Pitter Patter of Patois

I’ve often pondered my affinity for a diverse array of interests, whether it be food, culture, art, music, or people. It’s as if I resist committing to a single passion and fully immersing myself in it, owning it and becoming known for it. 

Instead, I’ve been what might be kindly stated as a "jack of all trades, master of none". Or perhaps to some, an outsider lacking pedigree, or even purity of blood and thought.

Yet, I have managed to be neither this nor that. And at the same time, on a good day, both.

Maybe it’s because I have a creole spirit. The creole spirit most excellently expresses itself through its food. For instance, Creoles are known for gumbo, which may be the best soup there ever was, yet, it’s never the same, from one day to the next. 

Gumbo

Some days, it's made with sausage and chicken. Other days, a seafood extravaganza. Sometimes, heavy on the okra. 

The beauty of creole gumbo lies in its unpredictability, yet, you can count on the fact that it will be made, lovingly, with the best ingredients that can be found, and bound together by the art of the “roux”, a deep and complex broth which holds it all together.

Gumbo is about making the most from what we have, when we have it. I would like to think that I embody that spirit. 

This and That

On my mother's side, I’m the son of an immigrant, and on my father’s, the grandson of one. Yet, I haven’t conformed to the conventional American immigrant’s son narrative– where some folks strive to be the epitome of a particular group’s identity.

Engaging with my DNA (if that’s even possible) has never compelled me to fit into a particular mold. So, naturally, I find myself occupying a space of neither ‘this’ nor ‘that’.

Rather, I am this and that.

I carry with me an immigrant’s mechanism of survival– learning to fit in and adapt. What’s important to remember, though, is these traits can also foster a curiosity about the “other”, and cultivate tastes and traits that the more “pure” amongst us might not be inclined to explore. 

Cajun-spiced okra

For instance, I am  fond of  Cajun-spiced okra, a dish rooted in African origins. However, on any given day, I may also savor beef seared over an open flame with chimichurri, in the Argentine tradition, with perhaps a side of fried rice, not necessarily Chinese, but rather in the style of the Asian immigrants of Peru. 

These serve as prime examples of my own personal “cultural intersections”. Such intersections are potent spaces to engage with others, and with ourselves.

They say we may be on the highway to hell, but maybe we can also meet at the intersection of heaven.

Creole’s Origin Story 

What did creole originally mean? To delve deeper into this topic, I drew extensively from an excellent essay titled “The Meaning of Creole”, edited by Ambassador Elnio Duran, and published in Kreol Magazine in 2016.  

Ambassador Duran explains, “creole” is renowned for its fascinating complexity, a word whose meaning varies along the lines of time, place, context, and audience. It derives from criollo, a variation of the Spanish verb criar, meaning “to raise”, or “bring up”. The term originally referred to the New World-born offspring of Old World-born parents.”

Here in the States and most parts of the Caribbean, Creoles are of mixed African, European and Indigenous ancestry. In different parts of Latin America, the term creole has various meanings: it may denote any local-born person of pure Spanish extraction; it may refer more restrictively to members of old-line families of predominantly Spanish descent who have roots in the colonial period; or it may simply refer to members of urban European people. 

In countries such as Peru, the word creole describes a certain spirited way of life. Important expressions of that way of life include: the abilities to speak wittily and persuasively on a wide range of topics, to turn a situation to one’s advantage, to be masculine (macho), to exhibit national pride, and to participate in fiestas and other sociable activities with a certain gusto. A person exhibiting those characteristics is described as muy criollo (“very creole”).

Prominent Louisiana historians such as the Reverend Jules O. Dailge and Fred B. Kniffin illuminate the fluidity of the definition of creole. Rev. Dailge, himself a Cajun, doesn’t think that Cajuns are actually Creole because Cajuns came to Louisiana from Canada, and the term creole applies only to the Spaniards and the French whose ancestors came to Louisiana directly from Europe. He’s a bit of a purist. 

Kniffin is much more expansive in his definition of creole which gets more to the “Creole Spirit”. He writes in his book, Louisiana, its Land and its People, “ The word creole has been loosely extended to include people of mixed blood, a dialect of French, a breed of ponies, a distinctive way of cooking, a type of house, and many other things. It is therefore no precise term and should not be defined as such.”

Interestingly enough, the original designation of the word creole was meant to separate the Europeans  from the Indigenous, African and even first generation Spanish and French inhabitants of the New World, but as time went on, creole began to signify a mixing of the cultures, so that in modern day Louisiana and the Caribbean, everyone assumed that a Creole person is of mixed race. 

While I don't fit the modern assumption of a Creole as a person of mixed race, perhaps I may fit the older and now obsolete definition as a descendant of Spanish and French immigrants into the Caribbean (and later the southern part of the U.S), even though my people came here long after Colonial times, in the 1930’s. 

But that's not why I identify as Creole. It's the diversity! 

Creoles live, move and think in a naturally diverse way. Their view of the world includes all sorts of gravitational pulls, which are usually more inclusive because they represent a gathering of multiple influences around them, rather than a restriction of definition of self to your race, color or creed. 

The famous Creole actor and producer, Marcus Brown, expanded on this gravitational pull by affirming the following, “Being a Creole is defined as much by having an ‘appreciation’ of those things that define the term as by anything else”.

The geography of the Pan-Creole world is as diverse as its spirit. The Pan-Creole world stretches all the way from the Southern United States, to Patagonia, with particularly rich expressions in Louisiana, the Caribbean and the northern part of South America. 

Some even expand the boundaries to include large swaths of Africa and the islands of the Indian Ocean, such as Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and the Seychelles. 

The sensibilities of the Pan-Creole universe stretch even further if we include anyone who thinks like a Creole. So, it can be said that Creole is more of a state of consciousness, than a statement of your bloodlines.

Challenging Conventions

This brings me to my main point: we live in a world where the colonial and neo-colonial concepts of pedigree are still widely accepted, even by those who have been oppressed by them.

For example, one might not be white enough, nor black enough, or not a "real" Hispanic because they don't speak Spanish.

They might not be Native American enough because they are only 1/8th Cherokee, or they are too conservative, too liberal, or too much of both.

Maybe they are considered an outsider in their community because they’e only lived there 10 years. I could go on. 

This contradicts my "personal patois". Just like the misconceptions about the term creole, there is also a misunderstanding about the term patois. While it's true that forms of patois, which is a blend of multiple languages, are spoken in places like Haiti and Jamaica, various forms of Patois emerge wherever diverse cultures intersect. 

This includes places like East Africa where Swahili emerged as the trading language of the region by combining elements of Bantu, Arabic, Portuguese, English and other languages. A form of Patois even developed among Native American tribes in the Southwest, whose Indigenous peoples spoke hundreds of dialects. 

I submit that it's even possible for one to have our own personal patois– a distinct inner voice that communicates our own unique but diverse identity as opposed to the persona imposed on us by external influences or old-fashioned cultural definitions.

For those of us subjected to the conventional judgements of so-called “purists” who may question our adequacy, we may ask ourselves, “What is the sound of the pitter patter of our personal patois?” 

In my case, it whispers in a way that only I can discern, saying “I am no longer bound by your constructs. I can encompass aspects of various influences, or perhaps, none at all. This is my private act of personal disobedience and perhaps even a form of private decolonization. I am breaking away from who you think I must be.” My personal patois is my own form of creole.

My creole flows not only from people, places and things defined by the term, per Brown's definition, but is also rooted in its inherent fusion of substance and spirit. Creole, to me, means transcending the constraints of outdated notions of who is “in”, or “out”. It embodies inclusivity, not exclusivity. 

Creole is expansive, not restrictive.

Creole is about improvising and crafting our own narrative, rather than following a well-worn recipe. Creole may look completely different from one person to the next, from one year to another, or even to that person in the mirror each morning asking, “Who shall I be today?”

Is this concept unsettling? Perhaps it is a bit like taking the guardrails off societal narratives, challenging the status quo. 

Shame on you, Boudreaux

For those who savor a hearty gumbo, alongside a plate of moros y cristianos (where black beans and rice meld in harmony rather than being served separately), enjoyed while listening to a Zydeco rendition of "Stairway to Heaven", and perhaps downing a Bajan (Barbados) rum infused with the juice of an exotic fruit unknown to most, perhaps you, too, are creole in spirit, if not also in heritage. 

That spirit is nourished to live on by what we have come to love, and what we will discover and appreciate until we die.

With this, I leave you with a joke which may have been Cajun, but like any good Creole, I’ll adopt it and call it creole for now:

"Boudreaux was on his last dying breath. He was upstairs in the water bed and was about to slip out of this world, when he smelled it. The most wonderful smell. 

Brownies, baking in the oven downstairs.

He struggled out of the water bed. He could not stand up, so he crawled over the stairway and rolled down the stairs. He crawled into the kitchen and pulled himself up to the counter where the brownies were cooling on the rack. He took one and put it to his mouth. 

Awe that wonderful smell, that wonderful taste.

Marie walked up behind him and said, 

"Shame on you, Boudreaux. 

Those brownies are for after the funeral."