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By Leigh A. Shinn
Arizona Daily Wildcat
September 22, 1997

Accept Cajuns

Editor:

It has been said that if America expects to be called a first-class nation, then she can no longer have second-class citizens. This seems to be a call for acceptance: acceptance of race, of culture, of preferences. Whether America is called a "melting pot" or a "mixed salad," the result is the same. America is a country built on the theoretical principle of acceptance, and yet prejudice and stereotyping run rampant under the guise of free speech. The September 15 commentary "Riding Shotgun - Cajun Style" is a prime example of such feelings. Yes, the article makes a valid point, but at what expense? Being half-Cajun myself, I had to stop and wonder how many Cajuns Josh Schneyer has ever met. Wherever he got the definition of Cajun to be "stupid, uncultured, gun-crazy farm boys from Louisiana" I will never know. And neither will anyone else. In Webster's New World College Dictionary, a Cajun is defined as "a native of Louisiana originally descended from Acadian French immigrants." Those immigrants were often far more than farmers. Many of them had been very wealthy fur traders and bussinessmen in acadia, the area now known as Nova Scotia, until the British forced them to leave their homes and possessions in the wake of war. Many of them believed that they would return to their homes, and thus buried the valuables that they were not able to carry with them, but they were never to return. When they arrived in Louisiana, many were still considered wealthy, and are now recognized as the Creole. However, they were used to a lifestyle very different from that they would have to deal with in Louisiana, and they quickly began to losemoney. Those families that no longer had enough money to be considered wealthy are called Cajun, which can mean anything from upper-middle class to poor, but never is defined as "stupid, lazy, gun-toting farm-boys."

If Americans can't learn to accept some of the people who immigrated here before the country was a country, how can she expect to accept the "poor, weak, tired, and hungry" that she claims to shelter?

Leigh A. Shinn
Biology freshman

 


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