Franco-American Identity, Community, and La Guiannée (William L. Potter Publication Series)

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Description

French traditions in The us do not live solely in Louisiana. Franco-American Identity, Community, and La Guiannée travels to Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, and Prairie du Rocher, Illinois, to mark the Franco-American traditions still practiced in both these Midwestern towns. This Franco-American cultural identity has continued for over 250 years, surviving language loss, extreme sociopolitical pressures, and the American Midwest’s demands for conformity. Ethnic identity presents itself in many forms, including festivals and traditional celebrations, which take on an even more profound and visible role when language loss occurs.

On New Year’s Eve, the guionneurs, revelers who participate in the celebration, disguise themselves in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century costume and trip right through their town, making a song and wishing New Year’s greetings to other members of the community. This celebration, like such others as Cajun Mardi Gras in Louisiana, Mumming in Ireland and Newfoundland, in addition to the Carnaval de Binche, belongs to a category of begging quest festivals that have endured because the Medieval Age. These festivals may have also adapted or evolved from pre-Christian pagan rituals.

Anna Servaes produces a historical context for both the development of French American culture in addition to La Guiannée as a way to take into account recent identity. She analyzes the celebration, which affirms ethnic community, drawing upon theories by influential anthropologist Victor Turner. As well as, Servaes discusses cultural continuity and its relationship to language, revealing recent expressions of Franco-American identity.

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