Something stunning when travelling to the US is the number of cities called some something Ville, Nashville, Jacksonville and all the small ville you’ll see when going at a random place on google maps, let alone a state called “vert mont” which can’t sounds more french.
So there is definitely evidence for a significant french influence in former Louisiana. However, the french-influence seems very diluted in modern US, especially when looking at the cliché regarding American pretending to be Irisish/Italian because of one ancestor from that country. Moreover, US isn’t really famous for their wine/bread/cheese
So i am curious to learn how these colonist merged with the anglo-saxon and what’s left of their heritage in modern US .
It’s interesting that you say that while using a French word like “cliché”. Maybe it was intentional from you? :-D
And maybe reducing not having a strong French influence to not having a wine/bread/cheese culture is, you know, reductionist?
It is notable though that you have lots of Americans which claim Italian, German, Irish etc. descent, but in comparison basically nobody outside of Louisiana claims French descent.
I think someone said it above but that’s probably because there were less French immigrants in the 19th century compared to Italian, German, and Irish. Italy and Ireland had famines and Germany had a revolution in the 19th century which led to lots of immigrants to the US. Many (maybe most) French immigrants were much earlier which may have led to decendents feeling fully American versus calling upon a more recent immigrant identity.
Anecdotally, I know a guy of French descent whose family had settled an area (forget where now) before the US existed. They chose to join the US (voted for their state to join the union) and felt fully American. It’s possible that many more older French settlers felt the same.