History South Louisiana’s Cajun culture has been under siege for 300 years and has survived. During the ethnic cleansing of their home in Canada and decades of wandering the world in exile, one-third of them died. They then created a new home from a swampy Louisiana wilderness, where they endured the attempted systematic eradication of their beautiful language. Now, precariously afloat in the ocean of American pop culture, they stubbornly cling to their French, their families, and their fun. Through it all, Cajun music has been a fountain of joy and a focus of identity. A blend of accordions and fiddles, black and white, sorrow and celebration, back-porch reverie and Saturday night release, this music has inspired Cajuns and anyone else who hears it to lay down their troubles for a while and celebrate. Like all great forms of folk music, it is forged in great hardship and created for a great purpose- to remind the world and themselves that “we still exist and we will find a way to continue.