Bill,

I googled "Ahualulco, Zacatecas", and this link came up:
http://www.nuestro-mexico.com/Zacatecas/Juchipila/Areas-de-menos-de-10-…

It is in the municipio of Juchipila! Currently only 10 people live there.

My cousin who I am helping with his research told me that his maternal grandmother was born in Louisiana and spoke only French. After researching, she was really born in Tampico, Tamaulipas, and was brought to Louisiana as a very small child by her father Pilar Lopez. I wondered why she didn't speak English or Spanish. I was unaware of any migration from Mexico to LA in the late 1800s and early 1900s, at least not like I have seen to Texas and the rest of the Southwest.

Yes, I knew about Cajuns in Louisiana though not where they came from. In fact, my brother-in-law (African-American) had a relative from Louisiana, and when he spoke English I couldn't understand a word he said, his southern accent was so thick. He told me and my sister that we looked like Cajuns. We look typically "Mexican" or Native American. We are descended from Pueblo Indians and Spanish settlers from the 1500s in New Mexico.

I also recall a man at work that we hired to translate from Spanish to English for the Mexican patients. He was a cajun from Lousiana by the surname LaSalle. He used to sing a song about "Thiboudoux" or something like that, and he would laugh and laugh. He loved speaking Spanish, and our patients thought he was one of them. He had no one to speak French to.

So it seems that Cajuns for some reason not only look like us, but they speak both Spanish and French as their first languages. Mr. LaSalle said that his people were often referred to by a vulgar name referring to the back end of a racoon. He said it was because back in the 1800s and later they wore caps made from coon skins, like Davy Crockett, with the tail of the raccoon hanging down the back. He said that they were a mixed-race people---Indian and French, kind of like the Mexicans---Spanish and Indian. He said many cajuns also had black blood, but that they wouldn't admit it. I found many people with French first names and the surname Lopez in the early censuses of various parishes in southern LA.

I figure the Mexicans who migrated to Lousiana instead of to Texas or New Mexico felt more comfortable with the French-speaking Cajuns and lived among them, and the children spoke whatever language the other children in the community spoke. Pilar worked in a saw mill in Calcasieu Parish and Beauregard Parish. I guess he ended up speaking Cajun French too.

We had an employee who was French speaking, and she couldn't communicate too well with the patients from Montreal, and I think that would be the case with the Louisiana Cajuns too. Different dialects.

It is all very interesting. I hope I can find more about Pilar in Zacatecas for my cousin who knows nothing about that side of his family. All he could tell me was the name of his grandmother and that he thought she had been born in Louisiana.

Emilie

> From: bill_figueroa@usa.net
> To: research@nuestrosranchos.org
> Date: Sun, 9 Oct 2011 13:55:20 -0500
> Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] Agulurco ??? in Zacatecas?
>
> Emilie,
>
> I found it interesting that Pilar's (or Pete's) children grew up speaking
> French in Louisiana. That is not unusual considering that Luisiana was
> under French and Spanish rule before the independence of the U.S. However,
> nearly all French speaking creoles living in the southwestern parishes of
> Louisiana are descendants of French Canadians that resisted the British
> occupation of Acadia early in the 18th century, and who were later expulsed
> by the British beginning in 1755. After their homes were burned and their
> land confiscated, many Acadians sailed South and settled in the bayous of
> Louisiana. The descendants of those who settled in Louisiana after 1764 are
> better known as Cajuns. They speak French and keep their culture and
> traditions alive.
>
> Bill Figueroa
>