re: Is Louisiana part of the Deep South?

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My whole life i've heard "bruh north of I-10 aint cajun."

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Ville Platte area isn't?

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St. Tammany

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Absolutely part of the catholic/south LA region. It is 67% catholic… plus has always had extremely strong ties to Nola.

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That’s not true. The OG cajuns went down to Louisiana after being expelled from Canada, some even ended up in the states between (Carolina?) I think

The creoles are the people from the French colonies. They are a separate group from Cajuns, historically.

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I couldn't answer this without finding myself writing a book.

shortest answer:

Acadians = those actual French Canadian refugees. There are a certain families on record who can claim that identity (and if you know them, boy do they)

Creoles = originally meant French and Spanish (Criollo) settlers in colonies, but is what (English and Protestant) Americans took to calling anybody not like them in Louisiana when they poured in after the Louisiana Purchase

Cajun = well... Some Acadians "became" Cajuns, but not all Cajuns are Acadians, though all Cajuns are Creoles and some Creoles are Cajuns... those communities (especially the fishing/hunting/trapping communities in the swamps and marshes or on the gulf coast) tended to welcome whoever showed up, and those newcomers assimilated into the culture and language (and the Catholicism)... it's a term that has been fairly recently retro-actively applied to Rural French-speaking Louisianans (who were previously called Creoles)...

here's the first known usage, by a Union officer who encountered people in the Louisiana swamps who had no interest in fighting them on behalf of the Confederacy:

I will try and tell what a Cajun is. He is a half-savage creature, of mixed French and Indian blood, lives in swamps and subsists by cultivating small patches of corn and sweet potatoes. The wants of the Cajun are few, and his habits are simple... I can not say that we were abused by the Cajuns.

It seems he misunderstood a French accent saying "Acadians" for "Cajuns"...

After that, it became an ethnic/class slur, and in the post-Civil War era French-speaking Louisiana people outside of New Orleans were discriminated against, mistreated and abused pretty badly.

Then they began to reassert their pride in their heritage and identity...

But when they claimed to be "Creoles" the response was "so, you're black!"

Which depends on individual family histories, but made them want another term/identity to differentiate themselves...

So they reclaimed "Cajun!" ("THAT'S OUR WORD, NOW!!!")

I think Coonass has died out, though...

and Cajun is an ethnicity... from the 1700s there were Germans who adopted French when they arrived here (The German Coast in Acadiana.. know a Cajun Matherne or Schexnayder or Folse or Zeringue?)... I've known some Italian Cajuns whose families spoke French, not Italian, though their cooking was both and damned good... Black Cajuns invented Zydeco by trying to play R&B on Cajun folk music instruments,,, the washboard, violin, and the accordions the Germans introduced... if you wanted to be part of the community, they were glad to have you is what it comes down to...

Historic New Orleans Collection: What’s the Difference Between Cajun and Creole—Or Is There One?
The answers are tied up in race, class, language, and, of course, history.

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The majority of Louisiana residents live in the New Orleans, st Tammany, Lafayette, and Baton Rouge metro areas

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Correct. More than half of the BR metro population isn’t Cajun or Yat though.

Factor that in along with the entire 318 and SWLA then throw in the Florida parishes and you have majority Deep South.

You can’t be Deep South and be heavily catholic. Sorry, but you’re simply wrong

I would definitely categorize Louisiana as part of the deep south.

Yes but we are a different culture.
We are the Dirty South

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The deep south is a geographical term, not a cultural one

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strongly disagree

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The biggest single influx of French people into South Louisiana and New Orleans in particular came from emigres from Saint Domingue—people that had been there for a couple generations and left during the Haitian Revolution. Lots of mixed blood there with the black and mixed Haitians. Many of them did not see themselves as French by that point. It was not continental French culture that they brought with them was my point.

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Even if that’s true, (not going to argue one way or another) that does not change the fact that there is a significant French/Catholic influence on the culture of South Louisiana.

I will also mention that some Cajuns (Acadians) and creoles (French colonists) ended up in other southern states besides Louisiana: some around North Carolina and not sure where else.

Also, the ones directly from France were also called Creole, as opposed to Cajun.