Isleños in Louisiana

Isleño Americans
Total population
40,000 - 70,000 (estimations)
Regions with significant populations
Louisiana (mainly Saint Bernard Parish, Valenzuela and Galvestown)
Languages
American English  • Spanish  • French  • Nahuatl
Religion
predominantly Roman Catholic.
Related ethnic groups
Spanish American, Canarians, Canarian American, Cajuns, Californios, Tejanos, Nuevomexicanos

Isleño of Louisiana make up a Spanish American community of basically Canarian descent who live in Louisiana. Most of his members are descendant of Canarian settlers who settled in the Spanish Louisiana during the 18th century, between 1778 and 1783. The term can also informally be applied to anyone of Canarian descent with US citizenship living in Louisiana. This term is to be distinguished from the term "Isleños", which refers to people of Canarian descent now living in any country of the Americas without distinction.

The Isleños in Louisiana make up several communities formed by thousands of people in Louisiana. These communities constitute a distinct group within the American population, having preserved the culture of their ancestors through to the present date. There four Isleño communities in Louisiana: One in Saint Bernard Parish, other one in Valenzuela, and other two Galveztown. However, each community speak a different language: English in Saint Bernard Parish (although some them speak also Spanish), French in Valenzuela, and Nahuatl in Galveztown. Furthermore, some members of the Isleño community of Saint Bernard Parish have not only managed to preserve their culture (as the Isleños of San Antonio), but had also retained until recently the Canarian dialect of Spanish used in the 18th century.

The success of Isleño Americans in preserving their culture has led some historians and anthropologists such as Jose Manuel Balbuena Castellano to consider the Isleño American community a national heritage of both of the US and the Canary Islands.

General history (1778 -1814)

Until the 1870s, international wine export was very important for the Canaries; however, due to a commercial crisis there was an increase of poverty. Most of the affected people were farmers and laborers who had lost their jobs and whose only sustenance was in marginal activities like selling coal, mining, begging, etc. Lack of resources and a policy of inadequate land distribution led to popular uprisings. In addition, the mobilization of the army for service in Europe and America impinged negatively on the islands. Army troops from Louisiana recruited soldiers in the Canary islands, offering them, in this situation, an opportunity to seek their fortune in other lands, which explains the high number of families that left for that destination. It was the Spanish military leader Bernardo de Gálvez who recruited the Canarians who would be directed to Louisiana.[1]

Isleño settlements in Louisiana

In 1778, a boat left the Canary Islands for Louisiana with more than 4,000 people on board. However, during the journey, the ship made stops in Venezuela and Havana, Cuba, where half the people disembarked (300 established themselves in Venezuela). In the end, between 2,100[2] and 2,736[3] people arrived in Louisiana and settled near New Orleans in what are today St. Bernard Parish, Valenzuela and Barataria. In 1790, other group of settlers of Canarian and Mexican origin from Galveston, Texas (arrived there, in groups of about 250 people, in 1779), emigrated to Galveztown, Louisiana.

In 1782, during the American Revolution, Bernardo de Gálvez recruited Isleños from the three Canarian settlements of modern Louisiana and Galveston to participate with him in the revolution. The islanders participated in the three major military campaigns (Baton Rouge, Mobile and Pensacola) that expelled the British from the Gulf Coast. Later, in September 1814, the Isleños heard of a possible British invasion. The fears of Isleño farmers led these groups to be organized into three companies of a regiment and on December 16, 1814, they fought against the British in the War of 1812 (which lasted between 1812–15). Since then, different communities have had a separate story.[3]

Demography

In 2000, between 40,000 and 70,000 Isleños lived in Louisiana, in his majority, descendents of Canarian settlers arrived between 1778 and 1783.

The main Isleño community in Louisiana is established in St. Bernard. Although most of his members speak only English, because the community remained isolated from New Orleans, some of they continued to speak a rustic and antiquated Castilian well into the 20th century, as well as preserve traditions like roasting pig and canary hunting. So, today, some Isleños still speak Spanish with a Canary Islander accent.[2]

The other communities speak French (in Valenzuela) and Nahuatl (in Galveztown) dialects due to the influence of the dominant languages in those places. However, recorded interviews have been conducted in the four communities (especially with the elderly, who still conserve the Spanish language) on video and DVD, now in the Museo Canario (Canarian Museum) in Saint Bernard, to prevent the language and culture from being lost.[2]

The Louisiana Isleños still maintain contact with the Canary Islands, and have an annual Caldo festival, named for a native dish. Modern Canary Islanders travel to the United States to take part in the festivities; Canarian dancers, singers, and even the King and Queen of Spain have attended. After Hurricane Katrina, the Spanish government in the Canary Islands donated money to help repair the Canary Islander Museum and historical properties in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana.

St. Bernard (Terre aux Boeufs)

History

Ysclosky, Saint Bernard Parish, after of Katrina Hurricane in 2005

This settlement was first called La Concepción and Nueva Gálvez by the Spanish officials, but was later renamed Terre aux Boeufs (French), Tierra de Bueyes (Spanish), or "Land of Cattle". However, by the end of the 1780s, the name St. Bernard, the patron saint of Bernardo de Gálvez, was being used for the settlement in documents describing the area.[4] The majority of the Isleño population was long concentrated in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, where the most traditional Isleño customs continued. Other Isleños settled throughout Southeast Louisiana and the Greater New Orleans area.

Saint Bernard was populated by two Canarian family groups between 1778 and 1784. The first group, called the El Primer Asentamiento (First Settlement), settled in St. Bernard and Toca villages in 1779, while the second group (originally, El Segundo Establecimiento (Second Settlement)) was established in a region which they named Benchijigua in honor of the village of Benchijigua on the island of La Gomera, the place of origin of this second population. [note 1]

However, with the arrival of French-speaking sugar planters in the region, the name of the village changed to Bencheque, and is currently known as Bencheque-Reggio. After reaching Saint Bernard, the colonists built their own houses, and the Spanish government gave land to each family, the amount depending on the size of each family. The government of Spain gave money, food, tools and clothing annually to the Isleños until 1785, when the settlement was declared to be self-sufficient. Though they tried to preserve their cultural heritage after arriving in Louisiana, in order to survive in these new lands the Canarians began to relate to people descended from French and Indian tribes.

The Isleños, who were mostly farmers, worked in sugar plantations, harvested sugar cane, and cypress.[3] Although the area was settled by people from five of the islands (mostly by people from Tenerife (45%) and Gran Canaria (40%) and to a lesser extent by people from Lanzarote, La Palma and La Gomera)[2]), it was the people of Tenerife who brought cattle to Saint Bernard. The traditional knowledge of these rancher immigrants regarding cattle raising was valued, and ranchers from Louisiana and eastern Texas sometimes brought herds to St. Bernard to be domesticated by the Canarians living there.[5]

After of his fight in the American Revolutionary War, a church was founded in 1785: St. Bernard Church was the first parish church in the New Orleans area. Also, the first permanent church of Saint Bernard was built in 1787 in Bayou Terre-aux-Boeufs. Although the islanders also established a cemetery in 1787, burials shortly thereafter took place in a zone located in front of the church.[3] In 1790 sugar cane rapidly replaced indigo as the largest crop in Louisiana. Farmers purchased the land of the Isleños, and many Isleños worked as employees on these new farms. In addition, Saint Bernard supplied the market in New Orleans with much of the garlic, onions, beans, potatoes and poultry that the city consumed between the late 18th and early 19th century.

While many worked in the sugar plantations (basically in the 19th century),[5] duck hunting, gathering moss, horticulture, cattle breeding and carpentry were other common activities.[2] Between 1800 and 1900 an important trade developed in seafood and fish caught by Isleños fishermen and sold to New Orleans restaurants. In 1820, many Isleño farmers abandoned agriculture and settled in the eastern basin of Saint Bernard where a fishing community developed in Delacroix. There was a large trade in shrimp, fish and crabs that were sold in New Orleans.

In 1850 when the railroad penetrated Saint Bernard, despite the strong opposition of the Isleños, it also meant easier marketing of sugar cane, harvested produce and game animals in New Orleans. In the 1860s the Isleños of Louisiana fought in the American Civil War. After the Civil War, hunting became important to the Isleños of Saint Bernard, as it already was for the French colonies of New Orleans. Since the early 19th century, some groups of Isleños emigrated to other areas of Louisiana and points south. Some of these islanders and their descendants founded regions such as Marrero.

In the early 20th century, the government of New Orleans built roads to Saint Bernard, linking the city metropolitan area. Thus, many Saint Bernard fishermen began traveling to other areas of the city to trade in seafood and the pelts [3][6] of otter and ermine.[6]

On September 29, 1915, was originated a hurricane that completely devastated Saint Bernard Parish. It left behind almost three hundred dead; many of them fishermen, hunters and trappers islanders. In addition, the Spanish flu epidemic took hold in survivors and decimated the population further.

In 1927, there was a great flood of the Mississippi River. On 15 April, 380 mm of rain fell on New Orleans and more than a meter of water covered the streets of the city. The level of neighbor Lake Pontchartrain rose, although the risk of serious flooding was not imminent yet.

However, politicians, pressured by the bankers of the city, took a drastic step: open holes in the dike west of the lake. They placed no less than thirty tons of dynamite and blew up the levees without evacuate before the population. There, was located the parish or municipality of San Bernardo, where they had settled thousands of Isleños. The waters swept all: they swept lives and left the Isleños people without livelihoods.

After it was found that the flushing of the banker came from a false alarm: the Mississippi River did not reach a sufficient level to flood New Orleans. But the damage was done and many Isleños and black sharecroppers suffered the consequences. Investment of the banks remained intact.[7]

The Isleños also fought in the World Wars. After World War II, the Isleños who had participated in it looked for work in the urban areas of New Orleans that had developed along the Mississippi River. Therefore, many Isleños left Saint Bernard in the 1940s and 1950s. Their children were raised in areas that used English as the majority language and they did not learn to speak Spanish.[3]

On the other hand, schools were also built in Saint Bernard, that forced all students to speak only English. Teachers punished anyone who spoke his native language,[5] and even forced them to pay a fine of 50 U.S. dollars if they do it.[2][5] Hispanics were even to forced not speak Spanish in public. All this caused the loss of the Spanish language (which had been preserved since the 18th century) in the younger St. Bernard community. In the 1960s the Isleños fought in the Vietnam War. In 2005, many Isleños were evacuated when Hurricane Katrina arrived, although some refused to leave their homes. During Hurricane Katrina 500 people lost their lives in Saint Bernard.[5]

"Spanish" trapper and sons, Delacroix Island, 1941

Demography

Now, most of the Isleños of Saint Bernard can now only speak English, except for those over 80 years of age (who speak the same Canarian Spanish dialect spoken in the Canary Island in the 18th century, although with significative French and Peninsular Spanish influences because to recent migrations of the 20th century), due to the English language education in the schools and to that the Louisiana government forced their parents to speak only English in the 20th century. Even so, over the years, between the late 19th and 20th century, the Hispanic culture of the five villages of the parish of Saint Bernard has been reinforced by subsequent migrations from all over Spain: mainly from Andalusia, Santander (Cantabria), Galicia and Catalonia, and perhaps also from Portugal (most of Isleños in Saint Bernard are descendants (a mixture) of Canarians and Peninsular Spanish), but also from the itself Canary Islands.[2] Although many Isleños moved to New Orleans, most returned to Saint Bernard Parish because they were not able to adapt to urban life.[2]

In addition, since the 19th century, many people from others countries such as Italy, Germany and Ireland also emigrated and mingled with the population in some areas, but some of the Isleños are solely descended from Canarians, such as many Isleños in Delacroix Island, Yscloskey, Shell Beach, Reggio, Poydras and Violet.

Whether fully or partially descended from Canarians, the Isleño community acts as one. Depending on the season, the Isleños are water rat trappers, hunters of alligators, oysters and crabs, and fishermen.[2]

The Isleños of Louisiana are very family oriented and, like their ancestors, profess Roman Catholicism.

Each family was traditionally under the leadership of a patriarch, the older men of each family. The religious festivals of the Isleños of Saint Bernard are characterized by big celebrations, dancing and lots of food.[3] Although the Isleños have lived in Louisiana for many generations, there are still some Saint Bernard Isleños who consider themselves Canarians rather than Americans.[3] Among the prestigious institutions created by the Isleños of the Parish of Saint Bernard, the "Los Isleños Heritage and Cultural Society", created in 1979, should be highlighted. With the collaboration of Canarian institutions, it attempts to preserve the culture, history and roots of the Canary Island colonists established in Saint Bernard between 1778 and 1783.

The Los Isleños Heritage and Cultural Society has promoted the concept of "Isleño" for many years in a large area of Louisiana. In addition to establishing a museum, Canarian traditional festivals were preserved and attendance markedly increases each year. The museum organizes annual events to acquaint students with their ancestry and the lifestyle led by the territory in the early years of settlement and later. This institution has also published monographs, traditional Isleña cookbooks and three videos that reflect past events. It also tries to maintain and cultivate interest in the Spanish language, culture, customs, music, crafts and history of the Isleños of Louisiana.[2] Other Isleño association is the Asociación de descendientes de las Islas Canarias, de San Bernardo (Association of descendants of the Canary Islands, San Bernardo).[8]

Historic Canary Islanders Home, Poydras, Louisiana

The community also built the Isleño Museum in the 80s, to preserve the Canarian culture there.[2]

In addition, Museum Isleño and Multicultural City offer a scholarship to a student of Isleños descent to study all these issues. "Museum Days", an event that runs three days and allows visitors to obtain first-hand knowledge about the pioneer Isleños and their way of life, are also held. "Isleños Christmas" is another major annual event that arranges for Christmas carols around a monumental bonfire on the grounds surrounding The Los Isleños Heritage and Cultural Society's museum. Children who attend receive a visit from Santa Claus and can ride on "The Isleños Express". They are then presented with apple punch and sweets. The festivals usually arranged by the Isleño community of St. Bernard are: Festival of the Isleños (19–20 March), Canary Isleños' Day (May), the feast of San Bernardo (August 14), Bass Tournament (September), All Saints (November 1), Pow Mow (November) and the aforementioned Christmas Isleños and Bonfire (December).[5] In addition, Isleños travel to the Canary Islands every year, in order not to forget their roots and to keep in touch with the land of their ancestors.[3]

However, in 2005, the Hurricane Katrina destroyed many of the houses of the Isleños, and the Isleños Museum, and most of them migrated to other places in the U.S. during the hurricane. Over time, many Isleños who left the area eventually returned to Saint Bernard to build homes there. But in all, more than half of the population emigrated to other areas of Louisiana (where they had family) or to other areas of the United States still live there and the Isleño community continues to decline.[3] Thus, of the near of 40,000 Isleños that, according to different estimates, Saint Bernard had in the year 2000, now only some 19,826 remain.[9] Moreover, after Hurricane Katrina, the Spanish government in the Canary Islands donated money to help repair the Canary Islander Museum and historical properties in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. So, over time, the Isleños museum has been reconstructed. Currently, thousands of descendants of Isleños live in urban New Orleans.[3]

Traditional Isleño communities in St. Bernard include:

Barataria

After the arrival of the Canarian colonists to Barataria, located in the Jefferson Parish, this site suffered two hurricanes in 1779 and in 1780, so it was abandoned and its population is distributed in other areas of Louisiana, although some of its settlers migrated to West Florida.[5][6]

Valenzuela

Donaldsonville Louisiana House. Donaldsonville is one of the place of Valenzuela with Isleño settlement

Originally referred to as "Valenzuela dans La Fourche", today the location is at the site of the Belle Alliance plantation. The Isleños from Valenzuela came from the St. Bernard Parish (in fact, they were the founders of this region) settling in Valenzuela in 1782 and engaging in agriculture.[2] Originally, these groups practiced yeoman horticulture, but ended up by planting sugar cane in the 1860s,[3] which meant the end of small farmers in marginal areas. Some of the inhabitants of the eastern region emigrated to Cuba, where they founded Nuevitas, which was later incorporated into American hands.[6]

In Valenzuela, the population collaborated in the American Revolution in 1782, after recruitment by Bernardo de Gálvez, along with the other Isleños of Louisiana, as well as in the fight against the British invasion (1812–1814).[3] The census of 1784 indicated that Valenzuela had a population of 174 people, of whom 154 were of Canarian origin. In 1785, seven ships arrived bringing 800 Acadian settlers to Lafourche, where 353 people already lived. So already in 1788 1,500 people lived in the region. Contacts between Canarians and Acadians were frequent, and there was intermarriage.[5]

These Isleños communities in Valenzuela (or "Brulis") are strongly influenced by the French language of their Acadian ancestors, so they speak French and many of the Spanish names and surnames of their Canarian ancestors have been Frenchified. Some however retain a Canarian accent. The French influence in this area is such that many Brulis have forgotten their origin Canarian (although they remember their Spanish origin). However, the Isleño Frank Fernandez, who also served as Historian Emeritus of Saint Bernard, confirmed to the Isleña (and Bruli) community that he and his neighbors descended from people originating in the Canary Islands and that their dialect, accent, food and culture originated in the 18th century. He also explained that it would be possible to recover the Canary memory and contact their brothers across the Atlantic, which he did.

This caused many of the Brulis with French surnames, who until then dared not to claim Canarian culture, to say that they were Canarians. So they joined Spanish surnames to their English and French names. They then began to celebrate Canarian holidays, establish museums, make a genealogy and even a movie. This is remarkable for Valenzuela (although it also occurred in St. Bernard, where the Canarian culture, however, was always more important than in Valenzuela, so that the words of Fernandez were not so influential in St. Bernard as in Valenzuela).[10] The Brulis also created organizations to try to preserve their Canary Islands culture.[2]

The Canarian dialect of these people evolved differently from in the Saint Bernard Parish and Galvestown communities. This "Brulis" dialect (from French brulé, burned) is named for the Isleño community which lived on small fields which were originally forests and marshes cleared by fire to make room for houses and farmland. For this reason, and to distinguish the descendants of Canarian settlers in Valenzuela from the Saint Bernard Isleños, (the only ones who really call themselves "Isleños"), some anthropologists who have studied these communities, such as Samuel G. Armistead, prefer to call them "Brulis" (for the Adaeseños they are often simply called "Spanish").[2] They are mostly farmers, who grow different kinds of legumes and work in the production sugar cane.[11]

Now there many Brulis who still speak Spanish, but not outside the home. The Spanish language of Valenzuela, Bruli, is also in danger of extinction.[2] Some Brulis associations, such as "The Canary Islanders" in Baton Rouge and the "Canary Islands Descendants Association", the latter founded in 1994, created an interpretive museum in Caenarvon.[5]

Traditional Isleño communities around Valenzuela are in the Ascension and Assumption Parishes. This Isleño communities include:

Galveztown

In 1721, Mexican soldiers of origin Spanish were brought to Los Adaes, a Spanish fort, in order to prevent a possible French expansion from Natchitoches, and garrisoned them around the town, occupying Spanish territories from the Texas border to Louisiana. Most of these Mexican soldiers came from areas such as Saltillo, Celaya, and Zacatecas, in what is today northern and central Mexico, and they brought along their families (that were become in the majority population in Los Adaes). The inhabitants of this region were called "Adaeseños" (the name coming from a small Amerindian group of the region). In 1773, the 500 settlers and descendants were forced to leave Los Adaes and resettle in San Antonio, the new capital of Texas.

Many of the settlers died during the three-month trip to that city and others died soon after their arrival. The colonists settled near Trinity River and in 1779, after Comanches raided the settlement, the former Los Adaes settlers moved further east to the old mission of Nacogdoches, where they founded a town with the same name.[12] However, although the entire population officially left Los Adaes in 1773, many of the settlers remained there.[note 2]

In 1778, during the American Revolution, the Spanish were not pleased with the amount of commerce that was bypassing New Orleans via Bayou Manchac. The Spanish Governor of the Isle of Orleans, Don Bernardo de Gálvez, allowed Americans fleeing the hostilities in the colonies to establish a village on high ground they discovered just below the juncture of Bayou Manchac and the Amite River, near the Los Adaes area. The grateful villagers named their settlement "Galveston".[13]

Downtown Many, in Sabine Parish.

By 1779, Gálvez realized the strategic importance of Galveston and began bringing in Spanish settlers from the Canary Islands to place.[2] About 250 Canarians settled in Galvez Town.[14]

However, by 1790, Galveston was abandoned (due a bad location that caused fast floods and prolonged droughts) and the settlers moved to Baton Rouge. The area where they settled is known as "Spanish Town" and is where the Pentagon Barracks now stand. There, the settlers founded "Galvestown". In Louisiana, many settlers intermarried with indigenous local tribes.

Currently, they are still call "Adaeseños" by some scholars of these communities (such as Samuel G. Armistead), because many of their ancestors were between the first settlers of Los Adaes. Other "Adaeseños" settlement areas are in the Natchitoches (specifically in Spanish Lake) and Sabine (specifically in several small settlements around the towns of Zwolle and Noble) parishes. For generations the Adaeseños of these two areas (Spanish Lake and Zwolle-Noble) have not maintained any contact. Nevertheless, still today their languages are basically identical.

Because they are a blend of Mexican military and Canarians, which arrived there since 1721, the majority language is the native Mexican language "Nahuatl" (unlike Saint Bernard Parish, where the Isleños have maintained their language until very recent times). But many people in the community can still speak Spanish, although not fluently.[2] Many members of this community have some Amerindian ancestries, both because the garrison of Galvestown came partly from Mexico, and because of the existence of indigenous groups in the region (probably Caddos, Bidaes, Choctaws and Lipan Apaches). The Adaeseños of Sabine River are horticulturists, ranchers (small scale) and foresters, who also work in local mills. The people of Spanish Lake are farmers.[2]

Traditional Isleño communities around Galveztown are in Ascension, East Baton Rouge, Iberville, Natchitoches, and Sabine Parishes. This Isleño communities include:

Culture

The Isleño American communities have kept alive the Spanish musical folklore and canary (romance, décima of a local issue, lyric songs) of his ancestors. So, they have also a wide variety of songs, nursery rhymes, riddles, proverbs, folk tales, folk medicine, prayers healing, witchcraft traditions and developed their own microtoponyms (containing Isleño names for numerous animals, such as birds, fish, reptiles, insects and trees, along with the common names of the local species to which they refer).

Songs and popular poems

Isleño traditional folklore is varied. There are Canarian Décimas and even Corridas Mexicanas, romances and ballads and pan-Hispanic songs, some of which date back many years, even to the Medieval Age. The Isleños are a people who loves to sing and they have adapted new Hispanic songs, almost any song that they heard regardless of origin, making it their own over time (such as, for example, the Mexican songs Cielito Lindo and La Paloma), especially Texan and Mexican songs (even in Saint Bernard Parish). Something to note is that the Isleños of Saint Bernard Parish have narrative songs in their repertoire that, according to the student of Isleño culture Samuel G. Armistead, were not described and recognized as a specific subtype of Hispanic ballad until their discovery in this Isleño community.

These songs are décimas, but, unlike the Spanish décima, consisting of ten verses and widespread throughout Hispanic America, the décima of the Isleños of Louisiana is made up of pareado. These are stanzas consisting of two verses that rhyme, maybe the same rhyme, a consonant or assonance. These pareado can be of high or low art and the two verses can have the same length, or not, of which four hemistiches, usually octosyllabic, are used. This form is influenced by the Mexican Calendar.

These songs feature events specific to local history (of the 1920, 1930 and 1940s), humorous and ironic comments on the rigors and dangers of the careers of fellow citizens (such as trappers or shrimp fishermen), satirical poems about the misadventures of members of the community, and exaggerated tales of fishing exploits with fabulous, giant crabs and huge schools of shrimp. The Isleños, at least those of Saint Bernard Parish, sang two types of décimas: traditional décimas and improvised décimas, which were composed while they were being sung. The Isleño singer Irvan Perez is one of the most famous singers of décimas. Almost all the Coplas have been transmitted, more or less unaltered from generation to generation, from the time of the original emigrants from Spain, mostly from the Canary Islands, in the 18th century. Canarian Coplas were reinforced, probably by the Spanish colonists who came from Andalusia to the island in the early 19th century.[2]

Nursery rhymes and riddles

Some Isleño children's ballads are El Piojo y La Pulga (The Louse and the Flea), La Mosca (The Fly), and El Pretendiente Maldito (The Cursed Pretender). Riddles can be either descriptive, narrative, mathematical, question, or literature riddles. Descriptive riddles are defined as "descriptions of objects in a way that suggests something completely different". Some descriptive guessing also incorporates word games. The narrative usually involves a story of an "event known only by the person who poses the riddle." Having a cult origin, literary puzzles are often more complex, abstract and esoteric than their traditional counterparts. Proverbs and folk tales are also part of typical Isleño community traditions.[2]

Legacy

Languages and culture

The Canarian dialects are being lost in Texas and Louisiana. By 2007, researchers of Isleño communities in the southern United States had recorded 82 hours of information shared about these communities (57 hours by Isleños, 10 hours by Brulis, 10 hours by speakers in Texas and 5 hours by Adaeseños). In the case of Brulis, Adaeseños and speakers in Texas, the material is, basically, linguistic. On the other hand, interviews with the Isleños bear witness to a rich diversity of language samples, folk and popular literature. These communities have a wide variety of songs, nursery rhymes, riddles, proverbs, folk tales, folk medicine, prayed healing, witchcraft traditions and many Isleño microtoponyms (containing Isleño names for birds, fish, reptiles, insects and trees, along with the common names of the local species to which they refer).

Books were also published containing information gathered from this recorded material, such as The Spanish Tradition in Louisiana, published by Samuel G. Armistead to ensure their preservation over time.

This Isleño material relates not only to the Canary Islands, but also to several other regions of Spain and perhaps Portugal, as immigrants from these places have been coming to Louisiana basically since the 19th century, mixing in the Isleño communities. However, the Isleño's repertoire is especially evidence for the constant and dynamic creativity of the singers, storytellers, entertainers, children's playground, proverbs and riddles.

Isleños travel to the Canary Islands every year, in order not to forget their roots and keep in touch with the land of their ancestors. In 1980, the Saint Bernard Isleño community built the Isleños Museum to preserve the Canarian culture there.[2] It was badly damaged by the arrival of Hurricane Katrina, but since 2007, money sent by the government of the Canaries has been used for its restoration. Until its destruction, the museum possessed the treaty by which France ceded the West of Territory of Louisiana to Spain in 1763.[3]

Notable Isleños in Louisiana

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ The number of Gomeros who migrated to Louisiana was 393 people, making up 85 families, most of them from Tenerife[1]
  2. ↑ currently, many families in the communities of Mexican - Canarian origin of Spanish Lake and Sabine River, Galvestown, have the same surnames as the first settlers of Los Adaes.[2]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Santana Pérez, Juan Manuel; Sánchez Suárez, José Antonio. Emigración por Reclutamientos canarios en Luisiana (Emigration by Canarian recruitments in Louisiana). Servicio de Publicaciones, 1992. Page 133
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 2.20 2.21 G. Armistead, Samuel. La Tradición Hispano - Canaria en Luisiana (Hispanic Tradition - Canary in Louisiana). Pages 51 - 61 (History and languages) and 65 - 165 (Culture). Anrart Ediciones. Ed: First Edition, March 2007.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 St. Bernard Isleños. LOUISIANA'S SPANISH TREASURE: Los Islenos. Retrieved December 22, 2011, to 19:28 pm.
  4. ↑ Din, Gilbert "The Canary Islanders of Louisiana", 1988
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 Balbuena Castellano, José Manuel. "La odisea de los canarios en Texas y Luisiana" (The Odyssey of the Canarians in Texas and Louisiana). Page 46; (ed) 2007,editorial: Anroart Ediciones.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Hernández González, Manuel. La emigración canaria a América (Canarian Emigration to the Americas). Pages 15 and 43 - 44 (about the expeditions and Canarian emigration of Florida and Texas), page 51 (about of the Canarian emigration to Louisiana). First Edition January, 2007
  7. ↑ Manuel Mora Morales: Canarios. Posted in 5 may, 2012. Retrieved in 27 April 2014.
  8. ↑ Gobierno de Canarias: Listado de entidades canarias en el exterior (in Spanish: List of Canarian entities abroad).
  9. ↑ Dixemania: Luisiana, los Isleños(in Spanish: Louisiana, the Isleños)
  10. ↑ Luisiana y los canarios (in Spanish: Louisiana and the Canarian people). Posted by Manuel Mora Morales, in 2009. Retrieved in December 21, 2011.
  11. ↑ Romances tradicionales entre los hispanohablantes del estado de Luisiana (in Spanish: Traditional Romances between the Spanish-speaking people from Louisiana´s state). Posted by Samuel G. Armistead.
  12. ↑ Texas Beyond History: Glimpses of Life at Los Adaes. Retrieved February 05, 2012.
  13. ↑ www.geocities.com "History of Bayou Manchac, also called the Iberville River, Akankia, Ascantia, Manchacque, or Massiac"
  14. ↑ Louisiana: A Guide to the State. Written by Louisiana Writers' Project. Page 542.

External links