New Orleans Embraces Its

French Roots
Joseph Mistrot is the former president of L'Union Française, a local nonprofit
founded in 1872 to teach the French language and preserve Francophone
culture. His great-grandfather emigrated to New Orleans from France in the late
19th century and his Cajun grandmother's first language was French. Mistrot
said Mardi Gras is another high-profile example of how historic Francophone
influences endure in New Orleans today.

Joseph Mistrot es el expresidente de La Unión Francesa, una organización sin

fines de lucro fundada en el año 1872 para enseñar la lengua francesa y
preservar la cultura francófona.

"Mardi Gras is our premier event of the year and is a direct reflection of our ties
to France," he said. "The season starts with a parade by the Krewe of Jeanne
d'Arc, in honor of the French heroine and [an unofficial] patron saint of New
Orleans. It ends with the Boeuf Gras, which is an old French tradition in which a
cow was paraded through the street before being slaughtered for the final feast
before Lent."

"Today, in New Orleans, it's not a real cow," Mistrot was quick to add. "It's made
of paper-mache and part of a parade float, but it's from the same tradition."

“En la actualidad en Nueva Orleans no se trata de una vaca real”, añadió con
rapidez Mistrot. “Esta hecha con papel maché

French influence can even be seen in how the city was built.

La influencia francesa puede percibirse en cómo la que la ciudad fue

construida / por la forma en la que la ciudad fue construida.

Whereas most American cities have a street grid composed of perfect squares
and right angles — Manhattan being a classic example — New Orleans, which
was founded along the twisting, winding Mississippi River, benefits from a
French-style street grid with an irregular geometry.

"French influence in New Orleans is traceable to the spring of 1682, when the
French-Canadian explorer Robert La Salle first passed the future site of the city
and claimed the entire Mississippi Valley for France," explained Richard
Campanella, an author and geographer with New Orleans' Tulane University.
"By the end of the 17th century, an outpost was established within that claim."

As French surveyors laid out plantation parcels in the next decades, Campanella
said, they had to be fair and give each landowner a piece of the fertile land
beside the Mississippi River, as well as shipping access.

The solution was thin, "long-lot" plantations, known as the "arpent system." As
these lots were eventually divided up into neighborhoods in the 19th century,
the street grid adhered to the earlier plantation boundaries. Some of today’s
street names were derived from those plantations as well as the names of
famous French historical figures and families.

"Look at any map or satellite image of New Orleans, and you will still readily see
the imprint of this old, French surveying system from centuries ago."

Francophone with local flair

In the centuries since New Orleans' original settlement by the French, several
elements of Francophone influence have waned. Fires in the city's famous
French Quarter destroyed much of its French architecture, which was replaced
with a Spanish style after Spain took control of the city in the late 18th century.

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 resulted in La Nouvelle-Orléans becoming part

of the United States. As the Anglo "Américains" flooded into the new territory,
the existing — and previously dominant — French Creole population slowly lost
political control.