Winner of the 2019 Humanities Book of the Year from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Today sharecropping is history, though during World War II and the Great Depression sharecropping was prevalent in Louisiana's southern parishes. Sharecroppers rented farmland and often a small house, agreeing to pay a one-third share of all profit from the sale of crops grown on the land. Sharecropping shaped Louisiana's rich cultural history, and while there have been books published about sharecropping, they share a predominately male perspective. In A Cajun Girl's Sharecropping Years, Viola Fontenot adds the female voice into the story of sharecropping. Spanning from 1937 to 1955, Fontenot describes her life as the daughter of a sharecropper in Church Point, Louisiana, including details of field work as well as the domestic arts and Cajun culture. The account begins with stories from early life, where the family lived off a gravel road near the woods without electricity, running water, or bathrooms, and a mule-drawn wagon was the only means of transportation. To gently introduce the reader to her native language, the author often includes French words along with a succinct definition. This becomes an important part of the story as Fontenot attends primary school, where she experienced prejudice for speaking French, a forbidden and punishable act. Descriptions of Fontenot's teenage years include stories of going to the boucherie; canning blackberries, figs, and pumpkins; using the wood stove to cook dinner; washing and ironing laundry; and making moss mattresses. Also included in the texts are explanations of rural Cajun holiday traditions, courting customs, leisure activities, children's games, and Saturday night house dances for family and neighbors, the fais do-do.

Within these pages is a story of struggle, poverty, loss, and love as told by a young girl, born before her time to a sharecropper-father and a young, bitter mother to achieve her biggest dreams. Patricia delivers insight into a culture of people that most know little about. The Cajun Culture. It is a rare and dying culture. Hundreds of years ago these people were forced out of Nova Scotia only to plant roots along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. For years, those roots grew to form a way of life that is still lived to some extent today. The language has changed over the years to adapt to English and perhaps they are not viewed as poor, underclass people anymore but they are known as a culture that relies on the water, the land, and family. Like all families of today and yesterday, nothing is easy. And for one little Cajun girl born in 1940, it was especially challenging. Like most Cajun folk, this young girl is tough. And she is loving. This is her rise from being spanked in the first grade for speaking French, the only language she knew to graduate college with an English degree where she taught high school English. This story is about her rise to overcome poverty through education and her struggle to find a mother she felt she never had. It's about understanding how parents hurt their children without realizing it. It's about the love of family, and the need to forgive a mother who did the best she could with the example taught her how to raise children. The book shares recipes and traditions of the Cajun Culture with the foods enjoyed on a daily basis and the use of natural resources afforded by the land, water and skies of South Louisiana.

A sharecropper's daughter describes her childhood in Texas in the early years of the twentieth century.

Through the Eyes of a Cajun is a wholesome tale of a little Cajun girl named Linder May, and her coming-of-age story, while living on the Louisiana Bayou. The small town of Laffite, Louisiana, was founded and formed by the infamous pirate Jean Laffite. This majestic Bayou cove was once used by Laffite and his crew as a secret hideaway. Through the Eyes of a Cajun takes the reader on a mostly lighthearted journey with Linder May Landry and her grandfather. Linder was born and bred on the Bayou where she finds a spiritual awakening and acceptance. This story will bring the reader closer to nature and the simplicity of living on the Bayou, all the while focusing on the trials and tribulations of poverty, prejudice, and living off the land.

There is no available information at this time. Author will provide once available.

Kaleidoscope is a beautiful collection of personal remembrances capturing joy, love, pain, grief, adventure and growth. There are also prompts which encourage us to write our own stories. This is an inspirational journey that will inspire!