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Notes -
Louisiana does not have a large French speaking population. Southern Louisiana has local areas with large-ish French speaking populations.
As a basic history lesson- and I’m oversimplifying immensely- refugees from the collapsing French new world empire were settled in then-Spanish Louisiana west of New Orleans to boost the white population. Their descendants we call the Cajuns and have a distinctive culture, including a reputation as amazing cooks that know how to throw a good party. However, the spread of Cajuns was limited by geographic barriers and poverty; today Cajuns are probably something like 20% of Louisiana’s population and only old people and hipsters really speak French anymore.
All of Louisiana tries to portray itself as Cajun because it’s the third poorest state in the Union right next to the fifth wealthiest, while also having the most liberal alcohol laws and some of the more liberal gambling regulations. This makes tourism a natural niche to aim for, and since Cajuns are known as really good cooks that know how to throw a party, playing up the Cajun/French heritage makes sense as a way to try to attract tourism dollars. Northern Louisiana is no more French than Arkansas and New Orleans proper is I suppose a bit more French than Mississippi, but not by that much. Strongly French areas are pockets of the rural southwest.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=WULYEegtTGc&t=10s
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Hoooo buddy. I definitely know an Acadian who would absolutely see red upon reading such an immense oversimplification. I would contend that the matter is somewhat subtle about the term "refugee", which often has a connotation of, "Well, some war or some shit was just happening, and it obviously sucked for people in the area, so they willingly chose the better of bad options to pick up and relocate," whereas the reality was that they were forcibly round up and deported. One can even have sympathies for the reasons why the deporters would do the deporting (or could even make a reasonable argument that whatever portion of the deported population shares in the blame for causing such reasons to exist), but my understanding is that the majority of them were collected by decree or chased down by men with guns, put onto ships at gunpoint, and then dumped in lands far away. It is not clear to me to what extent they were allowed much choice, once on the boat, as to which dump off spot they were dumped at.
The Acadians were ethnically cleansed(as were the white Haitians, which many Cajuns also trace descent to) but those who settled in Louisiana were mostly those who escaped whatever dumping ground they reached and made it too Louisiana voluntarily.
TIL that they didn't actually deport any Acadians directly to Louisiana. Thanks!
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Oh I'm aware that Cajun French is basically dead, my metaphor was about a hypothetical Louisiana where it was a significant language, I should have made that clear.
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