Isleños (Louisiana)

Common card · No. 310042

Isleños (French: Islingues) are a Spanish ethnic group living in the state of Louisiana in the United States, consisting of people primarily from the Canary Islands. Isleños are descendants of colonists who settled in Spanish Louisiana between 1778 and 1783 and intermarried with other communities such as French, Acadians, Creoles, Hispanic Americans, Filipinos, and other groups, mainly through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Louisiana, the Isleños originally settled in four communities which included Galveztown, Valenzuela, Barataria, and San Bernardo. Of those settlements, Valenzuela and San Bernardo were the most successful as the other two were plagued with both disease and flooding. The large migration of Acadian refugees to Bayou Lafourche led to the rapid gallicization of the Valenzuela community while San Bernardo was able to preserve much of its unique culture and language into the twenty-first century. However, the transmission of Spanish and other customs has...

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