Eric Breaux / Télé-Louisiane
The attendees of the first meeting of L'Assemblée, photographed beneath the oak tree at the center of historic St. Martinville.
In 1765, a group of Acadian exiles arrived in the Attakapas region. Their way of life, and that of their descendants, would seep deeply into the land, growing and thriving there for generations. But that very first year, they formally established their place of worship, called l’Eglise de la Nouvelle Acadie aux Attakapas. The church, later to be called Saint Martin de Tours in the place now known as St. Martinville, was built in 1844, and its Parish Hall in 1861. It was here that, on September 19, 2023, a group of Louisianans gathered, hoping to interrupt the urgent progression of loss here in our home—loss of language, loss of culture, and loss of land—by founding the Fondation de L’Assemblée de la Louisiane.
Organized by a group of individuals who have demonstrated a vested interest in cultural preservation here in Louisiana—educators, musicians, writers, filmmakers, business owners—L’Assemblée is an effort to unite Louisianans in the interest of ensuring a vibrant future for our state that is rooted in its cultural past.
At the start of the founding meeting, organizer Will McGrew—founder of Télé-Louisiane and President of École Pointe-au-Chien, the country’s first Indigenous French Immersion School—emphasized the danger of believing that the state’s current path downward in so many areas is inevitable. He said that we, as Lousianans, have a choice. “We can either sit by and watch as they continue with the narrative that what is happening is inevitable,” he said. “Louisiana will always remain at the bottom of the lists. The native speakers of French and Creole will not pass it on to the next generation. We won’t have better education. We will be underwater in fifty years. Or we can choose to act now to work together across differences to realize our dream of a Louisiana where our kids speak our language, where we rebuild our lands, where we celebrate our culture, and where we create abundant opportunity for our youth and generations to come. I believe in that dream.”
Organized by a group of individuals who have demonstrated a vested interest in cultural preservation here in Louisiana—educators, musicians, writers, filmmakers, business owners—L’Assemblée is an effort to unite Louisianans in the interest of ensuring a vibrant future for our state that is rooted in its cultural past.
Other speakers included Louisiana French musician Jourdan Thibodeaux—who emphasized the importance of including people of every demographic, political background, and variation of “Cajun” or “Creole”. “We have to find a way to stand as one people, and stop letting these concepts that were brought in with American colonialism at the turn of the century [divide us]… we all have something to stand for,” he said.
[Read stories produced through Country Roads' partnership with Télé-Louisiane, here.]
Kelly Stewart, who has been instrumental in bringing French Immersion to Vermillion Parish schools, spoke about the disappointment that motivated her own work—realizing that Vermilion had to bus in Lafayette French immersion students to represent the area’s Francophone population for the annual Giant Omelet Festival, a traditional French celebration that attracts tourists from across the Francophone world. “We call ourselves the ‘Most Cajun place on earth,’” she said. And before her activism, none of the kids had an opportunity to learn the language.
The organization—whose founding principles include protecting Louisiana’s “flooded, buried, not yet dead but above all desperate” heritage languages of French and Creole—aims to promote the creation of immersion schools in every community where those languages were traditionally spoken, and then to ensure that there is economic opportunity built into our communities designed to support the students coming out of those programs, and to invest in the continuation of these languages across Louisiana. Other founding principles focus on preserving the historic culture and identity of the region’s founding peoples—including the Attakapas, Biloxi, Chawasha, Choctaw, Chitimacha, Coushatta, Houma, Tunica, and Tasha Native Tribes; the French, the Spanish, enslaved Africans, the Acadians, the Germans, and free people of color. The Declaration states “Our music, our dances, our food, our popular celebrations from Mardi Gras to boucheries, our accents, our words, our faith, and everything else belong to us, and enrich us.” The document also emphasizes the importance of protecting the land itself. “We stay on a land that is disappearing,” it says. “Our people, our culture, and our language have known no other home but our bayous, our rivers, and our prairies. This house, our home, is in danger like never before. Acts of God but also acts of man have torn up our lands and poisoned our waters, for which our future is in danger.”
[Read about America's first Indigenous French Immersion School, École Pointe-au-Chien, here.]
“Language is at the core of the effort,” explained McGrew. “But we can’t save French if Pointe au Chien is wiped off the map. And we can’t save French in our small towns if young people can no longer live in their small towns because there is no economic opportunity there. We can’t save Mardi Gras Indian traditions if young people can’t afford to live in Tremé and the Seventh Ward and Central City in New Orleans.”
“Language is at the core of the effort,” explained McGrew. “But we can’t save French if Pointe au Chien is wiped off the map."
Though the goals are lofty, McGrew—a self-proclaimed optimist—emphasized the power of a mobilized people. “I believe this to be the case, that we will look back at this day, and we will look back at this document, as a kind of turning point for the effort to fight for language and culture, but also as a part of a broader effort to revitalize Louisiana and redress Louisiana, get Louisiana to stand up again.”
L'Assemblée de la Louisiane, now helmed by a provisional board with Thibodeaux at its head, will be accepting new members in the months to come. Keep up with the latest developments at assemblee.la.
Disclosure: The writer, Jordan LaHaye Fontenot, has already joined L'Assemblée as a founding member.
