Free «Cajun American History» Essay

The United States of America is one of the nations in the world that has a rich history. This history has been shaped by different groups of people who either immigrated to the United States or were natives of this nation. These groups of communities contributed in one way or the other in shaping the history of this country with some participating in fighting for independence while others were fought as the settlers from Europe came in to take their land. Among the ethnic groups that contributed greatly to the shaping of the American history is the Cajun society.

There are different sources that have recorded the movement of the Cajun society in the United States. It is recorded that this community has an origin in Louisiana in Great or Expulsion Upheaval. These people mainly lived in forests and when the French and the British invaded America, they were not concerned with them at all. However, their lack of concern for the British or the French did not keep them secure from these visitors. Instead, the intruders forcefully evacuated from their original and moved from one place to another while in some cases, they found themselves being blockaded in the ongoing war between the visitors i.e. the French and the British and the native Americans. The Cajun culture is a generic culture that arose as a result of the integration of the culture of Acadian people and other nationalities that were living in Louisiana.

One of the notable issues about the Cajun community is that other American communities looked down on them since there culture did not integrate with the American modern culture and as a result, they were secluded from other communities. According to Bernard (2003), the Cajun was described as lazy vagabonds by other communities (p.vii). However, their culture has since evolved and many of them have adopted the Anglo-American culture while shedding off their native culture. This may have been contributed by the fact that these people participated in the World War II by thousands (p.4). The exposure they received while serving in the United States Army exposed them to a culture they had never seen before, forcing them to learn new languages and new cultures that would later on serve them by enabling them to integrate into other communities and allow their culture to go through a revolution that would not have otherwise been attained.

There is also an evolution of the Cajun music. The music of this community has been able to carve itself a place in the American culture with more and more people finding it interesting to their ears and as a form of entertainment to them. However, the Cajun people value their music since this has always been perceived as part of their culture. Therefore, music in this community has served as a way of transferring their culture from one generation to another. Since the 1980s, formal Cajun bands has sprouted with many of them using modern technology to record and store their music that describes in details the formation of their culture and the general livelihood of these people in the society (Bernard, 2003, p.58).

Having been approved and accepted as an ethnic group by the US government, the Cajun community remains to be one of the communities in the United States that have contributed much to the formation of the American history. Despite the Americanization of this group of people, their culture has remained strong, with most of it being transferred from one community to another mainly through songs. On the other hand, there are various issues such as the integration of people from this community into the national service that have enabled them to adopt new lifestyles and culture thus enabling their culture to have a continuous revolution.