Includes bibliographical references (pages 177-190) and index.
CONTENTS NOTE
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Introduction: from Acadian to American: the paradox of Cajun American identity -- Longfellow's Evangeline: the origins of American myth and Cajun memory -- How to become American: the irony of George Washington Cable's Bonaventure -- The awakening awakened: Cajun identity and female sexuality in the fiction of Kate Chopin -- Our Cajun America: twentieth-century revisions of Cajun representation -- The journey home: James Lee Burke's parable of Cajun assimilation -- Embracing difference: Cajuns take the next step in Cajun representation -- Conclusion: local pride, global connections: twenty-first-century Cajuns.
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SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
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From antebellum times, Louisiana's unique multipartite society included a legal and social space for intermediary racial groups such as Acadians, Creoles, and Creoles of Color. In Becoming Cajun, Becoming American, Maria Hebert-Leiter explores how American writers have portrayed Acadian culture over the past 150 years. Combining a study of Acadian literary history with an examination of Acadian ethnic history in light of recent social theories, she offers insight into the Americanization process experienced by Acadians--who over time came to be known as Cajuns--during the nineteenth and twentiet.