Word: acadian
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Now their cuisine has become democratized into a culinary cliche as even fast-food restaurants offer ersatz renditions of jambalaya and gumbo. Yes, the Cajuns have shouldered their share of suffering. But are these injustices enough to transform the 250,000 descendants of the original Acadian settlers in Louisiana into a minority group eligible for state affirmative-action programs designed for blacks...
...took the cause very seriously when Louisiana State Representative Raymond ("La La") Lalonde introduced his bill to allow Cajuns to qualify for minority-set-aside contracts awarded by the state. Amid the bread-and-circuses atmosphere of Louisiana politics, Lalonde's crusade to "enhance the status of the French Acadian people" was seen as a bit of harmless posturing for his constituents. But then the Cajun legislators flexed their political muscle, and the bill sailed through the state house by a vote of 74 to 22, despite the bitter opposition of black legislators. "This is not only facetious but borders...
...levitates above her backyard and propels herself off into the universe, a voyage that is presented with no more wonderment than a trip down to the 7-Eleven. Road to Nowhere, which ends the second side, has the title of a Sunday sermon and the rhythm of an Acadian barn dance but turns out to be an unabashed paean to nihilism: "Well we know where we're goin'/ But we don't know where we've been/ And we know what we're knowin'/ But we can't say what we've seen . . . We're on a road to nowhere...
...Chenier's musical style, sounds initially like rhythm and blues, mostly New Orleans with a pinch of primitive Chicago. Sometimes the saxophones break honkingly loose, sometimes they lay in one foghorn-like riff through an entire song. But the real musical underlay is Cajun, a musical cross-fertilization of Acadian immigrants driven from Nova Scotia by the British and Africans brought to rural Louisiana by slavery. Which explains both Zydeco's compelling rhythmic patterns and the fact that several of Chenier's numbers are sung in Cajun French...