I would love to say to tourists:
Aspects of the Cajun adoration to which I object include the fleur-de-lys and the nostalgia for empire, along with the desire to parlay that into becoming kings in a new, corporate empire. If you want credit for being a poor peasant and you’ve decided to become a king’s man, you don’t have my solidarity, even if I, a member of the literate classes for centuries, am more privileged than you (yes, some of my ancestors literally hosted yours on their way to Louisiana, it’s documented). No amount of gumbo, beer, or neo-folk music can compensate for what has been gleefully done to the environment here in the last hundred years. You are far from the only people who have suffered language oppression, and you gave yours up very easily. The religion in which you have wrapped yourselves has produced some of the worst pedophiles, and has done so locally. I could go on.
It would be unfair. I enjoy, appreciate, and participate in Cajun culture FAR more than do those who tout certain clichés like new discoveries. But I abhor the exceptionalism and the way they have fetishized the French language.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 