Franco-Americans
Franco-Americans or French Americans are Americans of French descent. About 11.8 million U.S. residents are of French descent, and about 1.6 million speak French at home. An additional 450,000 U.S. residents speak a French-based creole language, according to the 2000 census. While Americans of French descent make up a substantial percentage of the American population, French Americans arguably are less visible than other similarly sized ethnic groups. This is due in part to the tendency of French American groups to identify more strongly with "New World" regional identities such as Québécois, French Canadian, Acadian, Cajun, or Louisiana Creole. This has inhibited the development of a wider French American identity. The majority of Americans of French descent are descendants of those who first settled in Canada in the 17th century (known as New France at the time), which later became the Canadian Province of Quebec after Canadian Confederation in 1867. The majority of Americans of French descent, mostly resident in New England, are descendants of the Quebec Diaspora, while few are of Acadian descent from the Canadian Maritime provinces.
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Acadiana, or The Heart of Acadiana, (Cajun French: L'Acadiane) is the official name given to the French Louisiana region that is home to a large Francophone population. Of the 64 parishes that make up Louisiana, 22 named parishes and other parishes of similar cultural environment, make up the intrastate region.
The word Acadiana reputedly has two origins. Its first recorded appearance dates to the mid-1950s, when a Crowley, Louisiana, newspaper, the Crowley Daily Signal, coined the term in reference to Acadia Parish, Louisiana.
However, KATC TV-3 in Lafayette independently coined "Acadiana" in the early 1960s, gave it a new, broader meaning, and popularized it throughout south Louisiana. Founded in 1962, KATC was owned by the Acadian Television Corporation. In early 1963, the station received an invoice erroneously addressed to the Acadiana Television Corp. Someone had typed an extra "a" at the end of the word "Acadian." The station started using it to describe the region covered by its broadcast signal.
In 1971 the Louisiana state legislature officially recognized 22 named Louisiana parishes and "other parishes of similar cultural environment" for their "strong French Acadian cultural aspects" (House Concurrent Resolution No. 496, June 6, 1971), and made The Heart of Acadiana the official name of the region. The official name, however, has never been embraced by the public, which instead has used merely the one-word place name Acadiana in reference to the region. The term can, however, be found on regional maps and highway markers.
Despite the frequent association of Cajuns with swamplands and bayous, Acadiana consists mainly of low gentle hills in the north section and dry land prairies, with marshes and bayous in the south closer to the coast. The wetlands increase in frequency in and around the Calcasieu River, Atchafalaya Basin, and Mississippi Basin. The area also is cultivated with fields of rice and sugarcane. Read more...
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Madonna (born Madonna Louise Ciccone; August 16, 1958) is an American recording artist, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983. She followed it with a series of albums in which she found immense popularity by pushing the boundaries of lyrical content in mainstream popular music and imagery in her music videos, which became a fixture on MTV. Throughout her career, many of her songs have hit number one on the record charts, including "Like a Virgin", "Papa Don't Preach", "Like a Prayer", "Vogue", "Frozen", "Music", "Hung Up", and "4 Minutes". Madonna has been praised by critics for her diverse musical productions while at the same time serving as a lightning rod for religious controversy. Read more...
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Paul Richard LePage was elected 74th Governor of Maine and took office on January 15th, 2011. He is the first Franco-American Governor of the state of Maine, born in Lewiston, Maine. A Republican, he was previously mayor of Waterville from 2003 to 2011. He worked in the private sector as general manager of the 14-store discount chain, Marden's Surplus and Salvage, from 1996 to 2011.
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The cities with the highest percentage of Franco-Americans and francophones are in northern Maine. The cities of Madawaska, Van Buren, Caribou, Fort Kent, and Frenchville, all boast more than 80% French-Canadian descent. Not far behind, are the cities of Berlin, New Hampshire, Lewiston, Sabattus, Greene, and Biddeford, in southern Maine.
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