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Bon temps corrected 

Editor: 

The article about the recent Acadian fest in Berkeley (A bit of bayou in Berkeley 8/20) was interesting and I appreciated it very much but a correction is in order. 

The French-speaking people of Canada's Maritime Provinces and in southern Louisiana are Acadian, not Arcadian, which I believe is somewhere in Greece. 

The original Acadians are still alive and flourishing, despite widespread racism by the Anglo majority against them, in New Brunswick (where they are around 40 percent of the population) and bordering areas. 

France had two colonies in Canada, Québec and Acadia. Because the Acadians were on the Atlantic coast, the British conducted a massive and cruel genocidal repression against them in 1755 because of their religion and language, as pointed out in the article. Thousands died and English-language historians since then have remained relatively silent about the British atrocities committed there.  

While Acadians in Louisiana are sadly doomed to assimilation, the Acadians in New Brunswick will survive because they share a common boundary, culture and history with a strong Québec. 

Armand Boulay 

Berkeley