"Cajun Aristotle" believes French culture must be saved

SCOTT - The only way to describe Zachary Richard is to say he defies description.

He's not just a recording artist or a songwriter; a poet, author or filmmaker. He's all of that - and neither his music nor his poetry can be categorized.

He's a resident of two continents, a consummate performer, a student of history, a Zen thinker and a cultural activist - but even his culture can't be pigeonholed, because as much as he is Cadienne, he also is an American.

Just in the past few months, Richard has produced a documentary, "Against the Tide," about the Cadienne, or Cajun, history and published a children's book in the Cajun vernacular that is being distributed in Canada and France. Recently, the man who jokingly refers to himself as the "Cajun Aristotle" spent a day giving copies of the book to children in St. Landry Parish French Immersion classrooms and giving interviews to the press about the program.

Because of that kind of work, Richard has become the symbol - both internationally and in Louisiana - for the preservation of the French language and culture here. Saving it from what he calls the "steamroller of American culture" may seem a daunting task, but it's probably the underdog overtones that attracted him in the first place.

"Whether it was the defeat of Quebec or being beaten in the schools of Louisiana for speaking French, or whether it was the deportation of the Acadians, or whatever it was, the history of French in North America is a history of defeat on a certain level," Richard says. He finds that fight in the face of insurmountable odds irresistible.

"I'll never stop speaking French. And there's a couple of ways for me to address the problem of the survival of the language. One is to move to Quebec, and the other is to do things like I did today: go into the French Immersion classrooms and, hopefully, communicate the power and the majesty of that culture to a young culture," he says.

"And I have no illusions about what that ultimately might mean. But what's gratifying for me is, I'm not part of something that I consider to be dying, I'm part of something that I consider to be reborn."  Richard joined what he refers to as "the movement" back in the 1970s, when it was born.

"The people that are involved with 'the movement' to preserve French in Louisiana have been involved in the movement for 25 years," he says. "It's all really the same people, and we've all been baptized with the crazy notion that we can do something about it, to preserve this culture."  Two decades later, it was reborn in 1994 following the first Congres Mondial Acadien in New Brunswick. The members returned "all fired up," and were talking together about where the movement should go.

"I stood up and said that we have to have an organization that's going to have a political mission, because this is essentially a political problem. This is not cultural; this is not a French club," he says. "This is really about the rights of a linguistic minority, which is a radical concept in the context of contemporary Louisiana culture. It's really the only thing that makes sense if we're going to, in fact, preserve anything other than vestiges of this culture."  And so Action Cadienne was born. It's a group that lobbies for French Immersion programs, and works to raise money and awareness for the program.

But is that movement, as cohesive and dedicated as it is, capable of saving a culture?

"I hope so. I really don't know. The problem, as far as I can tell, is one of identity," he says. "If you're going to give a damn about speaking French in Louisiana, you have to identify with that culture. You can be a Cajun and like crawfish and beer and Cajun dancing, but not give a hoot about the language. But if you're Cadienne, that's a whole other dimension of the identity."  It is difficult to resist the absorption into American culture, but it also is necessary, he says.

"American culture for whatever reason is the dominant world culture. I don't lament that. I just wish there was a little bit more room for other stuff," he says. "The diffusion of culture is something that has become so controlled, and this is really a political problem, because if everybody looks the same, eats the same, thinks the same, listens to the same music, reads the same books, then you have this tremendous power over the way people think and how they feel and how they conduct their lives and what they consider to be important."  The key is to find a context for people to speak French outside of a classroom or their grandmother's dining room. For years in Louisiana, that "reservation" was the traditional dance halls, but they are disappearing as a generation of Cajun and Creole musicians die. A new "reservation" must be found, he said.

"The challenge now is to find that place, that context, because these kids in French Immersion, they get out of class and go home and play with their friends and talk English, and it's just a matter of time before they graduate high school and they forget all the French they've learned," he says. "If we can find that context, we'll save French. If we don't, we won't. It's pretty much that simple. In the meantime, the best thing that we can do is provide these children with the ability to speak French."  Richard takes the optimist's view of the movement's chances.

"We have to assume anything's possible, and that as long as there's two of us left, then there's hope for the preservation of the language," he says.

To explain the obsession, Richard tells a story about a little sparrow. There is a raging forest fire, and the little sparrow flies to the brook, fills his beak, and spits that small beakful of water on the fire.

"Chances are, he's probably not going to be able to put out the forest fire," Richard says. "Why does he do it? He does it because that's who he is. It's the same for us. You can't dwell on the gargantuan size of the task if you feel something must be done."  For now, Richard is getting back to his real love - his first love - and finishing an album he's been working on since 1995. After that, he plans a tour to support it, which should take him "well past retirement age: Fifty-two and a half."  Putting aside the music, the activism and the issues, what is the Cajun Aristotle's main goal in life today?