Cajun Louisiana: Culture as a Way of Life

This essay evaluates the character of the unique French culture of the Acadiana region of Southwest Louisiana. This Cajun space represents twenty-two of the state's sixty-four parishes (counties) of Louisiana—about one-third of the state. What follows is a discussion of the persistence of a distinct way of life in the face of powerful forces of cultural homogenization. This entails (1) what it means to be Cajun; (2) the nature of the Acadiana homeland; (3) the survival and maintenance of distinguishing forms of cultural distinctiveness. A coda reflects on the contentious issue of cultural authenticity as imagined and reimagined. As a distinctive cultural space, Acadiana is a rarity in the dominant American ethos. It is an interesting case study of the survival of communal culture that has similarities with other spaces, such as Cornwall, Brittany, and Bavaria.