from Anglo-American culture going back to the colony’s transition to US territory in 1803, but after the war, “a lot of Cajuns came back . . . changed, very proud to be American,” Bernard said. “Even if you were on the home front, if you were the loved one of someone serving overseas, you felt swept up in the wartime fervor.” The introduction of television in the 1950s further solidified local ties to mainstream America. 

By the 1960s, South Louisiana’s francophone heritage was due for a revival, after so many years of English-forward Americanization in the region. Although many whites still identified as Creole, segregation and the Acadian-focused heritage movement of the 1920s had conscripted white and nonwhite residents of South Louisiana into increasingly separate, racialized spheres—Acadian and Creole. The revival movement to come would separate those categories even further, turning Acadian into Cajun in the process.

[…]

the region’s growing pride in its Acadian heritage held tension along white sociocultural lines, best exemplified by the 1968 establishment of the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL). A state-funded agency, the organization was founded to revive the French language in the area. However, it approached the creolized French spoken over the previous 200 years as an aberration: the council imported teachers from outside the country to teach Continental French in local schools. Its membership and patronage was overwhelmingly white and bourgeois; events were fancy affairs—“balls and tuxedos and gowns and cigars and banquets,” Landry said—where French opera was celebrated and traditional Cajun and Creole music was treated as a sideshow.

[…]

As the 1970s progressed, ethnic-pride movements began to pop up around the country, inspired by the successes of the civil rights era. The groundswell of Cajun pride was increasingly at odds with CODOFIL’s tendency to privilege “an elite, genteel Acadian minority,” as Bernard put it. Use of “Cajun” and self-identification as such began to skyrocket. Many in the “Acadian” camp objected to "Cajun," as it had a history of being used as a slur, to mean poor and trashy. (As Herman Fuselier recalled of his youth in the 1960s, “When a little white boy called me the n-word, the best comeback I could come up with was to call him a Cajun.”) The Cajun revival reclaimed the word, attaching it to the beloved food, music, and language of South Louisiana. 

[…]

In a 2018 article for the Journal of Cultural Geography, Alexandra Giancarlo includes an image of an advertisement created in 2016 by the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism: “Cajun 101,” it reads, followed by the following list—“Gumbo, Zydeco, Fais Do-Do.” 

The ad exemplifies the complicated tangle of history, identity, and racial politics surrounding the Cajun revival and its legacy. Gumbo, as discussed previously, is not solely Cajun but, more broadly, Creole. Zydeco is musically, racially, and culturally different from Cajun music—“zydeco was sharecropper’s music, Black poor people’s music,” Fuselier said—and conflation of the two related forms has long irked its practitioners. “Buckwheat Zydeco, he had in his contract that his music couldn’t be described as Cajun music, and if it was, the gig would be canceled,” Fuselier said. 

This sensitivity to mislabeling is not simply about music; it’s part of the complicated racial subtext of “Cajunization,” to use the term coined in 1991 by cultural geographer Cécyle Trépanier. The lasting dominance of the Cajun revival, compounded by the flattening effect of tourism marketing, has largely erased small-town and rural Creoles of color from popular depictions of their own culture. Similarly, the contributions of Native Americans, African Americans, Vietnamese, and other significant historical populations have been overshadowed by the “Cajun” brand. While that brand was being built, in the 1960s and ’70s, Creoles of color were continuing to fight for basic equality as American citizens; they did not have the luxury or the systemic power to advocate for Creole identity alongside Cajun. “Only recently have they been able to shift their energies to the promotion of their unique identity,” said Giancarlo.

No longer known as Acadian Creoles, Cajuns remain the poster children for all of Acadiana, but there have been recent attempts to diversify representation of the region. In 2008, responding to the push for inclusivity, Festivals Acadiens changed its name to Festivals Acadiens et Créoles. The Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism has also created a “Creole Country” map highlighting the art and history of Creoles of color. In the academic world, Cajun and Creole are increasingly presented alongside each other, twisted siblings of the racial- and cultural-identity wringer.…

This story appears in the Summer/Fall 2020 issue of The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly.”…

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What Are The Ethnic & Cultural Differences Between Contemporary Louisiana Creoles & Cajuns? (Part II-YouTube videos & comments)

Masaman, May 28, 2017

Many people often use the terms Cajun and Louisiana Creole interchangeably, and although there are many historical, linguistic, and cultural similarities between the two groups, they are very distinct in other ways. In this video we are going to be delving into the history of the Cajuns and Creole people that live in the modern American state of Louisiana, and why and how they both came to be. **** Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part II of a two part pancocojams series on the ethnic and cultural differences between contemporary Louisiana Creoles and Cajuns.

This post showcases two YouTube videos that address the subject of Creoles And Cajuns ethnicities and cultures. Selected comments from the discussion threads of those videos are also included in that post

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2023/08/what-are-ethnic-cultural-differences.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. That post presents one complete reprinted article and excerpts from two online articles about Louisiana Louisiana Creoles and  Louisiana Cajuns.

The content of this post is presented for historical, socio-cultural, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the producers and publishers of these videos and thanks to all those who are featured in that video. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post.

**** SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THE DISCUSSION THREAD FOR SHOWCASE VIDEO #1 [This video is shown at the beginning of this pancocojams post.] Numbers are added for referencing purposes only.

1. @robertdennis550,2021
"My Father's family is Creole and I was always amazed at the diversity within it. My Father and I are brown skinned and have slightly more prominent Native American features such as cheeks and nose. His father was very dark with more African features, but his mother could pass for white all day long and they were French Creole speakers. All this within 3 generations. Go figure. :)"

**
Reply
2. @goldeneyebby7477, 2023
"Same as me my creole father was dark as chocolate his mom was ghost pale I remember being with her in this general store and this white man yells angrily at me saying I couldn't shop alone I said my grandmother is at the register he looked all over the store tryin to see where my black granny was lol once she called me to go,, the look on his face but I will say he was always so nice to me after..my mom parents (mom)native American and( dad)African..my mom has an soft peanut butter skintone with soft straight hair it's crazy my little sister has freckles and sandy reddish hair I'm my parents darkest child my little girl is pale light skin with straight hair it's really crazy cuz I'm an dark skin dread head black American woman lol"

**
Reply
3. @tonyc.7538, 2023
"@goldeneyebby7477  Most New Orleans Creoles are White. It's not a racial quality, it's a French quality. That being said, there are mixed race Creoles in New Orleans, that are known as Creoles of color. I'm only sharing because a lot of people make the mistake that New Orleans Creole has something to do with being mixed race, when it has nothing at all to do with that, as you may already know. Even people that live in New Orleans don't know their own culture and history a lot of the time.

**
Reply
4. @tiahnarodriguez3809, 2023
"@tonyc.7538  Creole has a couple definitions, so it’s understandable that everyone would think it means something different. One is “a group of mixed race black people with French ancestry in relation to Louisiana”, and another is “descendant of Louisiana” that’s why there are labels such as Spanish creole, French creole, African creole, etc. Both are true, but I agree with you that it’s not accurate to think creole are only “mixed race” when that’s not the only definition of creole."

**
Reply
5. @mellandy87, 2023
"@tonyc.7538  I don't know where you got all this misinformation but it's a shame on your part. I'm Louisiana Creole. Its not only in New Orleans dear. lol Creole is a French term given to anyone descendants of Colonial French settlers before the Louisiana Purchase. Its also a culture and ethnic group of people throughout the south and former French Colonies. MOST CREOLE PEOPLE ARE MIXED RACE. You need to get over that fact. Cajuns are the only Canadian French descendants who sometimes claim to be of Only the "White" race.  And most of us in the culture know that's a fantasy. They have a separate culture from Creoles and ethnic Identity. Before term "Cajun" came about everyone in the former French colony was called Creole. The English took over and started to separate the White presenting creoles from the People of Color presenting Creoles. Hence the Cajun term took over. My people only claim Creole as our ethnic group. This is America and I have never met a "pure" ethnic group in this county ever. lol google it if you need a reference."

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Reply
6. @tonyc.7538, 2023
"@mellandy87  With all due respect,  you're making contradictory statements. You said, correctly, that everyone in the state was called Creole aka French descendants in Louisiana, until the Cajuns arrived from Acadiana. But then you said that the Cajun terminology "took over" when the English arrived (I guess you meant Americans) and arbitrarily divided the White Creoles and the Creoles of color. To me, that sounds like you're basing your understanding of the Louisiana Creole culture on the arbitrary, binary division of the race obsessed  Americans. When you say the Cajun terminology took over, it sort of sounds like you're agreeing with the incorrect misunderstanding of the French culture of Louisiana by the English speakers/Americans.

Because, yes, in a bad way, the Cajun misunderstanding did take over. There are people in Louisiana right now with traditional Louisiana French Creole names, who identify themselves as "Cajuns" when their own surnames betray the fact that their Louisiana Creole lineage predates the Acadian migrations following the Seven Years War. Some of them even know this, but they identify themselves as "Cajun" because it's easier and less confusing to people who have been so thoroughly mislead and are completely ignorant of our Creole history and culture. It's crazy that there are so many people that have surnames that go back generations in Louisiana and they're still ignorant or willingly being misleading about the difference between Cajun and Creole.

Most Louisiana Creoles are not "mixed race" as you said. And not all Cajuns are one race. There are black Cajuns just like there are black Creoles. They're not the majority,  of course, just like the majority of Louisiana Creoles are not black or mixed race.

The majority of Creoles are one "race", which would be Caucasian, but that's not all that meaningful when the race is made up of hundreds if not thousands of specific tribes and cultures, which eventually formed into the various European nation states that we all know today.

There are mixed race (black, French) Louisiana Creoles and black Louisiana Creoles which are commonly referred to in modern times as "Creoles of color". During French (and later Spanish) colonial rule in the Louisiana territory, there were numerous separate terms to refer to Creoles of color in Louisiana that all had to do with the various shades of skin, from darkest to lightest. Once the Americans and English speakers took over, following the Louisiana purchase and especially statehood in 1812 when more English speaking Americans of mostly Anglo heritage starting arriving in New Orleans and Louisiana in large numbers, these terms fell out of favor because they were French and Spanish words, but more importantly, because they didn't fit the less nuanced, binary American understanding of race, where there was only black or white.

You mentioned how in America most people are "mixed" and while this may be true in the sense that the country has a large population of Europeans that come from dozens of nations and a hundred different cultures, however, in that old, less nuanced American binary, they are all Caucasian. It is true that there is a lot of mixture in the black population though, as many have European ancestry to differing degrees. We can see this now with modern DNA tests. A Caucasian will have ancestry from all over Europe, but in the modern day, basic understanding that people who are uninterested in history and culture, they're all White. So in the modern day, less specific American understanding of "race" most Creoles are not mixed.

Creoles of color, on the other hand, typically have ancestry in different regions of Africa and some European admixture as well. So according to that simplified, American understanding of race, Creoles of color are mixed race.

And I'm going to have to disagree that Google is the best source for this type of information regarding colonial Louisiana history. Unfortunately, you'll find a lot of people making claims they've heard from someone secondhand, without a real understanding of what they're saying. The best source for this stuff is old history books on Louisiana, which contain a lot of primary sources and records from people who were there at the time.

One good thing about Google though, you can find the titles and some excerpts from these books if you dig hard enough.

Believe it or not, Wikipedia has an above average article on Louisiana Creoles that has a lot of good sourced information. It contains way more detail and nuance than I expected.

It distinguishes between Creoles and Creoles of color, and it makes note of how the definition of Louisiana Creole has a completely different meaning than Caribbean Creole, with an entirely separate and distinct history and culture.

Check it out sometime. It's way better than I expected it to be."

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7. @mannyrodriguez5453, 2023
"@tonyc.7538  It also happened with the Spanish that arrived in Cuba, many mixed and many did not mix, being Creole has nothing to do with being mixed, you are absolutely correct, people just don't understand, but then, Creoles can be both, a mixed family or a non mixed family with European decent or any other foreign country who pass on the tradition of not mixing or mixing with black and native . My both sides of the family are from northern Spain, typically when Spaniards arrive to a foreign country they tend to marry with their same people, just like it has happened in the U.S. and everywhere around the world, this situation happened to my family where, grandkids of Spaniards married among others of their kind. Even today it's very common to do so."

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8. @mannyrodriguez5453, 2023
"@tonyc.7538  Excellent explanation of the true example of what it is to be a Creole, remember one thing, which I know you know, a good majority of Americans are very ignorant when it comes to race and ethnicity, and what we are seeing today between politics and hate being flooded throughout our nation just shows that ignorance and lack of true findings are in full gear."

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SHOWCASE VIDEO  #2 -International Creole Day: In Louisiana, Cajuns are keen to preserve their identity • FRANCE 24



FRANCE 24 English, Oct 28, 2021  #Creole #Louisiana #traditions

In the southern US state of #Louisiana, #Cajuns make up nearly 10% of the population. Although #Creole is spoken less with each passing generation, some are fighting to preserve the language and keep their #traditions alive. FRANCE 24's Fanny Allard, Kethevane Gorjestani report.
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Here are some comments from this video's discussion thread (with numbers added for referencing purposes only.)

1. @philippehalbert4537, 2021
"If this story is about International Creole Day, why is "Cajun" in the headline? "Cajuns" are by definition creole, but not all Louisiana creoles are "Cajuns."

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2. @mshaman86, 2021
"To get people to watch it Im guessing."

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3. @genesisphillips, 2022
"Cajuns (Acadian Creoles) are a type of creole in Louisiana :)"

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4. @Cramsiwel11, 2023
"@IslenoGutierrez   Cajun is not a type of creole. They are two different ethnicity"

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5. @IslenoGutierrez, 2023
"@Cramsiwel11  Cajun is absolutely a type of Louisiana Creole. Cajuns are white Louisiana Creoles. There are other white Louisiana Creoles too such as French Creoles (whites of colonial French and Québécois descent), Spanish Creoles (whites of colonial Spanish descent, usually from ancestry from Andalusia Spain or Spain’s Canary Islands), German Creoles (whites of colonial German descent) and Cajuns used to be called Acadian Creoles before the invent and spread of the term Cajun. There are mixed race Creoles like Creoles of Color (people of mixed European and black African descent, some may have Amerindian admix) and black Creoles (blacks of colonial Louisiana African descent). But there is one thing I’d like to say about today’s Cajuns. Cajuns are not Acadians, but are a mix between Acadians and French Creoles (whites of French and Québécois descent). Some may have Spanish or German admix too. But anyway, there are Cajuns on historic account identifying as Creoles in both French and English, also Cajuns in the modern age identifying as Creoles. Cajuns are a type of white Louisiana Creole that descends from Acadians and French Creoles (whites of French and Québécois descent)."

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6. @Christafree, 2022
"There's a difference between Cajun and Creole, they're not the same.  Creole has African influence.

If you ever talk with a true cajun you can't really understand what they say,  neither can French people.  It's a distorted version of french and English. The food is outstanding!"

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7. @philippehalbert4537, 2022
"In its original, historical sense, creole merely refers to someone born in the Americas whose ancestry is not 100% Indigenous. For example, someone whose parents immigrated to Louisiana in 1700 and was subsequently born there is creole. It has nothing to do with race, or at least it didn't until after the Civil War. Thank Jim Crow for that. Also, there are mixed race Cajuns."

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8.@IslenoGutierrez, 2022
"Cajuns are creoles and many other races and ethnicities are creoles in Louisiana"

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9. @IslenoGutierrez, 2022
"I’m from south Louisiana born and raised and let me tell you, Cajuns are a type of white Louisiana creole. Creole in Louisiana has historically been an identity that includes anyone that is born in Louisiana and into the local culture that has its roots in the French and Spanish colonial period. So this includes all the whites, all the blacks and all the mixed race people born in Louisiana into this culture and way of life. Cajun is a recent identity that was wholesale adopted by Acadian Creoles in the 1960’s and was cemented by the 1980’s. Before the 1960’s, Cajuns were called creoles just like other local Louisiana folks mainly in south Louisiana (this is where the colonial based culture exists mostly). And to be exact, Cajuns were called Acadian creoles. All creole groups had certain names identified by ancestry or race like French creoles (whites of French descent), Spanish creoles (whites of Spanish descent), German Creoles (whites of German descent), Acadian creoles (whites of Acadian descent), Creoles of Color (mixed race people of European and African descent), métis creoles (mixed race people of European and Amerindian descent) and Afro creoles (blacks of African descent). So Cajuns are a certain type of white Louisiana creole called Acadian creoles or simply just creoles like all other creoles. Cajun is a recent identity since the 1960’s."

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10. @IslenoGutierrez, 2022
"@philippehalbert4537  yes I agree with you. There is an ignorance going on in relation to who or what is creole and Cajun is tied to that. Cajuns are creoles just the same as other Louisiana creoles of whatever race or ancestry. What people don’t realize is that creole is not a race or ethnicity at all. It has nothing to do with race or ethnicity and has everything to do with being born in Louisiana and into the local culture that is rooted in the french and Spanish colonial periods. That’s all. So many people try to make it something else that it is not. Louisiana really needs some sort of formal cultural organization to sort all this mess out and create an official definition of Louisiana creole and those that are part of the creole population. And also to rebuild the creole identity across racial and ethnic lines because let’s face it, corruption of the creole identity since Jim Crow has severely damaged the identity and has seriously reduced its numbers of those that identity as creole."

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11. @Dragoncam13, 2022
"@IslenoGutierrez  and btw man,what people try to call a Cajun accent is just a white creole accent. Any original Acadian accent they had disappeared within the first 100 years of them being here in favor of the already existing francophone accents. Also don’t even get me started on how a lot of supposed Cajuns are more of a different ethnicity at times than they are ethnic French in comparison to a French/Spanish creole like yourself and majority French people like my grandfather. Even the German creoles are more French than these people😂🤣"

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12. @IslenoGutierrez, 2022
"@Dragoncam13  I can agree with many of your points, but let me further expand.

The so called “Cajun” accent is nothing more than a regional white accent of Acadiana. It’s the white Acadiana region accent. Blacks and mixed race people from Acadiana have their own version of it that sounds a bit different but has some similarities. And yes, I’d say it’s mostly white creole, but not fully as it was also influenced by anglos from North and Central Louisiana who also settled in parts of Acadiana. There are many people in Acadiana that do in fact have lots of Acadian ancestry and even others that are fully Acadian such as some small town folks. But as you and I both mentioned, many are not actual Acadians because either they are a mixture of Acadian and French, some have German, English, Irish, Italian or Spanish thrown in, others are largely French and either not Acadian at all or not mostly Acadian while others have like you described have little french or even little Acadian and only identify as Cajun because they grew up white in Acadiana. It’s a big mess. I’d say most whites in Acadiana are white creoles. The types of white creoles range from Acadian Creoles, while some are French Creoles while others are Spanish creoles or German Creoles and most are some sort of mixture of any of them.

The accent of the Greater New Orleans area is a mixture of the old white creole accents like from French Creoles, Spanish Creoles, German Creoles, Acadian Creoles and white St. Domingue Creoles (white French creoles from the Caribbean from what is now Haiti) in the area mixed with accents from southerners from other southern states that arrived in New Orleans since 1803 in the Louisiana purchase as well as German, Irish and Italians that settled in the area in the 1800’s from the east coast. Black New Orleanians have a version of the accent that has more black US southern with less of the German, Irish, Italian east coast influence from the 1800’s. In areas that border between Greater New Orleans and Acadiana one can hear an accent that is a mixture of the two accents such as in the town of Houma in Terrebonne parish that sounds half New Orleans, half Acadiana"

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13. @MickeyCreole, 2023
"You know being Creole is something to be very proud of. To be a Creole descendant, you understand through stories from older generations of your family history and what they sadly went through for their future generations to be free and equal to anyone. I’m British-Mauritian Creole (slightly mixed) and I’m very proud and feel enriched to embrace both my British and Mauritian cultures, it’s very empowering, especially understanding that my maternal grandmother was born from a slave and her French plantation master ‘husband’; my maternal grandmother only became free when she was 3 years old when her own mother died in childbirth and then her grieving father left the island and returned to France. The story how the slaved Mauritian Creoles became to be is an incredible history that was both brutal and savage but it became their resilient to be free and cultural, which continues to exist today. We have our own language and culture filled with incredible food, music and dance, a positive honour to our ancestors who’d suffered so awfully for us today to be free and equal to anyone. Creoles around the world need to fight to maintain their histories so that nobody forgets the truth and what we have overcome"

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14. @jessicamcdaniels2337, 2023
"I was born and raised in California but my dad’s family is originally from New Orleans. My great grandfather grew up in a water based community on Lake Ponchartrain. He had a very thick accent. Mind you, we are black with Creole/Cajun roots. I wish my family still spoke the language and preserved the culture. Whenever I acknowledge my Creole/Cajun heritage, people label me a “sellout.”

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15. @oldtruthteller2512, 2023
"That's tragic.  Ignore them."

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16. @Mr.Universe, 2023
"I have creole roots as well...unfortunately the language was not passed down, the food was however."

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17. @jessicamcdaniels2337, 2023
"@Mr.Universe  True, the food is amazing."

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18. @sonozaki0000, 2023
"It's the same with me! My Black Cajun grandmother was taken to Los Angeles as a child, and we are still out here. And since she died in an auto accident just after I was born, I didn't learn anything from her directly. I feel so divorced from that part of my heritage, but I sometimes wonder if it's possible for those like you and me to finally fix that connection. Better late than lost forever, no? I hate listening to myself practice French, but I've been trying as a basis to learn Lousiana Creole and French at some point LOL

It seems its not a rare thing for many Black Cajuns & Creoles to have moved to California during the Great Migration, by the way. Maybe it's about time to start advocating for those of us in CA to come together, to keep our ancestors' culture alive in a "new" place."

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19. @jessicamcdaniels2337, 2023
"@sonozaki0000  Yup, my family settled in South Central LA when they left New Orleans. That's where my dad grew up. We've been in California ever since. I was raised in NorCal. I also think your idea about us coming together is a great step forward."

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This concludes Part II of this two part pancocojams series.

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