Parents.
Holy sh*t - you have Louisiana roots? Do either you or your parents speak French?
Either way - that's cool that you have roots in Louisiana [IMO - I have a lot of respect for the Deep South in the USA, as it gets trashed just like Thunder Bay does, and completely stereotyped by a bunch of progressive liberals who then say it's wrong to stereotype.
].
I speak Louisiana Cajun French. I used to speak Quebecois French...but due to lack of practice speaking it since age 20 [2002], my French can now best be described as Louisiana Cajun.
I would love to visit Louisiana, if that ever becomes legal. Even if it does, it will probably require some form of "vaccine digital proof", or however Bill Gates put it.
I love the French symbolism in Louisiana, like the prominent fleurs-de-lis' that seem to be pretty common, as well as the French architecture, some of which dates back all the way to the French colonial period, when Louisiana was a part of New France, under the control of King Louis XIV.
I would love to visit either Vermilion or Lafourche in Louisiana, as they are two parishes that both have the most French speakers in some combination of absolute numbers or percentage - with the highest percentage of French speakers in Louisiana in Vermillion at 18%, and just under 10,000 French speakers in total, and with 15% of the population of Lafourche speaking French, for the second highest state total of French speakers overall at almost 14,000. Lafayette [the city and hometown of soon-to-be UFC welterweight champion Dustin Poirier once he defeats Conor McGregor for the second time in the third fight of their trilogy] has over 20,000 French speakers, which is the most overall, but only represents 10% of the population. I would want to go somewhere where I could walk into a restaurant with ten tables, and expect one or two of them, maybe even three, to have French speakers seated.
It's a shame to me that the French language is dying in Louisiana. Louisiana has an agency called "CODOFIL" to help preserve the French language in Louisiana...but they can't force Louisianans to learn it if they don't want to. It' sad to me to see the language go. Quebec is having this same problem in Montreal [?? go figure], and the Quebec premier is putting together legislation to preserve French there.
That's amazing you have roots in Louisiana, G_Thang. Louisiana is definitely #1 on my list of American states to visit.
[again, if that ever becomes legal].
