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Thursday, July 14, 2016

Creole Families Hold Multi-Ethnic Fete

Creole Families Hold Multi-Ethnic Fete

Creole Families Bastille Day Festival In Its Seventh Year

July 14, 2016

by Herman Fuselier
The Daily World
John LaFleur II, organizer of the annual Creole Families Bastille Day Heritage Festival, speaks to students in St. Landry Parish. (Photo: Freddie Herpin)
For the seventh straight year, John LaFleur II is starting his Creole Families celebration — with a definition. For centuries, Creole has been defined in countless ways that have changed with time, geography and political climates.

But LaFleur sticks with an historic and color-blind definition.

“We take the historians’ point of view from their documents,” said LaFleur, an author and chef. “Creole is an adjective that applied to anyone born of foreign parents in the New World and were acculturated in what I call the gumbo culture of Louisiana, with no respect to the shade of one’s skin.

“That is how it is used in civil records, as well as ecclesiastical records of colonial Louisiana. It was an adjective for native born.

“We celebrate all of our people together.”

More than 40 Louisiana, French and Acadian Creoles will receive a champagne toast at the seventh annual Creole Families Bastille Day Heritage Festival from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Ville Platte Civic Center. The event includes a Catholic Mass, a lecture and discussion, live music from Todd Knighten and Knight Train and much more.

Some of this year’s honorees include KLFY-TV 10 news anchor Darla Montgomery, Jim Soileau and Martel Ardoin of KVPI Radio, the Rev. Jason Vidrine, Joseph Dunn, Gene Buller, artist Waven Boone, musician Boisy Pitre and numerous business leaders, genealogists, historians and cultural supporters.

The event also recognizes Bastille Day, which commemorates the Storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. The overthrow of this medieval prison and the ruling authority is regarded as a spark that helped to ignite the French Revolution.

“We commemorate Bastille Day because we share the French heritage and democratic values,” said LaFleur. “It was the beginning of the end of slavery across the French civilization. Liberation happened.

“We picked that date because of that fact. The irony is the French Revolution was not very friendly to the church. That’s for good reason because there was abuse of authority on the part of corrupt church leaders. The good suffered for the bad.”

LaFleur said the event emphasizes the vast contributions of Creoles during their 300 years in Louisiana.

“We are the children of all these people who created the metaphorically gumbo culture. We wouldn’t be who we are without the other.

“Can you imagine Louisiana without gumbo? That’s Indian and African. Can you imagine Louisiana without pralines or pain perdu (French toast)? That’s French.

“Can you imagine her without jalapenos or tamales? That’s Spanish. Potato salad with gumbo, that’s German. Who wants to give any of that up?”

Want to go?

What: Seventh Annual Creole Families Bastille Day Festival

When: 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Saturday, July 16, 2016

Where: Ville Platte Civic Center, 704 N. Soileau St.
Creole Families Hold Multi-Ethnic Fete
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