![]() " - Amy Lauters, Minnesota State University, Mankato, Louisiana History ![]() #Cartoon share croppr seriesThe work, which started as a series of essays written for a seniors' life writing class at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, brings the world to vivid life, contributing rare insight. "Viola Fontenot provides an immense service to Louisiana and women’s rural history with her work, A Cajun Girl’s Sharecropping Years, which shares her memories of growing up in a Cajun sharecropping family from 1937-1955. " - Cheré Coen, Louisiana Book News, "New Releases from University Press of Mississippi" "It's a small book with a powerful story offering great insight to growing up on the Cajun Prairie. " - Cheré Coen, Louisiana Book News, "Exciting New Releases by Louisiana Authors" "Her stories, although heartbreaking at times, also showcase the joie de vivre of Cajun life-the lively music and dances, the rich culture, growing up bilingual, and living close to the land. ![]() 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. 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. 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. To gently introduce the reader to her native language, the author often includes French words along with a succinct definition. 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. 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. ![]() In A Cajun Girl's Sharecropping Years, Viola Fontenot adds the female voice into the story of sharecropping. Sharecropping shaped Louisiana's rich cultural history, and while there have been books published about sharecropping, they share a predominately male perspective. 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. Today sharecropping is history, though during World War II and the Great Depression sharecropping was prevalent in Louisiana's southern parishes. Winner of the 2019 Humanities Book of the Year from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities ![]()
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