Customer Reviews

Louisiana Creoles: Cultural Recovery and Mixed-Race Native American Identity

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Louisiana Creoles: Cultural Recovery and Mixed-Race Native American Identity

As I read this book, I was constantly taking notes. It gave me a more indepth look into my culture as it incorporated the American Indian history and identity of our many, different ethnic backgrounds. I definitely recommend this book to all readers of multiracial background interests.

This book is a must read for all Creoles! Jolivette really gave justice to all the misinformation that has been said of Creoles. Race as it has been applied to Creoles has been nothing more than a political concept that ignored the true culture and Jolivette really explains how culture should be of more importance than race. I'm editing my earlier review to say that although Creoles were living as a separate ethnic group and should have their own separate ethnic category, I no longer think Creoles should be in a separate category from African Americans as we should all be coming together and being divided only helps white supremacy. However I think it's very wrong for the government to attach labels to people without letting them self identify and we're supposed to be a free country? The "one drop rule" is pretty much telling us that whites could care less whether we claim our European ancestry or not and this is another thing that makes we wonder if we should keep pursuing a separate category. Also in history when Mulattoes were able to self identify it caused a big division between them and blacks and Mulattoes were used to serve the agenda of whites. Creoles have every right to be proud of our heritage just like everybody else. We still have African symbols in our culture like Voodoo but most Creoles are Catholic and blacks have been mentally conditioned to think of African religion as paganism or everything negative and recent evidence shows that Voodoo was the most ancient form of African Spirituality before any of these other religions came about. This is another reason why we should be proud of our African heritage. I think the history of the Mardi Gras Indians should've been mentioned in the book but Jolivette shows how the Native American Indians contributed to Creole culture and each ethnicity( French, African, Indian & Spanish) deserve equal attention. I'm more proud to be Creole now because I kind of strayed away from the Creole culture due to society pressure to just think in black and white. And now with the internet I can reach out to other Creoles. I also recommend watching the film Spirit of a Culture: Cane River Creoles.