SOMETIMES IT IS hard to explain to outsiders the culture of southern Louisiana and the quandary of many of its people. The world in which they grew up is now a decaying memory, but many of them have no place in the present. I know Cajuns who have never been farther than two parishes from their birthplace. There are people here who cannot add and subtract, cannot read a newspaper, and do not know what the term “9/11” means. Over forty percent of children are born to an unwed mother. In terms of heart and kidney disease, infant mortality, fatal highway accidents, and contaminated drinking water,
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