Louisiana looks to Haiti to revive French language

NEW ORLEANS - Stephen Dominick, a Creole New Orleanian with caramel brown skin, pores over the French love poems handwritten by his great-grandfather more than a century ago.

Then he flips to the typed English translation his family had printed when it began to archive the letters for future generations.

Raised in the French Quarter by the grandchildren of Haitian immigrants and well versed in the rich history of his old port city, Dominick regrets that his great-grandfather's passion has become a lost art in both his family and community.

"Here's someone I probably look like or who looks like someone I love, writing 150 years ago about some of the same hopes, dreams and feelings I have, so I think it's important to read it in his native language," said Dominick, 31, who wasn't raised speaking French but has since begun to study it.

French remains prevalent on street signs, monuments and menus in New Orleans. But the language is seldom spoken any more by locals, many of whom are mixed-race or black Creoles whose ancestors were well-versed in it.

These are the very people Louisiana's top French-language official had in mind as he quietly refocused his agency's efforts during the past year.

David Cheramie, director of the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana, once devoted virtually all of his agency's teacher-recruiting resources to France, Belgium and Quebec. But lately he has been spending time with educators in Haiti and several other French-speaking Caribbean and African countries.

At worst, he sees a chance to improve diversity among the state's French instructors.

At best, he hopes the move will spark a resurgence in interest in French among the state's significant black population and strengthen economic ties to developing countries - such as Haiti and Senegal.

"Part of the idea is to bring in people who are a closer fit with our culture," Cheramie said. "A lot of our students are of African- American origin, and we try to show them that, even though a majority of French-speakers are white, the Creole element here is very strong."

Cheramie's agency, commonly called CODOFIL, was established by state lawmakers in 1968, largely in reaction to a Life magazine article that predicted that post-World War II homogenization of American culture would wipe out French in Louisiana by the turn of the century.

CODOFIL has succeeded somewhat in re-instilling French pride and boosting elementary school enrollment in French, but mostly among white Cajun populations in the Lafayette area.

The state's Creole population, centered in New Orleans about 200 miles east, has become increasingly disconnected from its French- speaking past.

"In my community there is some jealousy that Cajuns get all credit for Louisiana's French heritage when we had a French culture here that was just as vibrant and sophisticated," Dominick said.

About a third of Louisiana's population is black. Many can trace their roots to those who came here in the early 1800s from French- controlled St. Domingue, which, following a bloody revolution, became Haiti.

Most who fled the revolution went first to Cuba but were kicked out because of friction between France and Spain during the heyday of French Emperor Napoleon.

About 9,000 Haitians, some white but most black or mixed, came to New Orleans around 1809, says Augusta Elmwood, a genealogist who specializes in tracing ancestry to St. Domingue.

"New Orleans was still a pretty small city back then, and they about doubled the size," Elmwood said. Others, like Dominick's great- great-grandfather, came directly from Haiti after the revolution.

The influx brought with it the Caribbean-born mixture of black, Spanish and French influences that define both Creole culture and the Creole language most often spoken by today's Haitians, although French remains their official language.

The move to strengthen ties with Haiti, while logical in some respects, also holds a measure of political risk. Most Americans' only familiarity with Haiti comes through reports of widespread poverty, corruption and gruesome brutality.

But for Cheramie and top academic officials who have worked with him, links with Haiti could add credibility to those who argue that preserving French in Louisiana is about more than nostalgia. It is a means to bring Louisiana into a family of French-speaking Caribbean and even African cultures, they say.

Both Cheramie and Leon Tarver, president of historically black Southern University in Baton Rouge, have visited Haiti in the past year, meeting with President Rene Preval.

Tarver, who does not speak French but whose great-great- grandfather did when he arrived in New Orleans on a banana boat from Haiti, said the fact that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere presents Louisiana with more economic opportunities than one might expect.

When it comes time for Haiti to find civil engineers for projects funded by aid from international development banks, Tarver noted, those based in Louisiana could have an advantage.

"Certainly when you're dealing with new market opportunities, doing business in their language makes sense," Tarver said.

Tarver, meanwhile, hopes to get Southern University on the inside track to helping Haiti modernize its education system, particularly through multimedia technology that would allow students in Haitian classrooms to take courses beamed via satellite.

Aldy Castor, a 54-year-old Haitian doctor who now lives in Lafayette, welcomes the move.

Castor, who also raises money for educational and development projects in Haiti, cites an already present foundation of trade between Haiti and Louisiana.

"Haiti buys rice from Crowley. We use New Orleans' port for shipping American goods to Haiti," Castor said. "Developing cultural links will only improve that."