Perrins to be inducted into Order of Living Legends

Andy Perrin, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Acadian Museum of Erath, La. announces that the Acadian Memorial of St. Martinville will induct Warren and Mary Broussard Perrin into the Order of Living Legends on July 28, 2023.  The event will take place at the Acadian Memorial, 121 South New Market Street, St. Martinville, La. at 6:00 p.m. Prior to the induction, Fr. Jason Vidrine will celebrate a French Mass at St. Martin De Torres Catholic Church in St. Martinville. Perrin will present a PowerPoint on the 20th anniversary of the apology to the Acadians for their Deportation in 1755 by the Queen’s Royal Proclamation having been signed in 2003.

In January, 1990, Warren A. Perrin prepared a petition and had it delivered to the British Crown. The petition sought a formal apology from The Crown for their role in the 1755 Deportation of Acadians from Nova Scotia. The British prepared a strategy to eradicate the Acadian culture: ethnic cleansing. Today, because nearly half of the Acadians died, many now call it genocide. Happily, with near-unanimous international support, the effort was successfully concluded on December 9, 2003, when Queen Elizabeth II’s representative signed the Royal Proclamation. The implications were three-fold: an acknowledgment of the horrific wrongs committed against the Acadian people in the name of the British Crown; a symbolic reconciliation for the death and suffering resulting from the diaspora; and the establishment of July 28 of each year as a Day of Commemoration of the Acadian Deportation. The following are some of the recent important developments that have resulted from the Queen’s Royal Proclamation of 2003:

1. The image of the Royal Proclamation is featured in a film on the Acadians which is being shown in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, Canada.
2. The Royal Proclamation has been used as a primary resource tool for teachers in Louisiana schools. It is a perfect learning tool because it's bilingual and reinforces our French Immersion model and goals.
3. Edgenuity uses the Royal Proclamation in its instruction materials for online educational services.
4. An article by Andréanne Joly in Francopress.ca about the 70-year reign of Queen Élizabeth II was publish on February 9, 2022, wherein Perrin was quoted as saying that the Queen clearly understood that the wrongs done to the Acadians by the Crown needed to be addressed and were reconciled by the Royal Proclamation, so she graciously gave her consent to the execution of the document by her representative Canadian Governor General Adrian Clarkson. The original document is in the Canadian Archives.

Attorney Warren A. Perrin is a skills professor at Loyola Law School and an adjunct professor at the University of Louisiana. He was named by five Louisiana governors to lead CODOFIL. In 1999, he was awarded the French National Order of Merit and the Université Sainte-Anne in Canada gave him an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree. He founded the Acadian Museum and has edited or authored 12 books. In 1990, he filed a petition seeking an apology for the Acadian Deportation from Queen Elizabeth II resulting in the signing of the Royal Proclamation of 2003.  From 1995 to 2010, he represented Louisiana at five World Francophone Summits. In 2007, he was inducted into the Louisiana Justice Hall of Fame. In 2018, Perrin was named as one of the University of Louisiana’s Outstanding Alumni. In 2022, Perrin was appointed a member of the Historical Commission, Diocese of Lafayette, to prepare a report for the Vatican for the proposed canonization of the “Little Cajun Saint” Charlene Richard and Auguste “Nonco” Pelafigue. In 2023, Perrin was named as president of the New Acadia Project (NAP).

Mary Broussard Perrin is an author, visual artist, and former educator and gallery owner living in Lafayette, Louisiana. She is a mixed-media artist working in painting, photomontage, artist books, and performance art. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from UL Lafayette; and a Master of Visual Arts from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has work in the collections of the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, DC; the private collection of Krystina Wasserman, curator of book arts at the NMWA; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, a branch of the Smithsonian; and the Louisiana State Museum. She is co-author of Acadie Then and Now, a People's History, 2015 winner of Le Prix France-Acadie, as well as Seeking an Acadian Nation, the Diary of an Evangeline Girl, published in 2019. She is also a Lafayette Parish Master Gardener, and as such is chairperson of the international-award winning Healers’ Garden, or Jardin des Traiteurs, a demonstration garden comprised solely of native Louisiana medicinal plants located at Vermilionville Living History and Folklife Park in Lafayette. In conjunction with the garden, she instituted Vermilionville’s popular quarterly speaker series “Healing Traditions of Acadiana” in 2013 still going strong in 2023. She has recently co-authored a book, Healing Traditions of South Louisiana, Prayers, Plants and Poultices on medicinal plants and traiteurs, or traditional Cajun French folk healers. She herself is also a traiteuse.

For more information, call the Acadian Museum at 337-456-7729 or consult info@acadianmuseum.com. The Acadian Museum is located at 203 S. Broadway, Erath, Louisiana. It is open Tuesday through Friday from 1:00-4:00 and on Saturday from 10:00 to noon.

The Living Legends series, free and open to the public, honors individuals who have helped shape and define Cajun culture. The corporate sponsor for the program is the law firm of Perrin Landry deLaunay. For more information, you may call 337-456-7729 or visit acadianmuseum.com/legends.php to view a complete list of all prior inductees.