Editing Cajuns (section)

==Establishment of CODOFIL and preservation efforts==
During the early part of the 20th century, attempts were made to suppress Cajun culture by measures such as forbidding the use of the Cajun French language in schools. After the Compulsory Education Act forced Cajun children to attend formal schools, American teachers threatened, punished, and sometimes beat their Cajun students in an attempt to force them to use English (a language to which many of them had not been exposed before). During [[World War II]], Cajuns often served as French interpreters for American forces in France; this helped to overcome prejudice.<ref>Tidwell, Michael. ''Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast''. Vintage Departures: New York, 2004.</ref>

In 1968, the organization of [[Council for the Development of French in Louisiana]] <!-- (CODOFIL) --> was founded to preserve the French language in Louisiana. Besides advocating for their legal rights, Cajuns also recovered ethnic pride and appreciation for their ancestry. Since the mid-1950s, relations between the Cajuns of the US [[Gulf Coast]] and Acadians in the [[Maritimes]] and [[New England]] have been renewed, forming an Acadian identity common to Louisiana, New England, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.

State Senator [[Dudley LeBlanc]] ("Coozan Dud", a Cajun slang nickname for "Cousin Dudley") took a group of Cajuns to Nova Scotia in 1955 for the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the expulsion. The [[Acadian World Congress|''Congrès Mondial Acadien'']], a large gathering of Acadians and Cajuns held every five years since 1994, is another example of continued unity.

Sociologists Jacques Henry and Carl L. Bankston III have maintained that the preservation of Cajun ethnic identity is a result of the social class of Cajuns. During the 18th and 19th centuries, "Cajuns" came to be identified as the French-speaking rural people of Southwestern Louisiana. Over the course of the 20th century, the descendants of these rural people became the working class of their region. This change in the social and economic circumstances of families in Southwestern Louisiana created nostalgia for an idealized version of the past. Henry and Bankston point out that "Cajun", which was formerly considered an insulting term, became a term of pride among Louisianans by the beginning of the 21st century.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/C7817.aspx|title=Blue Collar Bayou: Louisiana Cajuns in the New Economy of Ethnicity|publisher=greenwood.com|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061114000743/http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/C7817.aspx|archive-date=November 14, 2006 }}</ref>  It is common for persons living in the historically Cajun area of Louisiana to self-identify as Cajuns even when they have limited or no Cajun ancestry.