Growing up in the 1920s and '30s, young Cajuns in Louisiana who grew up speaking French as their first language sometimes faced discrimination.

In the state-sanctioned English-only school system, students who spoke French, even on the playground, could be punished. And Cajuns were often represented as a backward people living a culture stuck in the past.

But when those young people went to fight for their country in World War II, they found that their language and way of life actually served as valuable tools in the battle for freedom.

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