Boosting/preserving the French Language in Louisiana

I think it's a bit of a cultural shame how much French and Cajun-Creole declined in Louisiana.

Most of the decline was just anglos moving into the state in the 19th century, but there was also a drop due to explicitly anti-French policies in the 1920s as the state banned education in french and bilingual english-french education. The same literacy laws that disenfranchised blacks also hurt Cajuns, so they were unable to push back. This is especially disgraceful considering how important Cajun interpreters had been during WWI.


How could the French language get a boost in Louisiana?

If the US had gotten Cuba along with Puerto Rico, I can see New Orleans being a more significant city due to financing the Sugar Industry in Cuba. French might be useful because it'd be closer to Spanish, so when Cuban sugar magnates come to New Orleans they may prefer a French-speaking banker, French-speaking partners, etc. I suppose this might be similarly true if the US had annexed Santo Domingo under Grant (@Soverihn).

Might more national recognition after WWI of the Cajun importance in the war effort lead to a national desire for preservation efforts?

If there were more Italians who immigrated to New Orleans, could they potentially have opted to learn French rather than English on the grounds that it'd be an easier transition?


Maybe if the US had for some reason aligned diplomatically with France more, the language would get a boost? Perhaps France opens a consul in New Orleans and spends money promoting French and Cajun culture, opens French-language schools, etc.


I suppose there's also the idea that many French emigrate from France to New Orleans for some reason or another, boosting the language.
 
Independent CSA could do it or have French Canadians side with the colonies during the revolution. This makes the French culture and French Canadians a major part in the founding of the United States. If Quebec is part of the US the people their would rally against the government if they tried to suppress French culture too much anywhere. If they suppress the culture in Louisiana Quebec could fear they are next. Also Jim Crow not targeting French culture in Louisiana would help greatly. Jim Crow did target French culture too due to it enforcing the English language in the state.
 
Some sort of over-the-top "Europe Falls" scenario resulting in a wave of refugees around WWII? Or perhaps a somewhat different post-war France with similar political strife leading to a more violent state of affairs for a little while. A species of right-wing coup attempt occurs, these alt-Gaulists fail and are chased out of the country, landing in America and deciding New Orleans was the place to set up shop. Something like the Cubans in Miami. Maybe only in the low tens of thousands, but enough to buttress the francophone community, and wealthy and politically-connected enough to plug into the good-ol-boys' network and demand some concessions.

Or honestly, you could get there with a different set of national outlooks concerning immigrant groups. I don't know the history myself, but you say the curbs happened in the 1920s, and I can't help but assume they were at least partially motivated by German repression during WWI elsewhere in the country.

Maybe a more robust political alliance based around immigrants, some sort of philosophy promoting cultural autonomy as a form of rugged individualism?
 
Things that affected languages in Louisiana that I didn't know until much later in life, from my father:

"my grandfather spoke German, my daddy could understand it, in 1917 they made them stop speaking German"

also, when the public schools came to Acaidiana, if an understanding happened first off that the French speakers were a national resource and something that should be preserved....don't punish the kids for speaking French on the playground...get them speaking English, but work on preserving French once they got to middle school....
 
Some sort of over-the-top "Europe Falls" scenario resulting in a wave of refugees around WWII? Or perhaps a somewhat different post-war France with similar political strife leading to a more violent state of affairs for a little while. A species of right-wing coup attempt occurs, these alt-Gaulists fail and are chased out of the country, landing in America and deciding New Orleans was the place to set up shop. Something like the Cubans in Miami. Maybe only in the low tens of thousands, but enough to buttress the francophone community, and wealthy and politically-connected enough to plug into the good-ol-boys' network and demand some concessions.

Or honestly, you could get there with a different set of national outlooks concerning immigrant groups. I don't know the history myself, but you say the curbs happened in the 1920s, and I can't help but assume they were at least partially motivated by German repression during WWI elsewhere in the country.

Maybe a more robust political alliance based around immigrants, some sort of philosophy promoting cultural autonomy as a form of rugged individualism?
That’s actually a really good idea. By ww1 you have all these immigrant or regional groups work together against pressure to fully assimilating by going on a pr campaign to re-imagine themselves. For example, German Americans are like “we aren’t like the kaiser or the Nazis. We hate them too. We are descendants of liberals that fought people like that”(1849 revolution being a propaganda point). German Americans could say “we are Americans who speak German”. The Francophone population in the US could do the same
 
I think it's a bit of a cultural shame how much French and Cajun-Creole declined in Louisiana.

Most of the decline was just anglos moving into the state in the 19th century, but there was also a drop due to explicitly anti-French policies in the 1920s as the state banned education in french and bilingual english-french education. The same literacy laws that disenfranchised blacks also hurt Cajuns, so they were unable to push back. This is especially disgraceful considering how important Cajun interpreters had been during WWI.


How could the French language get a boost in Louisiana?

If the US had gotten Cuba along with Puerto Rico, I can see New Orleans being a more significant city due to financing the Sugar Industry in Cuba. French might be useful because it'd be closer to Spanish, so when Cuban sugar magnates come to New Orleans they may prefer a French-speaking banker, French-speaking partners, etc. I suppose this might be similarly true if the US had annexed Santo Domingo under Grant (@Soverihn).

Might more national recognition after WWI of the Cajun importance in the war effort lead to a national desire for preservation efforts?

If there were more Italians who immigrated to New Orleans, could they potentially have opted to learn French rather than English on the grounds that it'd be an easier transition?


Maybe if the US had for some reason aligned diplomatically with France more, the language would get a boost? Perhaps France opens a consul in New Orleans and spends money promoting French and Cajun culture, opens French-language schools, etc.


I suppose there's also the idea that many French emigrate from France to New Orleans for some reason or another, boosting the language.
Maybe a Quebec style French language radio. Signs, t.v.
 

Deleted member 67076

. I suppose this might be similarly true if the US had annexed Santo Domingo under Grant (@Soverihn).
Usually people in the sugar industry at this time tended to be multilingual on multiple levels, particularly investors. It wasn't uncommon for the elites in the Spanish Antilles to know English, Spanish, and French at a minimum. Even if they weren't raised from the top classes (See: Gregorio Luperon).

So I think you need to find a way to reverse the power dynamics of the Anglo elite within the state. I dunno, perhaps mandatory education in English and French for primary schooling? Earlier mass education? More migration of French colonial subjects and from the French metropole? Further alignment with France as the major trading partner?
 
There was briefly in the 1790s a proposal to make German a official language of the new US, along with English . Perhaps had the two been officially recognized the others would follow later?
 
Things that affected languages in Louisiana that I didn't know until much later in life, from my father:

"my grandfather spoke German, my daddy could understand it, in 1917 they made them stop speaking German"

also, when the public schools came to Acaidiana, if an understanding happened first off that the French speakers were a national resource and something that should be preserved....don't punish the kids for speaking French on the playground...get them speaking English, but work on preserving French once they got to middle school....

Butterfly away the 100% Americanism movement post 1915. Not sure how, but waiving away the WASP middle class panic over the immigration threat allows a lot of early 20th Century US culture to continue longer.
 
Butterfly away the 100% Americanism movement post 1915. Not sure how, but waiving away the WASP middle class panic over the immigration threat allows a lot of early 20th Century US culture to continue longer.
You could have a more capitalist United States. For raw capitalism many flaws one thing that could be taken as a positive from it is them caring more about money and economic growth over politics(this can be seen as positive or negative depending on your view or the context). Immigrants mean more people which in this period often relate to more money and labor(more money and economic growth doesn’t mean it’s be always being distributed equally at all).

People forget the progressive and even new dealers were often very racist. They are ones who pushed for assimilation and restriction of immigration often times. Their unions only really focused towards helping “native” white workers. That included targeting and limiting immigration. The reason so many blacks and poor whites left the south for north after ww1 is because the immigration restrictions created labor shortages in northern industrial cities. The demand for cheap labor was high. Those Appalachians who loved unions often hated immigrant labor(coal companies did prefer immigrants over locals sometimes. This also stands true in other places across the country even up until today). Democrats shift towards more welfare and social security policies were often made to appeal to their poor white voting base(very ironic considering modern politics). You did have some wasp middle class people against immigration but I would argue poor whites especially in the south are more of a reason for immigration change. They saw immigrants as competition and taking jobs away from them(many still see it this way). Your more Rockefeller type of republicans loved large amounts of immigration because it drops wages greatly. Also if a union tries to form or people try to strike they can easily hire someone desperate for work right off the boat from Europe. Republicans didn’t start opposing immigration until really the last few decades. Their idol Reagan is the one that let Mexicans first migrate here in large numbers in the 80s. Historically the Republicans did support immigration more so then democrats until very recently. When picking between parties here your often getting trade offs. Both of them are a mix package but in different ways.

If the republicans stomp out the progressive movement early on and preserving a raw capitalist system but with restrictions that prevent monopolies and large oligarchy immigration could stay very high(we would probably get flooded by people from Europe from 1914 until the 1970s with little restrictions on immigration. Some places in Europe could still have large emigration to the US until now for places like Ireland and Eastern Europe after communism. The only thing that stopped America from being as populated as China is its people and government). More immigration and diversity might come at the cost of the US not being a welfare state at all(we aren’t good at that in otl. It would likely be much more extreme in this pod). Doesn’t it say a lot about social democracy when most are very homogeneous countries that until recently didn’t have a large amount of immigration? If you look at most social democracy that have let in a large number of immigrants recently you see the system flaws and crack more.
 
Post-1900? Louisiana French has been having as good of a chance as could be expected. If you wanted to extend it further, though, then Francophone Louisiana should be included along with the larger Franco-American communities in New England, New York, and the Midwest, and thus as part of a larger French America alongside French Canada since the fight for the survival of the French language and Franco-American culture is one that is common for both. If France and other European Francophone countries want to help, that would be great, but ultimately it has to be a North American French, in both a standardized literary variety as part of a pluricentric language and its regional diversity, that has to be the focus for survival and not just a mere outpost of Standard French, and CODIFIL's experience is instructive. So no 100% Americanism campaign can help, but only in part. Same too with highlighting Cajun patriotism; in New England we created a hybrid culture embracing both our French-Canadian heritage and our US patriotism, no doubt aided by the Catholic Church and nationalist leaders who reminded politicians of France's role in the American Revolution. Maybe if we embraced Louisiana early on in our cultural formation process? That would definitely change some of the dynamics of French America which were insular and exclusively focused on our relationship with Canada.
 
Have a government in Louisiana that is at the very least neutral on the french language, or even tries to promote it. Maybe add in a revitalization of francophone identity by having the brits make Quebec its own separate dominion.
 
mangez, buvez, et laissez les bons temps roulez... The problem is the native French speakers in Louisiana t4end to be rural, poor, and by the 20th century certainly not an overwhelming majority and not in the driver's seat politically. Officially Canada is bilingual, not just Quebec. Outside of Louisiana and some bits of New England, French is not spoken historically in the USA. German is more common by far, at least until WWI and certainly WWII, not to mention other languages. In Louisiana, the way for a more common usage of French is to mandate French as a second language beginning in elementary school, with other (now 3rd) languages beginning in somewhere between 7th & 9th grades. This way those that don't speak French at home will be comfortable using it in Acadiana or even in New Orleans or Baton Rouge.

For other folks who speak French, you can spot the problem with the phrase that everyone associates with South Louisiana...
 
I'm from Louisiana.
When I was in the 4th grade in 1990, my school started offering a mandatory daily French class. I suppose this is when it a foreign language started being mandatory in school in Louisiana, and/or when there was a focus to revive the French language, at least somewhat, in Louisiana. Right now, I'm about a ~B1 level in French, but not because I'm from Louisiana, but because I took language classes from 4th-10th grade, 2 years in college in the US, and 1 year study abroad in France.

Different family members told me that my grandfather spoke Cajun French. I never heard him speak it, since nobody else could. My best friend, same age as me, told me that his grandmother used to speak French to his mom, he would listen in, and could understand (when he was younger). Another friend of mine not from Louisiana has Hungarian roots, and his grandparents came from Hungary and could obviously speak Hungarian, but during their generation they assimilated and learned English, as that was what was expected.
I took Louisiana history in the 8th grade and my teacher told me that children were forbidden from speaking French at school and were punished if they did.

I'm sure it's not impossible to find someone who speaks Cajun French, but it's extremely rare I suppose, and probably only restricted to older (probably elderly) people and a few scattered in the countryside. And even with those people you can't tell because they all speak English. It's a shame that daily use of Cajun French (or French itself) was lost in my home state. At this point, Louisiana is basically just another U.S. state.
 
There was briefly in the 1790s a proposal to make German a official language of the new US, along with English . Perhaps had the two been officially recognized the others would follow later?
It was apocryphal.

This most famous of language legends began when a group of German-Americans from Augusta, Virginia, petitioned Congress, and in response to their petition a House committee recommended publishing three thousand sets of laws in German and distributing them to the states (with copies of statutes printed in English as well). The House debated this proposal on 13 January 1795 without reaching a decision, and a vote to adjourn and consider the recommendation at a later date was defeated by one vote, 42 to 41. There was no vote on an actual bill, merely a vote on whether or not to adjourn. Because the motion to adjourn did not pass, the matter was dropped. It was from this roll call on adjournment that the “German missed becoming the official language of the USA by one vote” legend sprang.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-german-vote/
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/april-fools-german-as-americas-official-language
 
cajun french and acadian french speaking people in the 1950's and 60's could have looked at what was happening in qubec Canada and Wales UK and see that they too should fight for thier language .
 
There was briefly in the 1790s a proposal to make German a official language of the new US, along with English . Perhaps had the two been officially recognized the others would follow later?
:noexpression: that's a myth. There was a proposal in the 1790s to make German a co-official language of Pennsylvania, not the whole country. There was a proposal to translate laws into other languages, but no vote was ever taken on it.
 
Have the Nazis winning WW2 will significantly increase French immigration to the United States. Due to the French legacy of Louisiana, many French emigrants chose to settle there, thus beginning a revival of Louisiana French and Cajun French languages.
 
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