[Dixielandjazz] Dejan and Creole,

David Richoux tubaman@wombat.net
Wed, 14 Aug 2002 22:54:11 -0700


lUIS dANIEL Flores wrote:
> 
> Rebecca,
> thanks for your answer.
> Here in Argentina, ``criollos`` are the children of Europeans (mostly
> Spaniards) and Indian.
> IN the case of Dejan, his parents were French?
> 
> Luis Flores

In New Orleans culture (and in the surrounding countryside of Louisiana) I have
noticed that there is a great variation in the use of the term Creole. It can mean
as you have stated, the children of European and Indians and I think that is the
technically correct definition. However, as I understand it, the term is generally
used as a cross racial (or in effect cross status) person - African or
European/"caucasian" +Indian (or usually a mix of any of them.)
 It is very confusing, especially when you also have the black and white cajuns,
creole and african cooking and all of the rest of the gumbo that is New Orleans and
Louisiana, historical and today... not to mention the incredible structure of race
nomenclature in the rest of Southern USA (or all of it, for that matter)

OKOM content: Hundreds or thousands of songs written about all of this - a major
(but hidden and Politically Incorrect) theme!

Dave Richoux