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'It's really a window to the world:' West Baton Rouge Museum hosts first French book festival
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PORT ALLEN - On Thursday, students from West and East Baton Rouge parishes visited the West Baton Rouge Museum for My French Book Fest.
This is the first time the festival was held at the West Baton Rouge Museum. It was organized by the Consulate General of France in Louisiana and Villa Albertine and they also worked with the Alliance Française de la Nouvelle-Orléans.
During the festival, students learned about French-influenced music, art and books.
"We kind of think of Louisiana French, what we call Cajun French, as something that's over with. I really wanted this to happen so people know it's still around," West Baton Rouge Museum Educator Andre St. Romain said.
Margaret Marshall is an expert on the French language. At the festival, she showcased a book she co-authored with Evelyne Bornier.
The book is called "Parcours Louisianais" and is a collection of pieces of Louisiana literature spanning a period from the 1680s to 1900. All the literature in the book is in French.
Marshall said Creole and Cajun French are disappearing and past Louisiana laws forbidding French are part of the reason for the decline in the number of people who speak the language.
"When you speak a language, it's part of who you are. When they made that law that only English can be spoken in schools in 1920, it really forced people to change who they were," Marshall said.
Now, Marshall is working on the sequel to "Parcours Louisianais" which would look at Louisiana literature from the 1900s to the present. She said there was a gap in Louisiana literature written in French in the 1900s.
"After that, a huge gap, there's really nothing much until CODOFIL (Council for the Development of French in Louisiana) comes along, until about 1970 in terms of literature, poetry, plays, novels. The only thing that survives, the reason French survives is because of music. In our second volume, which covers 1900 to present, we do a lot of music because that's how these people kept it alive," Marshall said.
The WBR Museum said that is why efforts to support French-based languages are important.
"It's been a complete 180. Louisiana went from French being essentially forbidden in educational contexts and stigmatized to being celebrated," Romain said.
My French Book Fest showcases authors with ties to the language.
"We have authors from France, obviously. From Guadeloupe, from Cameroon, from Canada, and from Louisiana as well!" Director of Villa Albertine in New Orleans Jacques Baran said. "It's really a window to the world."
One author invited to the West Baton Rouge Museum is Amandine Vélin from Guadeloupe, who said she used to teach students French in Louisiana. She said she hopes the festival encourages students to take their French outside of the classroom.
"It's not a lost language in Louisiana, but it makes me sad to think there are a lot of people who don't speak it anymore," Vélin said. "The Cajun French here is really more near to our French Creole [in Guadeloupe] than in Paris."
One student said she enjoyed the festival because it gave her a chance to speak French outside of the classroom and her home.
"It feels really good. It feels like you have a superpower. Some people don't know how to speak it, but you can help them learn how to speak it better," White said.
Another student said she liked how French and Louisiana go hand in hand.
"My dad always says Louisiana is a French state, so it's best to know French because learning a French language growing up is good for the state," Ruby Diez said.
The festival will continue on Friday and Saturday. On both days, there are scheduled concerts.
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