Isleños in Louisiana

Isleño Americans

Albert Estopinal Alcide Nunez Leander Perez Joachim O. Fernández Joe Falcon Junior Rodriguez
Total population
40,000 - 70,000 (2000 estimations)
Regions with significant populations
Louisiana (mainly Saint Bernard Parish, Valenzuela and Galveztown)
Languages
American English  • Spanish
Religion
predominantly Roman Catholic.
Related ethnic groups
Spanish American, Canarians (Canarian American), Hispanos (Californios, Tejanos, Nuevomexicanos), Cajun people

The Isleños of Louisiana are an ethnic group living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting in people of basically Canarian Spanish descent. Most of its members are descendants of settlers from the Canary Islands who settled in Spanish Louisiana during the 18th century, between 1778 and 1783. The term can also informally be applied to anyone of Canarian descent or to a Canarian immigrant 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.

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

The success of the Isleños in Louisiana and Texas 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 United States 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.

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 and 2,736 people arrived in Louisiana and settled near New Orleans in what are today St. Bernard Parish and Barataria. However, many of the settlers were relocated in Louisiana for different reasons: Barataria suffered two hurricanes in 1779 and in 1780, so it was abandoned and its population was distributed in other areas of Louisiana (although some of its settlers migrated to West Florida). and in 1782, a splinter group of the Canarian settlers of Saint Bernard emigrated to Valenzuela and intermarried with Cajuns already living there. Later, in 1790 another group of settlers of Canarian and Mexican origin from Galveston, Texas settled in Galveztown, Louisiana, escaping of the fast floods and prolonged droughts of this area.

In 1782, during the American Revolution, Bernardo de Gálvez recruited Isleños from the three Canarian settlements of Louisiana and Galveztown to join the revolution. They participated in the three major military campaigns: (Baton Rouge, Mobile and Pensacola), that expelled the British from the Gulf Coast. In September 1814, the Isleños heard of a possible British invasion, leading them to organize three companies of a regiment, and on December 16, 1814, they fought against the British in one of the battles of the War of 1812 (which actually was fought 1812–15). Since then, different Isleño communities have had separate histories.

Demography

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

The main Isleño community in Louisiana was established in St. Bernard. However, as the community remained isolated from New Orleans, its people continued to speak a Canarian Spanish dialect of 18th Century till into the 20th century, as well as preserving Canarian ancient traditions like roasting pig and bird hunting. Today, however, due to linguistic subjugation of Isleño community for the Louisiana government in the Twentieth century, most of the young of the community only know speak English, although still there some Isleños over 80 that speak Canarian Spanish dialect as their ancestors.

The other Isleño communities speak French (in Valenzuela) and Nahuatl (in Galveztown), dialects that developed through the influence of the dominant languages in those places and the mix with Cajuns and Mexicans of Aztec partial descent, respectively. However, recorded interviews have been conducted in the four communities, especially with the elderly, thus preserving the Spanish language in video and DVD formats now stored in the Museo Canario (Canarian Museum) in Saint Bernard, to prevent the language and culture from being lost.

The Louisiana Isleños still maintain contact with the Canary Islands, and have an annual Caldo festival, named for a native culinary 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. Following 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 the devastation of Hurricane Katrina 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. 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.

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. 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)), 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.

St. Bernard Church, founded in 1785, was the first parish church established in the New Orleans area after the American Revolutionary War; the first permanent church in Saint Bernard was built in 1787 in Bayou Terre-aux-Boeufs. Although the Canarians also established a cemetery in 1787, burials shortly thereafter took place in a zone located in front of the church. 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), duck hunting, gathering moss, horticulture, cattle breeding and carpentry were other common activities. 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.

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 of otter and ermine.

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.

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.

On the other hand, schools were also built in Saint Bernard, and these forced all students to speak only English. Teachers punished anyone who spoke his native language and even forced them to pay a fine of 50 U.S. dollars if they did. Hispanics were even forced not to speak Spanish in public. All this caused the loss of Spanish language usage (which had been preserved since the 18th century) among the younger people of the St. Bernard community. In the 1960s several Isleño men fought in the Vietnam War. In 2005, many Isleños were evacuated before the landing of Hurricane Katrina, although some refused to leave their homes. Consequently, five hundred people lost their lives in Saint Bernard.

"Spanish" trapper, Delacroix Island, 1941

Demography

Most of the Isleños of Saint Bernard can now speak only English, except those over 80 years old, who speak the same Canarian Spanish dialect spoken in the Canary Island in the 18th century, although with significant French and Peninsular Spanish influences because of recent migrations in the 20th century. The trend was reinforced with compulsory education and English-only language instruction in the schools, as well as laws passed in the 20th century by the Louisiana legislature forcing parents to speak exclusively English at home. Even so, in the late 19th and 20th centuries, the Hispanic culture of the five villages of the parish of Saint Bernard was reinforced by subsequent migrations from all over Spain: mainly from Andalusia, Santander (Cantabria), Galicia and Catalonia, and perhaps also from Portugal (most of the Isleños in Saint Bernard are of mixed Canarian and Peninsular Spanish descent, but also from the itself Canary Islands. Although many Isleños moved to New Orleans, most returned to Saint Bernard Parish because they were not able to adapt to urban life.

Since the 19th century, many people from others countries such as Italy, Germany and Ireland also emigrated and intermarried with the local population in certain 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.

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

All the family have a patriarch, the oldest male of each family. It are important the religious festivals of the Isleños of Saint Bernard because his big celebrations, as well as dancing and lots of food. Although the Isleños have lived in Louisiana for many generations, there are still some Saint Bernard Isleños who consider themselves Canarians rather than Americans. One of the more highlighted Isleño institutions of the Parish of Saint Bernard is "Los Isleños Heritage and Cultural Society", created in 1979. 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. Other Isleño association is the Asociación de descendientes de las Islas Canarias, de San Bernardo (Association of descendants of the Canary Islands, San Bernardo).

Historic Canary Islanders Home, Poydras, Louisiana

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

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). 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.

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. 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. 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.

Traditional Isleño communities in St. Bernard include:

• Delacroix Island
• Wood Lake
• Reggio (Bencheque)
• Yscloskey
• Shell Beach
• Hopedale
• Poydras
• Violet

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.

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. Originally, these groups practiced yeoman horticulture, but ended up by planting sugar cane in the 1860s, 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.

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). 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.

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). The Brulis also created organizations to try to preserve their Canary Islands culture.

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"). They are mostly farmers, who grow different kinds of legumes and work in the production sugar cane.

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. 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.

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

• Donaldsonville (in Ascension).
• Plattenville (in Assumption)
• Belle Alliance (in Assumption Parish)
• Palo Alto
• Labadieville (in Assumption Parish)
• Napoleonville (in Assumption Parish)
• Paincourtville (in Assumption Parish)
• McCall

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 (however, although the entire population officially left Los Adaes in 1773, many of the settlers remained there.)

Many of the settlers who left Los Adaes 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 of that the 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.

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".

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. About 250 Canarians settled in Galveston, where also emigrated former Los Adaes settlers (who were descendant of Mexican militaries).

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 there the Pentagon Barracks is now stand. There, the settlers founded "Galveztown" and many settlers intermarried with indigenous local tribes.

Other Canarian settlements of these 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 communities of these two areas (Spanish Lake and Zwolle-Noble) have not maintained any contact. Nevertheless, still today their languages are basically identical.

Currently, they are still called "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.

Because they are a blend of Mexican military (which arrived in East Texas in 1721) and Canarians, 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. 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.

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

• Galvez, Louisiana (in Ascension Parish)
• Spanish Town, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (in East Baton Rouge Parish)
• St. Gabriel, Louisiana (in Iberville Parish)
• Spanish Lake (in Natchitoches Parish)
• Zwolle and Noble (in Sabine Parish)

Culture

The Isleño American communities have kept alive the Spanish musical folklore and canary (romance, décima of a local issue, lyric songs) of their 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 Mexican Corridos, 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.

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.

Legacy

Languages and culture

The Canarian dialects are being lost in 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. 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.

Notable Isleños in Louisiana

• Page Cortez
• Albert Estopinal
• Albert Estopinal, Jr.
• Joe Falcon
• Joachim O. Fernández
• Joseph Gonzales (politician)
• Louis H. Marrero
• Alcide Nunez
• Robert Nunez
• Samuel B. Nunez, Jr.
• Irvan Perez
• Leander Perez
• Matthew Randazzo V
• Junior Rodriguez
• Paul Sanchez

See also

• Isleños
• Isleños Fiesta
• Louisiana Creole people
• Spanish Louisiana
• Criollo people
• Hispanos
• Canarian people
• Canarian dialect
• Spanish American
• Spanish in the United States

External links

• Official Los Isleños Heritage and Cultural Society 1345 Bayou Road, St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana 70785.
• Canary Islanders Heritage Society of Louisiana.