State laws already exist that would highlight and strengthen francophone businesses in Louisiana. The next step is to fund and staff them.
Taalib Auguste (right), who speaks English, French, and Louisiana Creole, is a member of a multilingual staff who leads tours at Laura Plantation in Vacherie. Taalib Auguste
By Joseph Dunn
Joseph Dunn served as the executive director of the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL). He is the director of PR and marketing for Laura Plantation in Vacherie, Louisiana.
At Laura Plantation in Vacherie, Louisiana, tourists from France, Québec and Belgium wait in the gift shop for the 1 p.m. French tour to begin. The historic Creole sugar plantation offers tours en français three times a day:one in the morning and two in the afternoon. When asked if the tour option in the French language influenced his decision to visit, Guillaume, from France, replied, “It’s important to have a tour in French to understand this history. We have this fantasy in France about Louisiana. The way it is presented in ads and on television makes us believe that we will hear at least some people speaking French, but we’ve been here for three days and this is the first place we have spoken French with locals since our arrival.”
Guillaume’s experience is not an exception. It’s the norm for Francophone tourists visiting the state. Géraldine, from Québec, was also recently in Louisiana. Visiting world-renowned museums in New Orleans, she was astonished at the absence of language options. The interpretative panels and digital kiosks are only in English. “Being from Québec, I automatically look for the button that will allow me to view information in French. I’m really surprised that museums in a city with such deep French history don’t take into consideration that not all of their visitors speak or read English.”
Dial 8 for French
Thanks to an automated answering service in Ottawa, Canada’s Lord Elgin Hotel is just one of many businesses that provides the option “composez le 8 pour continuer en français.” In the capital city of a nation where English and French are official languages, it is expected that services, especially in the public and other essential sectors, be equally available in French as in English.
Such a scenario could exist in Louisiana thanks to legislation passed more than a decade ago. In 2010, Act 679 of the Louisiana legislature recreated the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL), giving the agency specific mandates to oversee the state’s economic development and tourism promotion initiatives in French, as well as to create a certification system to identify festivals, businesses, and other entities that provide services in French. (See CODOFIL’s “Oui!” Initiative).
Act 106, also passed in 2010 and called “The Louisiana French Language Services Program,” mandates that CODOFIL and the Louisiana Department of Recreation, Culture, and Tourism (DCRT) to create a census of each French-speaking state employee in order to :
to the extent practicable, to provide state government services to French- speaking citizens and visitors in the French language
to assist Louisiana citizens who speak French in dealing with and receiving services from the state government so as to support the long-term sustainability of Louisiana's historic French cultural heritage
to assist French-speaking visitors to the state and thus to promote an increase in tourism and greater investment in the state from Francophone countries
The law, modeled after French-language services legislation in Nova Scotia, Canada, also requires the department to “provide for appropriate insignia, such as a badge with the word "Bienvenue" or "Bonjour" to identify employees who will assist French-speaking clients in accessing and using department services.”
Despite this legislation, these important mandates are largely unknown to the Louisiana public and they remain unfunded and thus unstaffed.
It is curious, especially given the popularity of French immersion schools and the publicity they garner from local and international media, that no real pathways have been created to make French “useful” in the Louisiana tourism marketplace or in other professional sectors. This could easily be remedied by the introduction of policies in state and local governments (especially tourism promotion offices) which require the active recruitment and hiring of French speakers from Louisiana.
Jobs in French Equal Economic Development
At Laura Plantation, the site employs two full-time and eight part-time bilingual staff members who ensure the operation of the site, handle social media and public relations, conduct archival research, greet guests, lead tours, and sell merchandise… all in French. These efforts at hiring and training French-speaking staff members, especially young Louisianians eager to use their language skills in a professional setting, along with cultivating the Francophone tourism market, have been fruitful. Francophone visitors accounted for 20 percent of annual visitation in 2022.
French is a natural resource in Louisiana that we simply need to cultivate and develop. At Laura, we offer tours in French and people come for that. It’s not really rocket science.