ERATH, La. — It was French that attracted the Acadians to Louisiana.
After years of imprisonment, Joseph Beausoleil Broussard brought his band of Acadians to the West Indies and then followed his people’s language to New Orleans in 1765. From there they crossed the Atchafalaya and settled in and grew what we would come to call Acadiana.
Warren Perrin tells this story to patrons within the Musée Acadien – Acadian Museum – in Erath.
The 75-year-old attorney and museum founder does so in both English and French, switching between the two languages effortlessly like he did in his bilingual, childhood home in Henry.
Today Louisiana is home to an estimated 250,000 French speakers, including Perrin and the men visiting his museum Friday. But just a generation or two ago, the Bayou State boasted more than one million Francophones.
“Our language is imploding as we don’t use it enough,” Perrin said. “We’re not expanding it in Louisiana. We have a very precious commodity. We’ve got to save it.”
That’s why it has become so important to Louisiana and Acadiana leaders to mark March as Le Mois de la Francophonie, participating in a global celebration of the French language, Francophone culture and the diversity of those who speak it.
“Celebrating the French language and culture is hugely important for a state with such a rich history and connection to the French-speaking world,” reads a Lafayette Consolidated Government release.
French is the fifth most widely spoken language in the world with more than 369 million French speakers on the planet. Educators and government officials in Louisiana have long been part of the effort to grow its numbers of Francophones through the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana.
Created in 1968, this state agency aimed to make up for the decades of suppression of the Cajun French language and culture in Louisiana. For years French was not allowed to be spoken in public schools or public places, but today 5,500 students are enrolled in French immersion across the state, according to a release.
“The future of the French language is the immersion program,” said Perrin, who served as president of CODOFIL from 1994-2010. “We are seeing great results. There is more demand.”
Most of the French immersion teachers come from French-speaking countries across the world. For the 2021-22 school year, teachers came from France, Belgium, Canada, Cameroon, Senegal, Tunisia, Spain, Mexico, Madagascar, and Argentina to teach in French and Spanish immersion programs in Louisiana public schools.
“These teachers have a remarkable impact,” CODOFIL Executive Director Peggy Feehan said before the start of the fall semester. “Thanks to their work in our schools, young Louisianans are gaining not only a second language but also learning about our state’s unique place in the world.
“Immersion education opens countless doors for these students and exposes them to cultures from around the world, all while shedding light on Louisiana’s own rich culture, heritage, and history.”
Today the community celebrates the language and culture through Festivals Acadiens et Créoles and Festival International de Louisiane, staples in Acadiana that were dearly missed at the onset of the pandemic. But it wasn’t always this way.
“You had a Fourth of July Festival and Rice Festival, but there was no semblance of the Cajun culture,” Perrin explained.
Then, in 1974, he distinctly remembers that his parents drove from Henry to Blackham Coliseum in Lafayette in a rainstorm to catch a French Cajun music show, among the first of its kind in the area and a catalyst for more festivals.
“And the rest is history,” Perrin said.
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