Cajun Accents

Native Speaker Recordings

Volume 1

Lafayette LA Male conversation


Lafayette LA Male Conversation



Conversation

Most Cajuns don’t really speak that way anymore unless they don’t speak very much English and there are very, very few – there are less and less Cajuns that speak little English, and it’s mostly an intonation than a, more an intonation than a, than anything, you know it’s an intonation in some of the south, for example we don’t say ‘four’, we say ‘fawr’ but that’s kind of Southern - I think too though, like my – I had a cousin his name is, his name was – he’s deceased now – but his name was G O R D O N. Well, there’s no difference in pronunciation between that and where you plant your cabbages. He’s name was Garden. You plant your cabbages in a garden. It’s the same thing and my cousins from San Antonio’s used to say well that’s not his name – his name’s not Garden, it’s Gordon and I said we’ve always called him Garden. So that like ‘and what do you want that ‘fawr’ rather than ‘for’, you know, that kind of thing or sometimes the ‘r’s’, especially in New Orleans – the closer you get to New Orleans the more the ‘r’s’ disappear at the end of a word. We tend to have them a little more for the west, as you get closer to Texas, but we still have closer and –

It’s another thing that Cajuns do is we’ll go back and forth – we’re going to use – in fact, I’ll tell some of my friends sometimes, I’m not completely at ease with somebody that I have to speak just French to nor am I completely at ease with somebody I have to speak just English too. I’m most at ease to somebody that I can speak, go back and forth any time I want. If I’ve said something that I have trouble saying in one language I’ll say it in the other one and Annabel comes and visit a long time over here and we go back and forth between French and English all the time.

I was going to say my brother is six years older than me and mom and daddy lived across the street from my great grandmother – I barely knew her, she was – I was six years old when she died – but my, so my brother was 12 when she died so that meant he had plenty time to know her, and any time he was with her, and in those days, like I said, I grew up in a little bitty town, so my brother very young learned how to opened the gate and walk out across the street. There was no danger of anybody running over him – he’s sixty-some years old – there weren’t no cars going to run over him, you know – if, the few cars there were weren’t going fast enough that they wouldn’t have seen him and so he’d walk after he take his nap, sometimes my mother might have dozed off in the afternoon or something because in the summer time that’s one of the things you got up early, you did your work and sometimes you took a little nap in the afternoon because it’s so hot and so he’d – after – he’d wake up before she would or she’d be busy and she wouldn’t notice he woke up and he’d walk out across the street to Grandmaw-T-maw’s and he’s at Grandmaw-T-maw and well so mamma every time they were together he would speak English to Grandmaw-T-maw and Grandmaw-T-maw would talk to him in French. Okay? Now Grandmaw-T-maw was born around the time of the Civil War – that’s how old, much older you know – that’s how far back she was going. So when my – one day my mother was doing her work and he was, he went out to visit with Grandmaw-T-maw and she walked up to the house and they were having a conversation and she was a few feet from the door and she heard him – he was speaking to her in French. So from that point on she knew he spoke French but whenever she was around he always spoke to her English. It was like in his mind I guess mamma don’t want me to speak French so I won’t speak French in front of her but when I’m alone with Grandmaw-T-maw I speak French to her, and then he quit speaking French when he went to school, he stopped altogether...or when Grandmaw-T-maw died probably because he probably spoke French to her but I don’t remember and then after he graduated he came to work at the university here in a lab – he was in charge of a mechanical engineering lab, and all the janitors and all the other technicians their language was French, so he started speaking French again and now we speak French to each other a lot.

I learned French from my mother’s mother – he learned French from my mother’s grandmother on her father’s side. He’s a country boy. Yeah, that’s the difference, that’s the main difference. She grew up in town. People in town spoke more English. They had – First of all they had to for the stores and stuff like that because the people with money didn’t live in a country – the people with money lived in town. So the people that live in town had to work next to or with or for the people who had money and so they spoke English because they had, and a lot of the, a lot of even the rich Creoles who, and the old Cajun families, they might have – they’re French but that doesn’t mean they spoke – once they became educated and went to school and got – became wealthy they quit speaking French, you know.

Now Breaux Bridge, Cecilia, also on the other side of the Atchafalaya in Kraemer or Bayou Boeuf and also in Pointe Coupee Parish they speak Creole, which they would translate as – you’re going to have some black students I’m guessing - they would translate it as Nigger French or nègre, France nègre. And that’s the way the slaves spoke and the whites learned how to speak like that, too. In fact, in Pointe Coupee Parish around New Roads, they speak – the blacks and the whites there’s no difference between the way they speak at all. Here in Cecilia you can tell if it’s a white person speaking neg or a black person speaking neg because they don’t pronounce the same way, but in Point Coupee they all pronounce it the same and [speaking French].

Well in Pointe Coupee Parish it’s just like the blacks and I knew a guy who lives in Cecilia, he married a girl from that area and he says, “I still don’t understand the whites around here too well but I say, ‘Boy, I understand what the blacks say.’” He’s white. Because he speaks the Pointe Coupee French.

Henderson LA Female

Henderson LA Female Reading

Reading

These

Things

Bait

Get

Ready

Bat

And

End

Ant

Ask

Aunt

Father

Wash

Bottle

Ball

Lost

Roar

Button

Going

Butcher

Coupon

Buying

Hour

Our

Are

About

Avoid

Quarter

Burn

Fear

Share

Par

Pour

Poor



The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.



Henderson LA Female Conversation



Conversation

Not really. Honestly, I don’t. I have the same accent. It’s hard because I’m used to talking like this – this is the way I was grown up. So it’s hard – I can’t change it and people that come eat here, they notice it off the bat always.

I grew up in Henderson, which is 10 minutes away from here, and my grandfather owned a landing on the levee, which is by the bayou and everything. So, I’ve, that’s my culture – I’ve always been like that.

Not really, I just... it’s different, it’s a lot different than other people speaking. I can’t tell because I’m so used to having it. My mom, my parents are even worse. So...

I’ve – in February it will make two years I’ve been here. I started off hosting and bussing cause I wasn’t 18 yet and as soon as I turned 18, a month after that I started serving and I love it here. I would never leave. It’s great. We have everything, we have different things, we – most restaurants around here have the same thing – fried shrimp, fried crawfish. We have different stuff, we have fried green tomatoes with crab meat imperial sauce, we’ll have crab cakes with Vidalia onion cream. Everything’s so different – we have a good smoked flavour spicy – it’s different than any other restaurant around here.

No actually, I don’t. My grandfather does and my dad does – I’ve taken French in high school and, but I still, I still don’t have it really well. Right, but it’s easy like I could read it well even though I don’t know it but I don’t know what a lot of words mean and stuff like that.

Well, she’s, she’s...it’s hard for her to pronounce words – mostly the ‘th’ sounds. A lot of Cajuns they can’t pronounce ‘th’ like ‘bath’ and she’ll say ‘bat’ and instead of ‘thief’ she’ll say ‘teef’. It’s hard for her to pronounce the ‘th’. That’s the big thing with my parents.

Carencro LA Male

Carencro LA Male Reading

Reading

These

Things

Bait

Get

Ready

Bat

And

End

Ant

Ask

Aunt

Father

Wash

Bottle

Ball

Lost

Roar

Button

Going

Butcher

Coupon

Buying

Hour

Our

Are

About

Avoid

Quarter

Burn

Fear

Share

Par

Pour

Poor



The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.



Carencro LA Male Conversation



Conversation

Well I mean imitate my grandparents and things, our aunts and uncles you know, like she said, we talk with the bat and, you know things like that. I’m from Carencro, Louisiana, which is just a little west of Lafayette out there and born and raised same spot for 35 years. Actually I had a cousin of mine that was related to a lady who owned a restaurant and started to just – I didn’t have a job, my dad had an air conditioning company and he shut it down so I was looking for other things to do. So I just got involved in that and started liking it and they said I had a good, a touch to it so I just kept pursuing it you know. You know, what a Cajun – like gumbos and jambalayas, fricassee, you know stews and gravies, you know things like that.

When I was growing up it was more you wanted to learn English than speak French, you know. They were trying to, I guess, I was still in that period and then...at school I took, you know, French, but it was more – it wasn’t Cajun French. My grandfather spoke French only. No English at all. My grandmother spoke a little bit of English – on my father’s side. My mother’s side they spoke English well. They spoke both languages.

My dad was born and raised in – like I say – Carencro and worked hard all his life, you know. He didn’t have electricity, I don’t think, till he was about 15, 16 years old, you know. So he was a hard worker, a hard Cajun – well, you know, he was out in the fields in the morning before he went to school, out in the fields when he got off, you know, taking care of the family. Mom was a little different you know – she was the girl so she was you know in the house baking and doing whatever she had to do, you know, so. And that’s about it – I have one brother. He’s a little bit older than I and we did a lot of hunting, fishing, you know, the Cajun traditions, you know, things like that.

We have a lot of, we have a lot of water to fish in. We have the Basin, Atchafalaya Basin and we have ponds, rivers – I mean we fish, and, we’ll fish in any hole you have water, we’ll try and fish in it. People more, you know, the wealthier people will have the boats and you know they get in there, but you know you see a lot of people on the side of the roads, you know, on the side of the banks fishing just like you did and, you know, up there. So yeah – they call it sockaway, which is like a little perch, brim, bass, catfish – a lot of catfish – and crawfish. You know a lot of people go crawfishing you know. The hit the Basin, and set up crawfish nets and things like that.

So, it’s just like my aunts and uncles you know sitting around the campfire sometimes and you know just. After you go hunting you’re cleaning the ducks and, you know, the catfish and you’re getting ready to fry and grandma’s fussing at grandpa and everybody, you know, having a good time. It depends on the people you’re around, you know. It... like some of my friends, you know, they’re from Beautler Road, which is just right down the corner and you know, go to – they live in their camps, you know, they don’t go home. They stay at the camps. So you know those guys there, you know, you kind of turn it on a little bit, it’s fun.

Carencro LA Male & Breaux Bridge LA Female conversation


Carencro LA Male & Breaux Bridge LA Female Conversation



Conversation

Female: Well I’m saying that in Breaux Bridge they have a different accent than they do in other parts.

Male: Kind of lazy.

Female: Yeah, they talk real flat, real flat. My daughter, she grew up here, she goes to St Bernard, you know. When she talks I can’t believe it’s my daughter cause she talks so flat. I can’t do – I only can do Breaux Bridge.

Male: Yeah well some people will speak half English and half French, you know and this might start you know [speaking French] we went to the store and then we you know and just break it up. I can’t speak French so I’m not going to do a very good job for you. You know half French, half... they break it up and things like that. Like some people talk real fast you know, and they have that accent where they talk real fast and they kind of talk you know you, and you can’t understand what they’re saying because they’re talking so fast.

Male2: And that’s probably a big part of why you can’t understand it. It’s just...

Male: Yeah, and I wish I could get my auntie for you, cause that’s all she – and, you know, my momma has to tell her to slow down because you can’t understand her because she’s talking so fast. You know, and it’s like I hear her on the phone and it’s like Abigail, can you slow down and you know I think she has to take her time and start over, you know.

Male2: In Cajun in general does it tend to go faster?

Male: Well it’s just as hard. I guess it’s harder to understand –I guess she’s just jumbling her words together, I guess is what I’m trying to, I don’t know... When she speaks French, I mean, I’m speaking in English but I’m thinking of her speaking in French you know – it’s “slow down.” So, but that’s just… one of…

Female: But still it’s different dialects and I can’t really explain it. I just know that people from Scott or New Iberia, I mean they’re all a little different to your ear.

Eunice LA Female

Eunice LA Female Reading

Reading

These

Things

Bait

Get

Ready

Bat

And

End

Ant

Ask

Aunt

Father

Wash

Bottle

Ball

Lost

Roar

Button

Going

Butcher

Coupon

Buying

Hour

Our

Are

About

Avoid

Quarter

Burn

Fear

Share

Par

Pour

Poor



The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.



Eunice LA Female Conversation



Conversation

Pick one you can have a souvenir of.

Male: You’re from Eunice?

Eunice. But I live in Lafayette now. We have one school, more like one public school and a private school that graduates like 36 people a class. So it’s a tiny place. Like everyone’s a farmer. So...it’s not, it’s not nothing big at all. It’s a tiny town. Yeah, it’s old. Yeah, Natchitoches – it’s definitely way south. Natchitoches is by Shreveport and all that so it’s south, a lot souther than that – like three hours south. Did you find you a toy yet? No? But you want the shark? Go get it – let me see it.

Male: How old is she?

She’s three. She just made three in July. Yeah, this is the end. We’re going to the French Quarter now. So, like – I like to buy the candles and stuff over there because they have like, they have one of them that has like a really, really good smell that I can’t find anywheres else. So - what did daddy say? You going to ask daddy? I think they trying to sway away from toys though. I’m looking into pediatric nursing. These are my brother’s kids. Go see how much it is. That’s my god child so she knows I’m sucker. How much is it Brandon? Her little shark toy.

Lafayette LA Female conversation


Lafayette LA Female Conversation



Conversation

When I married him his mama didn’t speak English at all so I had to speak a lot of French – the only thing, I wanted him to keep speaking to me in English instead of French. So now he never caught onto that so here he is talking French to me and I’m talking English. People must say we’re crazy, you know, but sometime he’ll speak English to me, you know. How she caught on to the understanding of our French is because the way he talks to me in French all the time. Now sometime I’ll answer him back in French but it’s mostly in English and that’s how Stephanie, our daughter...

Male2: So she knew what you were asking, he was asking you by the way you...

Right.

Male2: Yeah.

But Candice, our granddaughter...

Male: Oh, she don’t understand much English – uh – French, her.

But really, the more language a person knows, then that’s a better education for them and now I see that, which I wish I had spoke French to Stephanie, that my daughter, which is – her name is Stephanie – would know how to speak it, but she don’t and Candice doesn’t either. The other day, I wish you’d remember that word you told me and I says ‘you’ve been saying this to me a lot lately’ and I said ‘what is that’, I said ‘what does it mean’ – what is that word you were saying?

Male: Let me see if I could think of it.

And he would never use that before, you know and I said, well and it’s a French word and I had never heard of it. I had never heard of that.

Male: I can’t remember what it is but if I ever have to say it I’ll just go ahead and say it and...

Yeah, but you didn’t use to say it.

Male: Yeah. Oh yeah, I always said that – all my life.

I never heard you say it to me... And I wish I could remember what’s the word.

Male2: What were y’all talking about? The garden?

No, it was nothing to do with the garden. It was...if only I could think cause that was weird. Really, I said ‘hey, you’re coming out with this word now’ and I says ‘it’s a French word’ and I says ‘what is – what does it mean, what are you talking about’ and he told me and I said ‘well, really I’ve never heard of it before’.

Male: You don’t remember what I told you what it was?

I don’t – no, I’m trying to think what it is, you know.

Male: If you could say what it was I could think of it.

It was...I said if I could remember that I want to talk to Richard about it because I’ve never heard of it before and it really makes sense after what he told me and Mitch, you know. Now coming back about school, when I went to school, well I’ve never heard anyone speak in French on the school ground or the teachers will, the teachers did more of that, I guess. But him, Carencro, that’s all French, French, French you know.

Male: Yeah, they didn’t want you to speak to English – er, French in Carencro, either, no.

No, no, but they was, even if they were caught, Lester told me – speaking French on the school ground they’d get punished. I didn’t know how to cook when I got married – my mother told him ‘Lester, she don’t know how to cook.’ I wanted to learn how to cook and I’ve learned how to cook and I’ve, I can say it from other people that told me how I’m a very good cook and I love my food. You know some people when they’ll cook, they don’t care to eat. Now when I make a big, big dinner, which I used to do often but I wouldn’t eat that day because you know I was fooling with that food all day and smelling it, you know, but the next day: look out. Now it’s like Richard was saying, I’m pure...

Male: Acadian.

Acadian but my grandfather spoke English, my grandmother on my dad’s side spoke English. On my dad – on my mom’s side, my grandma and my grandfather would speak English.

Lafayette LA (French) Male conversation


Lafayette LA (French) Male Conversation



Conversation

First English I learn when I went to school. I didn’t know how to speak English before I went to school here. It was all French.

Male: Did you get punished at school when you spoke English?

Oh yeah, yeah.

Male: How?

By speaking French.

Male: Yeah, but what did they do to you, what did the teachers do to you?

Oh, give you some lines to write and things like that. Now at school they try to make them speak French. I grew up here on the Vermillion Bayou, right down the road and I was in a bind when I went to school. I couldn’t speak French on the school ground, and then I couldn’t speak English. So, I couldn’t speak at all but I was just going to school, I didn’t know nothing about English yet. You see my oldest brother he never went to school at all and the second one he went maybe till the second or third grade. The third one too. Then when I went, I went to the sixth grade, then I have to stop and do the farm. Because in those days farming was the main, main thing. We raised cotton and corn and potatoes.

Male: Uh-huh, and you didn’t have a dairy at one time?

Yeah, that too, in the latter days.

Male: That’s a lot of work.

Oh yeah, we’d milk cows. I was the only one to run the dairy. My dad wouldn’t do nothing, my younger brothers wouldn’t do nothing. So, sometime we had up to 40 cows to milk.

Male: And no machine?

No machine – all by hand. I’d milk those 40 cow. So that was 80 of them because I had to milk them again at night. So that was like...

Male: How long did it take you to milk the cows?

I’d say about, it’d be an hour and a half.

Male: Just for milking them?

You see like you have your rice cooker full of rice and then you eat just a little bit. The next day, you put a little water, and put it back on.

Male: Exactly.

Heat it up.

Male: That’s right. That’s what I do.

You can do that for a week and it will still be good.

Female: If it’s cold but in the hot summer it...

No, it don’t matter. It can be hot and it still be good. Now if you don’t heat it, then it’ll sour. You see like over here, us, Cajun French, it’s a broken language. We speak French but there’s a lot of English word in it. Like when we want to say ‘car’, in French we say ‘wee car’ or ‘a car.’

Male: A truck.

A truck.

Male: A truck.

We call it a...

Male: In French we say ‘camion.’

A camion. And a tire, we always say a ‘tire’ when we’re speaking French.

Male: In French we say ‘pneu.’

Pneu. And then the tube is a ‘chambrel.’

Male: Yeah, ‘chambrel.’

Just like in Breaux Bridge if they want to say like let’s say I’m going to the store they’re going to tell you [speaking French].

Male: And we’re going to say [speaking French].

Well, yeah.

Male: [speaking French]. So the vocabulary, the – what you call ‘lexis’ is the same [speaking French] but it’s the structure is different, right?

[speaking French] in English it means...

Male: To run.

To run. So when they say they’re going to run to the store, when they say [speaking French] – they’re running to the store. I’d rather walk.

Abbeville LA (French) Female conversation


Abbeville LA (French) Female Conversation



Conversation

My husband lived in Milton [speaking French].

Male: Yeah, her husband comes from Milton and that’s between Lafayette and Abbeville. And your father was a farmer, a sharecropper?

Yeah.

Male: What did he plant, Miss Strong?

Cotton, corn and sweet potatoes, oh yeah.

Male: One time a bad storm came and that’s where they’d go when the storm came, right? And they went down in the [French] and when they came back out the house was gone.

Oh, yeah. Mom said, “Let’s go in the barn.” In the barn.

Male: And when you got back out?

The man ___ took up our house he take off this house and ___.

Male: He got another house and hauled it there?

[speaking French]

Some time on Friday night, he leave on Monday morning that he bring me see the doctor. I say, ‘I can’t pay you.’ He say, ‘That’s okay mom.’

Male: Her refrigerator broke down and so she called her grandson and he ordered one for her and she didn’t know about it.

It’s a surprise.

Male: Her grandson called and asked if she had received it.

I was not told nothing. He surprised.

Male2: It’s a good surprise.

Yeah, he buy my ice box and freezer and the stove. He says, ‘I want you use no more the gas stove.’ I say, ‘Okay’ He take the gas stove – he bring over that with my stove, and the men come fix it for me. I don’t know how to fix that.

Male2: And a microwave.

Oui, a microwave. I heat my food in there – it gets hot.

Male: So again her grandson who bought the dog for her, and it’s for her to have company, also for her to feel secure.

I love my little dog.

Male2: What’s his name?

T. Boy.

Male2: T. Boy?

Yeah, T. Boy. Yeah, T. Boy try run. T. Boy Try Run the last name for you. Try Run. I say go ahead. Yesterday he’s mad. Take a shot for the rabies. Ho-yi-yi!

Male2: He didn’t like that?

Uh-uh. Let’s get in the car – they won’t come in the car. I say come here. I say come in the car. She sleep. She’s put a hole like that. I put a towel in my door wouldn’t close. He see the car. I say you hot? Put your head on ___. He fall asleep. She stop at the red light.

Male: The red light.

She open the eyes. She not ready go for home not now.

Male: And, so he said if I could catch the guy that did that I’d ring his neck like a chicken and I said well I used to ring chicken’s necks and I would break them, and she said well her husband did too. So what he did was if she’d show him which chicken she wanted and he’d throw a stick and hit the chicken in the head and that chicken would quit fighting, go get it, and he would pluck it. So the thing was –

Male2: By throwing a stick at…?

Male: A stick at the chicken, yeah?

He’d take stick big like that, it’s big like that. Yeah, I want this one – you sure – I’d say yeah. Bap! My sister just, “Oh, my. What he doing? Don’t do that.” She said he want to eat some chicken.

Male2: You want some chicken, you’re gonna have some!

He make some gumbo. ____ I said, ‘Go ahead, eat.’ She said, ‘I like to bring a bowl with me; have gumbo tonight.’ I said well yeah, I put some shrimp, you know, got two bowl, big bowl – I cover it, she go put in the car for her husband. I say you want some rice – no, no, no. Gee, I got some rice at home. She bring home, he eat that for supper.

Male: He hadn’t had enough at noon, he ate some home for supper.

Like. Today, last day, I come, I called my gumbo, and the bowl, I heat that, and me husband eat that. Make for three days. Hey, that’s good – let me tell you – put some shrimp. Yeah. I think the shrimp, you know, take off that thing on the shrimp, I take off that in the cold water, I put in bowl and then I make some roux. Some people make that, make roux. Put maybe some gumbo, and make some roux, me, with the flour.

Male: Most people – I guess you can make roux with cornmeal but...

No, not cornmeal. No, no.

Male: But now with the new diets they do make it with whole-wheat flour. I’ve made it. It separates though but it doesn’t taste bad. It’s good.

[speaking French]

Lafayette LA Female conversation


Lafayette LA Female Conversation



Conversation

I was born in Lafayette in 1957, raised by two wonderful parents. Went to school local, elementary school. Walked to school every day, came back home, rode the bus in high school. Went to UL two months and decided that wasn't for me. Been cashiering all my life, management, supervisor. I have two wonderful sons. One called me couple of months ago, asked me, left me a voice message, said, "Mom, give me a call." And I called him back, he didn't answer. So I said, "Son, this is mom. You said you wanted me to call. I'm calling." Later on that day, he called me back and said, "Mom, all I wanted was a message from you. My friends in New Orleans wanted to hear how you talk." So, annoyingly, I recorded my Cajun sound, I guess. But not everyone does, sounds as bad as the others. Some work on it, I guess, and different parts of the area sound differently also.

I’m from the north end of Lafayette and proud of it. I worked at Diamond Shamrock, my boss was from L.A. He said, "Roxanne, if I had about ten of them, one for every store we have and they sounded like you, I'd make a million." 'Cause I'm pretty – I know, I know I probably should work on it more, but this is just me.

I'm scared of New Orleans, of Bourbon Street-- I've tried that. I'm not really a party person. I'd rather go to the mountains. If I had a choice, I'd probably retire in Colorado, living in the mountains. Leave me alone. I don't like big things. Mardi Gras is not my thing. I went to New Orleans once. I-- A friend of mine climbed a light post, did all this. But that's just not who I am. I like – go fishing. Give me a good fishing hole on Mardi Gras and I'm happy.

My daughter-in-law, Sarah-- I want to call her my daughter-in-law. She's my grandbaby's momma. She's into theatre and I love her. She's absolutely one of the best mothers I've ever seen. She even makes Juliet, who is two, say ‘yes' and not ‘yeah.’ And she corrects her English from day one and not throw-- go save her clothes. She has to put away her clothes. She's just absolutely awesome. And she does theatre work, and she's in a upcoming play in October. She's done a couple of them. Other ones in the past. And she's just-- I love her. But they're not married. But it's awesome.

Male: You want them to get married, huh?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. My son was married and I lost my husband, his dad, about six years, seven years ago. And he was living in Chicago and I'd go up there, and his wife, who I love dearly, she had to translate for us. But it was okay. They said we talk too fast. But in my opinion, I don't think I talk fast. So, anyway. He was up there and then his dad, my husband died. And we tried to make a go of it a couple of years later, and he realized he missed home. He missed the last eight years with his dad and, uh, he wanted to come back home. And--

Male: You don't have to--

He-- No, that's good, this is good. I haven't done this in a long time. And he truly, truly loved that little girl. And loved her so much that he didn't want her to come in here and be without her family. So they divorced and-- oh, he was broken up. He said, "Momma, I truly have a broken heart." And he was kind of-- kind-- he graduated college. Mechanical engineer, very intelligent little boy. And he was kind of lost for a while, and had a one-night stand. And they produced an awesome grand child, Juliet. And as hard as it was for him to get here now, it's just-- He's happy and has a wonderful little family. One day he'll get married. I think. So, anyway. So that wasn’t good.

Orange TX Male

Orange TX Male Reading

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The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.



Orange TX Male Conversation



Conversation

Male: What made you move to Houston?

Well, it's because I could not find a job in Louisiana. So I moved to-- into Orange, Texas. Work at the shipyard 'til I move back to Hou-- shipyard. I left shipyard and I started working with a pipeline company. And I start working fabricating for companies all over Houston here, area.

I was-- I moved here in the Houston area in '72. See, but I moved into Louisiana in '70. See, from Lake Charles to Louisiana to Texas. Well, see. It's a whole lot different because it was freezing here. Everything that you do over there, see, was an eye open. See, it didn't go out anywhere, see? See, we-- my family didn't have a car. So, we are like the only ones we play around with when I was young, see, was neighborhood. That's all. But we didn't-- There was no drugs, there was nothing like that going on, see, at that time.

I would go with daddy, fishing on the bayou. See. We’d pick up a long poles and throw a line in, and try and catch a fish. But see, that was a time, with my daddy-- It was a time that where we both of us together, you see, and fishing. Both of us would love to sit by the water. Even though we were fishing, feeding the fish, given them baits, we still enjoy the peace that you have next to the water.

I’d worked in the fields, with farms, see? I worked in the field. And then during the time that we didn't have any work to do, see, the end of the year., we'd go to the woods, cut down trees. So we could have wood to heat up-- heat the house up in the wintertime. See, my brother and I, who is 15 minutes younger than me, we were on one end of the saw, the big saw, and dad was on the other side. See, sawing up them big trees.

Male: So you have a twin brother?

No. He's 15 min-- 15 months younger than me.

Male: Oh, 15 months.

Yeah. But he's deceased now. When my son-in-law was living and is, in fact when his daddy was living, I couldn't wait for Labor Day weekend come because, see, that meant that hunting season was starting in Louisiana. So, I'd go over there, see if he was riding the boat, see? And he'd shoot some birds. And he put on at the end of the line, see, to-- then the, to gators-- an alligator does not eat his food. He swallows his food. So he swallow the big, big treble hook into his stomach. Alright? So, it couldn't move. But when we get there in the morning, we pull on that line, and the, see, that gator would show up his head. And he was mad now. See, we pull and he's hurting. My son-in-law had a 45. He’d put a bullet between the eyes, then you got to hurry up and catch him, put in the boat 'cause once you kill him, they sink to the bottom of the water, to the floor, the bayou, see on the... We were on it's-- in the-- on the lake, we call Lake Arthur Lake, but we were sitting on the edge.

Crawfish was-- see, anytime we could catch some crawfish, we'd catch them. You see, we wouldn't go out and catch them, see? But we'd see there was some, see. But we-- well, see-- that's one thing we wouldn't do it. See, they didn't have crawfish like they have them today in the farms. They didn't. See, the only time you see, see-- if we go by a lake somewhere, see, and put some net out, see, we might catch some. But we had to use a net. Any time you go over that's a-- if you go down the road, see, and you see a rice field filled with water and you'll see some little-- this white deal about this high shows up on the top. See, that's a piece of pipe that they have a net on to that, see. You come there to pick it up, dump it, put another bait, and drop it back in the water. You have to have a special boat to go-- to maneuver into the-- to those water, only about ten inches deep. That's all.

See, Louisian-- Texas called a gum-- what they call a gumbo, actually is a tomato stew. It's not a gumbo. Gumbo comes from Louisiana. Somebody who knows how to make it. Oh, yes sir. I do a lot of cooking. Cooking, baking, I do it all.

Male: Do you make a lot of Cajun dishes?

Well, I can. Yes, I can. Etoufee, court-bouillon. You don't know what that is? Paul is a man who lived way back. They’d asking him, "Where do you live, Paul?" He said, "I live way in the behind New Orleans." He says, "Sometime I get lost to get to my house." Then, he was at home. He was not a man to go to church. So, he heard a preacher man was coming to town. He says, "I can't wait for the preacher man to come to town." Then finally, the preacher man was there. He says, "I'm a get myself ready in the morning. I'm a get myself over there to that church. You see, I'm a listen to what he says. If I don't like what he says, see, I'm a get up and run out of there." But see, he was there, see. And he stayed. So, the preacher was talking and talking and talk. Finally, he finished. He says, "If anybody has anything, any need to be pray for," he says, "come up front." Yeah, he was sitting back there. "Oh," he says. "I got a need. I’m a get myself on up there." So he got himself up there and the preacher man started right there on his left, and all the way through the right. See, everybody he could pray for. He come back, he started right next to him on his right. Finally, he come to-- he finish, he come to see, "What, Paul?" See, he even know his name. "Paul, what is your need?" He says, "My hearing." And that, my preacher man put his fingers in his ear and pray and prayed and praying. He pulled his fingers out and says, "Now, Paul. Can you hear? How's your hearing?" He says, "I don't know. See, it's Wednesday, it’s in Biloxi, Mississippi.”

Female: The court hearing, huh?

Abbeville LA Female

Abbeville LA Female Reading

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The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.



Abbeville LA Female Conversation



Conversation

I'm from Abbeville, Louisiana. I'm 21. I have a daughter who's one. And I guess I'm just gonna say a few things that we say that other people don't, or when we do say them and they not from Louisiana they have no idea what we talking about it. We don't say any word that starts with TH. It is replaced with a D. It's not "They want us to go over there." It's "Over der," or it's "dey" or it's "dat." I's not like "They want us to go over there so we can go pick up that thing we left over there the other day." We don't say something, we say sum-mm. Like, "Can you bring sum-mm. Bring sum-mm to drink. Bring me a Coke." We don’t say crayon, we say color. Like, "Give me the blue color." A refrigerator is not a refrigerator; it's an icebox. Like, "Gimme sum-mm out da icebox." When we say "get down," we're not talking about dancing; we mean, "get out the car and come in the house." The word about is "abaht." It's about time to go, it's about time to leave. We don't say "about," it's "abaht." And that is about, you know, that sums it. Except we-- It's always hot here, it's never-- It can be the middle of December and it'll be 90-degrees outside. Or it'll be cold at six o'clock in the morning and then whenever you walk outside around noon it's 90-degrees. It's never cold here and we lucky if it gets below 50. But, I guess that's all I can say 'cause that's pretty much all I can think about.

Cecilia LA Female

Cecilia LA Female Reading

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The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.



Cecilia LA Female Conversation



Conversation

Okay, I was born in Arnaudville, Louisiana, and I was raised in Cecilia, went to school in Cecilia, Louisiana. And I've lived there all my life in the area. I was in banking for 43 years. After I retired, I started working here. I work here two days a week, so it gets me out of the house. And-- But it's very interesting here. We have people from all over the country that come. You know? And-- Now we have a lull because our bathrooms are not fixed; they're changing the pipes. But normally we'll average between five- and seven-hundred a day.

Male: Oh, really?

Oh, yes.

Male: What are some the main things that people are looking for when they...

The swamp. They love the swamp. That's their first thing. And usually, we'll-- what's bad with the swamp is you can't see it from anywhere because of the levees and all that. So, normally they'll take a swamp tour 'cause that's how you can really see the vegetation, the birds, the alligators. You know? All-- So, they really love it. And we usually bring them down to Breaux Bridge, which is a quaint little town; it's the crawfish capital of the world.

Male: I love Breaux Bridge. It's a beautiful town.

I know. It is, it is. And then on down to St. Martinville, which is a historical city, the home of Evangeline, the poem Longfellow and Evangeline. Yes. It has many nice museums and it has the Evangeline Oak, it has the statue of Evangeline. And I'm talking about mostly our out-of-country people, you know? People that come out of the country, and then we send them to the Tabasco plant in New Iberia. And Jefferson Island, Avery Island. All great places to visit. And they really love it.

Male: Do you still speak any French?

Oh, yes. We speak French, oh yes. We have-- and our visitors from France and Canada and all, they just love it when they hear we’re speaking French, you know, and stuff. And we make ourselves understood. It's a, definitely a different dialect from them, you know? But we understand each other very well.

Male: For you to be understood by someone who's a French speaker from France, for example, what shifts do you have to make for them to understand your French? Some of it's words--

Right. But--

Male: --and some of it's pronunciation. And it's quite different, isn’t it?

It's quite different. But they're the ones that have to make the shifts 'cause that's all we know. You know? My grandchildren all have taken French in school, you know, and all that. And, I mean-- and it's a good-- We call it the good French, you know? And it's just amazing, you know, how many words that-- is not at all like we say, you know? But...

Male: And then-- Well, and you know, the origin for the Cajun French is from up in--

Nova Scotia.

Male: --Canada instead.

Yeah, Nova Scotia. Right.

Male: So it's understandable that it would be so different--

Right.

Male: Because it's quite different there, too. Not quite as different as it is here.

No, but it's different. But like I said-- Now, you see, just ten miles down the road in Arnaudville, it's not the same French. You know? We understand each other, but a lot of words we don't say the same, you know? And also, it's just a lot of different French, you know? That's just-- Probably, that's the language that has more dialects than any other one.

Male: Would you mind maybe telling me just a little bit about the area in French? Just ten seconds or so, if you…

Oh, God. Let's see what I can say. 'Cause we talk half French and half English.

Male: Yeah, I'm sure.

[speaking French] – that's the swamp, [speaking French]. I can't think to talk. You see this brown area? That's the swamp area right there. Otherwise, there's, you know, there's all kind of towns there. We have Cecilia, we have Graniville just stuck in there, we have Arnaudville, Leonville. You see, between those two is what I'm saying, you know? So, there's Eliza’s...

Male: You still live around there, yeah?

Yup, that's where I live. And you see, what people don't understand, like people come from Texas and all, and they-- Our roads are horrible. You know? We try to do our best, our roads are horrible. But what they don't understand in Texas, they have rock underneath; we have sediment, swamp that they have to build on. When they built the bridge here, they had to go down 111 feet with the pilings before they hit solid.

Male: Wow.

Yeah.

Male: That had to be such an expensive bridge to build having to go down that far.

Oh yeah. It took ten years. They started in '62 and finished in '72.

Patterson LA Female

Patterson LA Female Reading

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The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.



Patterson LA Female Conversation



Conversation

I was actually born in Chandler, Arizona. I was not born here, but only because my dad was from Patterson. But he joined the Air Force and was stationed there. He was an airplane mechanic and that's where I was born. And then when he got out we moved back to Patterson, and then we moved to Centerville. So, I'm actually in Centerville still. I still live there. I work here in Franklin. I-- Actually, I went to school in Franklin, which is like ten minutes from Centerville. But that was because I went to a Catholic school, I didn't go to the public school.

Male: Okay. Which I understand is really, really common in Louisiana.

Yes, down here. Because of being a Catholic, mainly Catholic state. Yeah. I don't think it really is anymore. I think it was in Napoleon, when this state was established.

Male: And is that still the most common thing down here, I would imagine.

Well, we have a lot of Baptists, too. And the new thing is that-- I don't know what is it? A non-denomination? It's Crossing Place; I think it's a non-denomination church. That's the big things here. Baptist and Catholic. But there are Methodists, there are--what is-- Protestants. Yes.

Male: Now, I notice how far set up this building is.

This building is high because we-- this area-- Actually, if you look on a map, we're five miles-- You're here in Franklin, okay, so you're like right here. We're actually five miles from the bay by the gulf, okay? So, we're very prone to flooding. We flood a lot here. I'm not saying the water's gonna get this high, but you never know. Now, we have flooded here in this area and it has gone up over the highway at a time. That was Rita, Hurricane Rita. We had Katrina, then we had Rita two weeks later. It was crazy. But the reason we're this high is because of that, so-- Okay, first-- What happened first is after Hurricane Andrew-- Do you remember Andrew in '93? '92, whatever it was. After Hurricane Andrew, everything south of 90 had to be a certain height in order to get flood or liability. Okay. Other than that, you could build the way you want. I mean, that's your prerogative. But to get those insurances, FEMA regulated that anything south of 90 had to be whatever feet high.

Male: And you are feet south of 90.

We're-- Yeah. Feet, correct. So then, Rita happened. When we got that-- what I told you, the water. So, now it's everything south of 10, not 90. Okay, if you're already on the ground, you're grandfathered. Okay? And if you already have your insurance, don't get rid of it, you're good. They also, if you notice, if you're traveling along-- I don't know which way you're headed-- if you notice, there are a lot of things built on hills. They've packed the dirt and everything. That's why. It's either put it up like this, or build up your land. So, that's why we're this high.

Male: So this is a newer building that got built?

Actually, when Katri-- I mean, Rita passed, this building was here. But when Andrew passed, we were actually in the middle of the highway, but it wasn't this building. So, we couldn't get away with not going up because-- It was a different building 'cause Andrew took our other building. We have people when they come here, they love to see our, of course, beautiful city. I don't know, did you go through Franklin? Did you go through 182?

Male: I did. It's a beautiful town.

Okay. So that's our pull here. Three of those homes that you passed through in Franklin are tour-able. Oaklawn Manor, which is the former governor's home. The Grevemberg, which is an 18th Century townhouse; it's mainly Civil War. So both are different kind of tours. And the other home is called Shadow Lawn, and it is on Main Street also, but it has a tavern behind it where people used to stop, yeah, on the Bayou Teche. It was built during prohibition. So it wasn't a tavern; it wasn't named a tavern. So you know how that went. Yes. And also if you get on 182 again and go back on 182 and pass Yellow Bowl, have you seen that yet? Okay, it's a restaurant. It's gonna be on you right on the bayou side. It's called the Yellow Bowl. Now, it's called the Yellow Bowl because in prohibition days, colors were used as a way of letting you know they had alcohol. So, Yellow Bowl was a primary alcohol, which was probably on the bayou probably about ten, twenty minutes from the tavern. So, they had their stops where they knew they could get alcohol. The-- Anyway, it's a restaurant and it's still open today. The Yellow Bowl, that it. The Roberts are who owned it and it is the great-great granddaughter that has it. It's Colleen, Miss Colleen. Miss Colleen Roberts-Hulin. Her husband is T.K. Hulin. Have you ever heard of him?

Male: No, I haven't.

Famous swamp pop musician here in our area. And sometimes on Sunday if you go eat over there, he comes in and plays.

Male: That's great.

Pretty cool, huh?

Male: Yeah. It's a beautiful area. I really enjoyed my drive along 182 there.

It's beautiful, gorgeous.

Male: It is. And I'm planning to hop back on there to head up towards Jeanerette.

That's what I was going to tell you. You should go back. You should go back and finish the drive. It goes all the way to Broussard. Okay, like my dad went to school not knowing any English. When they got to school, they were taught not to speak French. So when he was at school, he would get in trouble if he talked French until he learned English. So, he went-- Well, they all did. They would all go home and teach their parents English because they didn't want to get whipped when they went to school for speaking French. So, French really was known back then as a-- not a poor language, but like they were said they were-- what?

Male: I've heard people call it "the bad French."

Yes.

Male: As opposed to learning "the good French."

Correct. Yeah, it wasn't the fancy, it was-- Okay. And I don't remember the word that they've always said, But-- So, my dad learned French-- I mean knew French and learned English in school, and then he taught his mom and dad French. Now, I grew up with all of them speaking French, but they never taught us because it was looked down upon. So, most of us children my age did not learn French. No. Now, in your towns like Delcambre, Abbeville, Kaplan, Pierre Part, Donaldsonville--they taught their kids French. So, if you go in those areas, they know French. Like Troy Landry, his-- Yeah, they probably all know French. His family and whatever. Yeah, so that is why I do not know French, because it was looked down upon. Now, my grandmother did-- I know my ABCs, you know, things like that. But she didn't, like--

Male: And little words that you throw in here and there.

Little words, yeah. And-- But since she's gone, I really don't hear them anymore, so it's leaving. You know? And my dad's died, dead, too. So, it's kind of, you know, hard to keep it going if you don't know it yourself. You know? But I've been, you know, in the house and they all, “blalalala,” and I'm like, "I don't understand what y’all said." "'Cause you don't need to know." Now, that was another thing that they used to say. That people have told me that they believe that about their parents. They believe that the old-- the elders could speak in that language and the kids didn't know what they were saying. And they believe they wanted it like that. So, what's the truth? I don't know, but I do know that that's another thing that's been said about--

Male: My grandparents used to speak Danish when they didn't want everybody to understand what--

Cause y’all didn't know it. See? Yeah, yeah. My grandmother was very... And in the end, I-- she-- I-- You know, dementia sets in and I think she would forget that I didn't know French. So sometimes, she'd be going to tell me something and she'd rattle off in French and I'd look at her. And I'd say, "I don't know French." “Oh, malalala,” and she'd say it in English, you know? But she would get aggravated because I guess she had forgotten. You know? You know, the dementia.

Mamou LA mother & Jeanerette LA son

Mamou LA mother Reading

Jeanerette LA son Reading

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The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.



Mamou LA mother & Jeanerette LA son Conversation



Conversation

Male2: Where were you born and raised? Where have you lived?

Female: I was born in Mamou, Louisiana. You ever heard the Mamou Mardi Gras?

Male2: I have not.

Female: No? This is my father. He played the harmonica, French music. Oh. Yeah. So they just--

Male2: So where is that from here?

Female: Oh, I'm-- About an hour and 45-minute drive. It's right off of-- What is this? I-40, the new I-49?

Male: Well, you go up 90, it turns into 49. I don't know if you heard of Baba Lousas?

Female: In Lafayette.

Male2: Yeah.

Male: Goes toward Eunice. It's about 10 miles north of Eunice.

Male2: Oh, okay. Yes.

Female: Yeah. Ten miles north of Eunice. You should've been here for the Mardi Gras.

Male2: I know. I missed that, I missed that.

Female: Yeah. We went and we didn't get to see the Mardi Gras leave the place that morning. But we seen them coming in acting crazy and standing on their horses and-- With the old Mardi Gras, the way my dad and them did it was-- Well, he was a musician so there was a big, long wagon like, and they put hay for them to sit so it wouldn't be-- And everybody would bring their instruments and whatever they played. And the Mardi Gras would follow them and they'd stop at different places and go and ask for a chicken or whatever, rice, or whatever they could give them to make a gumbo that night.

Male2: Oh, so that's their tradition?

Female: And that night there was a big celebration and somebody cooked the gumbo and the rice, and everybody showed up and danced. And by that time, believe me, it wasn't-- they were dancing and falling all over the place. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's how it was.

Male2: And I love that it's a gumbo made from whatever people had.

Female: Whatever they have. Because they'd throw the chicken and then the Mardi Gras have to go and get it. And then--

Male2: Oh, really? So then they have to chase it down?

Female: They have to chase the chicken down.

Male: Yep. You see, these are all rice farming communities, too. So rice ain't a problem. And this is her dad playing his harmonica. His name is Isom Fontenot.

Female: C’mon, papa. There he is. Oh, he's coming down.

Male2: Yeah, what's he saying?

Female: Oh, he-- They asking who does he play with. He said he plays with some people who play the accordion, some play the fiddle, some play the-- they play the triangle. You know. It's just a piece of metal with a triangle and you beat on it. And the scrub board, they play the scrub board. Yeah. And he played-- He's telling him who he played with, you know, the different musicians. Well, I was told they-- when they had the thing where I got the pictures, they put him in the Cajun Hall of Fame and they say he plays with two tongues. He can play with one side of this tongue as well as the other. Yeah. So, I didn't know that. He even went-- Where did they go oversees, Bubba?

Male: Ah, I don't know, Ma.

Female: Anyway, he's known all over where French music is played.

Male2: Yeah. So you grew up speaking French?

Female: Oh, oui, oui – oui oui. How do you say that?

Male2: Did you speak English when you were very young or...

Female: Yes. I learned to speak one language as well as the other.

Male2: So you spoke English, too.

Female: Because grandmother spoke no F-- no-- no English, and my mom and dad spoke Cajun English. Yeah. So I learned one as well the other. But then when we started school, they would not let us talk French on the school grounds. No, sir. And so-- We just couldn't talk it at school but we talked it everywhere. I still talk French. I have some of my girlfriends that talk French, so I'm glad when they come we-- And we got-- I got bought me a dictionary so I could see how you say it. You know? Some-- I don't talk it enough to remember all my French. Yeah.

Male2: Is it a Cajun-French dictionary?

Female: It's a-- Yes, it is.

Male2: Oh, great. Yeah. 'Cause I know that it can be quite different from French-French.

Female: It is. Some things are different. Some things we say the same. But some things are very different. Just from Mamou to Lafayette to the coastline, you know, the cities and stuff, it's all a little bit different French. And then some of it’s Creole, some of it is French and just Cajun. My speaking, we talk about a baby and our diaper. And we call it [speaking Cajun French] And the Creole people call it a [Cajun French], which sounds more like diaper. You know? But why we call it [Cajun French], and I looked it up in there and there's no word for [Cajun French]. I mean, there-- for diaper. The word [Cajun French] is not there.

Male2: It's not in the dictionary.

Female: So it's a Cajun-- That's one Cajun word that we use that's not in the dictionary.

Male2: So now your friends here that you do speak some French with, did they grow up in different places and so you've found different words that you...

Female: Yeah, well, the one that comes here the most, she grew up in the little city of Meaux, it's somewhere around Abbeville. Somewhat there. And we speak a little bit different French. Not much, because there's some things that she says that I call it different. So.

Male2: Now, do you speak any French?

Male: Only the bad words.

Male2: So you learned the very important things, I guess.

Female: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Male: No. She, you know, since I've moved back to Louisiana and started living with my mom and dad, I kind of pick up on some things, you know, that I heard growing up. And just little bitty micro words and stuff. But as far as holding a conversation, no. And I wish I would've growing up, you know? You know, I was just like, "Oh, I don't want to talk French." But now, I cherish it because it's my heritage. You know?

Female: And we talk so flat. You know? This, that, these, those. You know, we don't use our THs. No, we don't. That's exactly how we talk.

Male2: What do most folks around here do for a living?

Male: Either oil field, welding or farm. In this area, it's sugar cane. Where mom and them grew up, it's rice. It was cotton and soybean, too.

Female: It was. Yeah. They still plant soybean.

Male: Soybean, but you don't see much cotton anymore.

Female: Maybe around Alexandria somewhere, you might see some cotton.

Male2: Now, do you get much flooding around here?

Male: Not in this particular area. Like, New Iberia does, around Morgan City and New Orleans, and all that area they do. And they did in Baton Rouge 'cause they had that, what, that flood, that hundred-year flood there not that long ago. So, a lot of places north of the Bayou Teche, around the Atchafalaya Basin area flooded. Which the Atchafalaya Basin ain't two miles from here. It's across the bayou. And the levee, everything, the Atchafalaya Basin's just right there. And we probably maybe ten miles from the Bay and then the Gulf is connected to the Bay.

Female: And most of the time that flooding from there is when a hurricane comes in and we get the--

Male: Yeah. Now, for Hurricane Andrew, my sister told me--I was in Mississippi at the time living--that all you could see was the two-lanes of the four lane. Everything else was flooded. But they didn't get water here. But pretty much out toward the highway.

Female: Yeah, it was closer to going to the Gulf of Mexico.

Male: And that's not far away.

Female: No, but this place seems to be a little bit higher than most. So, we've been lucky. We get water in the yard, but we never get in a flood…

Male: Yeah. I mean the ditches will flood to the top, but we nev-- I've never seen the yard where, I mean, there's water across the street and everything else.

Male2: That's good. Yeah.

Female: When the water comes from the north, the flood-- We, in a way we lucky because it goes straight into the Gulf of Mexico. You know? Our-- the water.

Male2: There's enough of an outlet for the water.

Female: Yeah, yeah.

Male: Yeah, they got so many ditches and coulees and drainage canals and stuff around here. Plus, they got pumping stations all over the place that pump the water out.

Female: And Baton Rouge is further off the coast, so they-- what stays, it just has-- it can go in the little coulees. It can't go into the Gulf of Mexico. It just goes straight into the little coulees.

Male2: So it just doesn't have an outlet like you do here.

Female: It doesn't have as much of an outlet.

Male: It can't-- Yeah, it can't drain out as fast.

Female: Although the Mississippi River's right there.

Male2: But that floods as well.

Female: Oh, yeah, that floods. Up north. Ooh. Bad. We get high water, but not a big, big flooding when, you know there's a lot of rain or anything like that.

Male: It come close that year that the water got like, what, about a couple of foot from atop of the levee, they were worried. I mean, if the levee would've broke then we--

Female: But that's why they have that.

Male: It would've been here.

Female: Is that why they have the spillways? Yeah. They can open the spillway and let some of the water go.

Male: But when they open the spillway, Morganza and stuff, it floods all those people out. So, somebody's gonna get flooded no matter what.

Houma LA Male

Houma LA Male Reading

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The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.



Houma LA Male Conversation



Conversation

Been here in Houma most of my life. But I drove a truck, oil field truck and we ran-- moved rigs from Houston to Alaska. And I stayed up there five years. So.

Male: Were you driving back and forth at all?

Yeah.

Male: That's a long drive.

Yeah. That-- that's a long drive. I-- I think I-- it was about 74 trips I made. I had enough.

Male: How many miles is that from...

Back then, we used to do Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Kenai. It was close to ten thousand mile round trip.

Male: Wow. That's incredible.

Yeah. So, but now they've paved the road and, you know, they took out all the nooks and crannies off of it. So, it's not as-- I think it's over 4,000 miles.

Male: How long did it take you to make that 5,000-mile drive?

Well, it depends on what time-- Yeah, you got to clear customs and, you know, if you hit that on a weekend you have-- But usually it would take us about 10, 12 days from Houston. Like that.

Male: Would you drive as a team?

Sometimes, if there was a need, then we'll do it as a team. But I'd rather be by myself. I'd rather wake up, you know, not standing up. You know, when you sleep and somebody else driving, turn over. I'd rather wake up sta-- laying down.

Male: And then you're also operating on somebody else's clock a lot of that time, I suppose, too.

That's right. That's right, their expense.

Male: Yeah. What would you suggest that I do around Houma?

Jesus.

Male: Maybe food suggestion for the evening?

Well, food here-- There's a lot of these McDonald's, you know, Mac-- Burger King. They're all over the place. But we have a couple of restaurants on Martin Luther King, and I can't think of the name of them… Outback is one and a couple other places on there.

Male: Are there any really good local Cajun places?

I can't think of any. The main thing we eat here is just about like anybody else in Houston would eat. And all this-- all these things about hot food, you know, Cajun, like hot Cajun food. We don't care for hot food down here. So, it's mostly gravies and things like that.

Male: Do you speak French and did you grow up...

No. My mom did; she could speak it and-- But she never did teach us to speak. You pick up things, you know. Usually the worst words you can think of. That's what I picked up.

Male: The important words.

But no, I never did speak French. And when I was in college, I took Latin. But, you know, that--

Male: Not a lot of call for you to use that on a daily basis.

No, not here. No, not here in Houma, so that's about it, just about English. My friend, let's see how she used to put that. She says you need-- She told me when I was in college that you need to take English. That would be your foreign language course.

Male: When you were younger, did you have a thicker accent, do you think?

Yeah. I don't know. Probably so, 'cause I feel like I'm being squeezed here or something or other. But I don't recall. So.

Male: And did you go to school here in Houma as well?

Yes, I did. And I went to college in Thibodeaux, at Nicholls State. So.

Male: So you spent almost all your life right around the same area.

Pretty much, other than when I was moving rigs, that's about it.

Male: Which was a lot of moving around.

Well, 24 years I, you know, I spent driving truck all over the country. So. I've been around. And I wanted to see the country. I didn't like the looks of Houma. And I still don't. But I would take off in a minute and just leave from here, and never come back to this damn place.

Male: But?

But my sister's here, she's by herself and, you know, I try to help her, too. And she helps me also. So, I need to leave and leave her by herself.

Male: Are there any favorite parts of the country that you remember from your travels?

I would say probably-- I would probably-- Western Canada and Alaska, that was my favorite places. So. One is crowded. You don't have the population as you do here.

Male: Boy, Western Canada is just beautiful.

Yeah, it is. So.

Male: Up through the mountains. So you must've dealt with a lot of driving in snow.

Oh, Lord, yeah. But back then the, you know, the old Alaska highway, that was the best time to go was in the winter.

Male: Really?

Oh, yeah. It was smooth. You know? That ice, once it freezes over they’ll blade it with a snowplow but it's smooth. Summertime is mud and gravel, it washes out and then all kinds of problems with summertime travel. Back then. But I’d like to go back just to drive on the new roads, see what it's like. So.

Male: Do you think about taking a little road trip up there to Alaska?

Yes, I really do. Think about it every day. I had a-- I bought a brand new Dodge dually and a 38-foot goose- camper trailer. And I was gonna go and when I retired from work. So. When I retired, my damn leg was giving me so much trouble. I couldn't go so I sold the truck and the camper. Put that off. So.

Male: That's a big camper to be hauling around, but I guess you were used to a big truck...

Well, I had a Dodge dually, that's all I needed for that. But when you have a bad leg, you know, you become bear bait.

Male: There's areas where there are so many bears up in--

Bear-- That's correct.

Male: It's amazing how it feels like when you cross over into Canada, the number of bears quadruples.

Right. Yeah, there's a number of places, like around Liard River, you know, people were eaten alive at the springs. People-- There's a walkway, a wooden walkway to go to the springs, and they were eaten alive. Never made it back to the car. So. But, now I guess I'll just rot down here.

Houma LA Male

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The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.



Houma LA Male Conversation



Conversation

So, I grew up where we—and I don't know if the law was still active. I forget the date. But my grandparents did not want us speaking French. My mother spoke French, my grandparents spoke French, but they-- you know, it was, like, forbidden. They didn't want us to even-- You'd said it and they did-- they just gave you the eye. You know? "Don't be speaking French." Because they were afraid that some-- you know, they-- there was the threat was that strong that they didn't want us to learn. So there's a generation or two that missed the whole French language. But, like, down the bayou, and all, you're gonna hear it very strong. If you go further into town, go, like, down Chauvin-- I'll show you in the map here. And the people, like, grew up with all-- Houma's a really interesting town. See, you're up here. When you go down the bayou, like all the way to Chauvin, come up here towards Dulac. Okay, this is-- all these people made their living, like, shrimping, crabbing. They're all fishermen down here. When you go down here, it's all camps. People have-- You know, it's just gonna be camp after camp after camp. When you come up here in Dulac, that's like a little fishing village. That's where all the shrimp boats, you'll see a ton of shrimp boats and the processing plant up here.

Now, down in Cocodrie, there's a couple marinas here. There's a place called LUMCON, which is the Louisiana University Marine Consortium, where they go out and-- they go out, check the marshes, check the sea life in the Gulf. They do a lot of research there. So. And then you have the Houma Indians, which are like, down in Pointe-aux-Chenes and Montegut. If you-- Well, they-- I mean, they come into town also. But there's a large-- The Houma Indians settled here. They were up across the river, like towards Baton Rouge. But when the wealthy planters starting coming, building their plantations, they relocated them. So they relocated them here in Houma. What happened with the people that lived here they all started trapping, hunting, fishing, and made their living on the land, what they-- what they could do. So, the Houma Indians came, they had slavery. And then this lady just wrote a book about her-- She traced her heritage to where there was a prince in Africa who was stolen. You know? They made him a slave and she traced it all the way back and wrote a book about it.

Now, this is some of the things that have happened in Houma from the 1700s, the-- You know, that's when the-- they moved the tribe here. They have the Acadian settlers came, the War of1812 and all. And then, of course, we had-- Now, in the 40s they had a huge blimp base here. And they went out and they were bombing the sub-- the German submarines. But they have an excellent military museum here. They have pictures of the blimp base, they've gone to Germany and met, like, with the submarine commanders. They have meetings there and they have a map of-- you know, people have said-- you know, I have been told it was-- that it wasn't true, about the German submarines and all this stuff. They got this huge map of all the German submarines in the G,ulf and then they bombed some with the blimp. So, I mean, it's very interesting history here.

Male: It is interesting.

They have a water life museum that tells all about how people lived here with the-- It used be the oyster farming capital of the world. They used to do dry shrimp and sell all that. There was a big processing plant. They have-- They were trapping for a long time. They used to take the kids out of school and go trapping for a season, for people to make their living. They have a couple of really nice plantations here. Southdown does an excellent tour. Tells you all about the history. Or during this plantation, the original owners still run it and have opened it up to the public. It was privately owned and Southdown-- Jim Bowie was one of the owners. Well, people don't know that. He was-- he lived around here, did a lot of business in Louisiana before he went to Texas. They believe the Bowie knife was made here, you know, his brother was here, the family was here. But they-- you know, you could read a book on Jim Bowie and get a lot of information. He was, you know, he was a wheelin' and-- he was wheelin' and dealin' all the time, you know?

St James Parish LA Female

St James Parish LA Female Reading

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The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.



St James Parish LA Female Conversation



Conversation

So, we're St. James Parish. So, we're 45 miles from New Orleans and 45 miles from Baton Rouge. And we're on the east bank side, so we're French; we're considered very, very French. But the minute you cross that bridge, on the Veterans Bridge or Sunshine Bridge, you're going to Vacherie, Chackbay, you going to Thibodaux. And you're getting closer to the Gulf and-- that's Cajun. And all across the river, even though we still St. James on the east bank and west bank, when you cross that river to the-- going to the south, you're picking up the Cajun, like Troy Landry on the Swamp People and they talk like that and it gets really heavy, heavy. Where we consider ourselves, oh, we don't have that heavy accent.

Male: But you call yourselves French.

We're French, and across that river is Cajun, and you're gonna have that mixture. Yeah. See, like my name, Dupui, D-U-P-U-I, Dupui. And that's French but if I would live across the river I'd be talking to you like dat, yeah. And that's an accent and a dialect and everything like that. And I can't understand and speak a word of French, but they still have a lot, a lot of French in here. Yeah. Born and raised here all my life. But family is here, is French. And my mom's got--

Male: Back how far?

Oh, way back. Yeah. They came-- my-- on my dad's side, came from France. And my mom is Scot-Irish, Singletary. It's a Dupui Singletary. Yeah. But here, it's fascinating because it's Italians, it's German, it's black, it's everybody. You know? It's not just gonna be like, what they have up there in Pennsylvania. It's not going to be Amish all the way across, you know? You're going to have everything's mixed, everything's all mixed in. Our location is just so prime for-- We go to the cities for concerts, museums, sports, like that. We live here because we all family, small, we considered extremely rural. And then you can be in Lafayette in an hour-and-a-half, you can be in Franc--St. Francisville-- it's a perfect place. You can get both. It's like little planets everywhere and on-- with the bridge it's much better.

We're-- St. James Parish is different, unique to the other parishes because we have the industry, but we have such a good rapport with the farming. We still have sugar cane. So the north end of our parish is still industry, where down here on the south side of the parish is farming-- is that. And you don't see that at other parishes. You're going to have all industry or you're gonna have all farm-- rural. And we're able to have both. And I think we get along so well because in the family, some are farmers, some work the plants, some farm, somebody-- You might have a uncle or the grandpa or somebody, you know? One's in the fields, one's working the plants. So when you go to those meetings, the community outreach, it works well. It works well. And they-- We look-- It's like they-- We look after each other, you know? You don't want to damage and so far, we good. We're good. We can do the both industry and farm.

We're, from Veterans Bridge to Sunshine Bridge is St. James Parish and on both sides of the river. But we're approximately 23 miles long. And then it goes into St. Charles and St. John and Jefferson and on to New Orleans, so. We're considered very rural, but the history is unbelievable. The history is the plantations. We have all the plant-- Our whole area is called plantation country. So it's plantations and that brings in the sugar cane and the slavery and the-- and we still have our plantations. And-- not all of them, but a few. And that's where the tourists come in, the tourists, the tourists, the tourists. You know? Because they will be-- they'll be in New Orleans just partying down and doing all kind of stuff in New Orleans. But after New Orleans, the city, they scratching to get out of there.

This is perique tobacco and what makes it so-- it's so unbelievable. It's only grown here in St. James Parish in the world. It's the in-- it's from the Indians. It's from the Chitimacha and the Choctaw, and it's been carried down generation and generation, generation. And the families here, which are-- when the Acadians came, they exiled and they picked it up from the Indians. It's still with us. Couple of years back we were gonna lose it. They only had two farmers left. We were completely lost out. The story behind it, it's unreal from our families, ancestors and Indians, and everything like that. That's where that history comes in and that culture. But it's so rare.

They have tobacco, like in North Carolina and Virginia; it's a green tobacco. This is called the black tobacco. And it completely went dwindled down, Mark Rhine from North Carolina, a distributor. And he was like gonna pick it up and buy it. And he took it and he was going to rescue it and save the perique tobacco. And he goes to North Carolina with the perique tobacco and it wouldn't grown. It wouldn't grow anything. And then he mo-- he sent seeds, like, through the country. They-- And they wouldn't grow. It only grows here in this soil. It's like-- And they actually called it mysterious, the mystery tobacco, the black tobacco, the—

What happened, he went to his show, like a trade show of tobacco and all. And he had his green tobacco from North Carolina, and off to the side he had the perique, the black. And it was indi-- It was from the tribes, Native American spotted it and they went, "Is that..?" They knew what it was because it came from the Indians, from their generation, generation. And then they went, "Is that perique?" You know? It's that rare. It was that rare. And when the other ones saw that the Indians were getting the tobacco, then there was a-- that's where it went tuktuktuktuk… We have a processing plant now, you know, and all like that. It is unreal.

Donaldsonville LA Female

Donaldsonville LA Female Reading

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The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.



Donaldsonville LA Female Conversation



Conversation

I was born and raised in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. I still live there today and I was actually a claims adjustor licensed by the state. And after Katrina, I retired. It was-- Katrina was a real bad storm. And dealing with insurance is not maybe the happiest place when somebody has a loss, but the tourism business is a lot more fun. They're either happy to see me because they're lost or they're happy because they travelling and they want to know what to do around here. Well, we have two alligators at the Cajun Village called Big Boy and Nubby. A lot of people who have not seen alligators love to go see alligators. They're in a natural pond setting. We also have Houmas House Plantation and Gardens, which is a beautiful plantation home. It was a sugar cane plantation. And it also has beautiful gardens and all the azaleas are in bloom right now. So, those are two of our main attractions. And then Donaldsonville is an old historic town. It's the third oldest city in the state of Louisiana. It has Bayou Lafourche in it. Bayou Lafourche is connected to the Mississippi River and it runs all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. So Jean Lafitte used to sail from Galveston up Bayou Lafourche and then go down the river to New Orleans. So a lot of people find treasures that way.

My grandpa-- I guess we're more Creole because we a combination. My grandma was French, she was a Rouase. And my grandpa was Spanish, he was Cassourd. And that's where they come from. And then I also had a grandpa that was Irish and my grandmother was also French, she was a Dagle. My parents lived in Donaldsonville. My dad was from, actually, Abilene, Texas. But my mom has always lived in Donaldsonville.

Male: So how did he end up here and meeting her?

Actually, my grandpa moved to Louisiana. He worked for Shell and he moved to Louisiana, and they moved. And that's how they met, when he moved down here. My grandpa spoke seven different languages. And yes, our grandparents would always speak in French when they didn't want us to know what they were saying.

Male: And then I suppose your parents didn't learn any.

They did not. But in Pierre Part they teach it starting in primary school, so they still teach French. Whereas, Donaldsonville and Baton Rouge and all is more Spanish, they start teaching.

Male: And do they teach French French or do they teach Cajun French?

I think it's more Cajun French.

Male: Oh, they do? They do. That's great 'cause I understand that the places that are bringing it back oftentimes are teaching more straight French.

They teach Cajun French. It’s that broken language we speak. My daddy worked for the refinery; it was Texaco when he worked for it. It's now Motiva and, I think, now it might be Shell might've bought it. It's one of the largest refineries around.

Male: And then a decent amount of farming around here?

There is a lot of farming still done. Sugar cane mostly. Yes, we do grow. In St. James Parish they grow the perique tobacco. It's the only place they can grow it here. It's a type of tobacco with-- it's with a strong flavor and for some reason they can only grow it in the fields in St. James. They don't know if it was-- it's just the soil. Everything below I-10 was basically sugar cane. The farther west you go is rice fields, which they flood into crawfish ponds. So you can do both, you can do rice and crawfish ponds, They usually rotate the field, like if a field is getting worn with the sugar cane they'll plant soy beans for a couple of years and then rotate it.

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