Byinvini to jou Jòrdi

From Louisiana to Houston: How Creoles built the Bayou City

Frenchtown, on the northern edge of Houston’s Fifth Ward, became one of the city’s most important Louisiana Creole communities. According to the Handbook of Texas, approximately 500 Creoles of French, Spanish, and African descent organized the four-square-block neighborhood in 1922. These Creoles of Color were part of a broader movement from Louisiana into southeastern Texas. They did not arrive in a single migration or establish every Houston Creole community at once. Frenchtown is the best-documented early concentration, not a complete map of every place where Creole families later lived.

Kouri-Vini is not “Broken French”

There are racial ideas and language that are outdated, but his observations show how the Creole and French language were treated differently. Broussard experienced Black and white creole speakers in St. Martinville, Breaux Bridge, and New Roads. Some children grew up speaking Creole but were encouraged to use “good French” instead and that same phrase is still being used and something modern speakers plus language activists challenge to this day.

The Kouri-Vini Movement: Where are we now?

We do not know the future of the language, but we know that it is the people who will decide. They will decide if it becomes a key element of the community, if it is used in everyday life, or if it will continue to decrease in usage. Therefore, for us Jou Jòrdi, we are here to support all Creole speakers and members of the community whether inside or outside of Louisiana.

A special volume celebrating Kréyolité (Creoleness)

In this volume of the revue Feux Follets, we wish to dive into literature and visual art featuring Kréyolité and all that goes with it: Kréyolitid (Creolitude), identity, culture, spirit and mind, environment, art, music, perspectives, experiences, connections and disconnections, food, traditions, folklore, etc. And if we happen to find ourselves in a land full of fifolé—mysterious floating lights, some say balls of blue fire, elusive denizens of Louisiana’s cypress swamps and marshes—even better.

The revue Feux Follets also invites visual artists from all Creole communities around the world to submit an image (one image per artist) that we will consider for use as this volume’s cover art. With your submission, please send your short biography (a maximum of 100 words) written in the third person in your own Creole language, alongside a French translation of your text (or you may send a French-only version).