Horace Trahan

In the story about Horace Trahan that's making the rounds, the Cajun singer and accordion player took an incident from Louisiana's history, gave it a twist of his own, and used it to teach himself a second language. The historical event in question began around the 1920s, when young Cajuns in the state were denied the right to speak the language of their heritage, a unique blend known as Cajun French. A law was laid down that said children could not speak the language at school. English-only was the rule of the day for all children, despite the fact that many of them had never...