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This study examines the social, cultural, and political discontinuities found among Acadians who settled in Louisiana after their deportation from Atlantic Canada in 1755. Historians studying the Acadians’ early years of arrival and resettlement in Louisiana have drawn readers’ attention to the preservation of Acadian cultural and social attributes. These works tell how in spite of their need to adapt to life in a southern borderland region, the Acadians who arrived in Louisiana retained important qualities of their pre-dispersal identity. Such studies have served well in deconstructing the “Evangeline” myth created through Henry Longfellow’s epic poem, yet at the same time they have inadvertently mythologized the preservation of the Acadians’ pre-dispersal identity. In contrast, this text examines ways that the Acadian identity changed through their experiences in exile and resettlement in the South. The Acadians’ interactions with the government, with Native and African Americans, and among themselves in Louisiana provide evidence that the very foundation of their former identity underwent severe fractures. In studying their new relationships with colonizers as well as other colonized, evidence of the Acadians’ willing participation in the colonial military, their fears of Native American tribes, their involvement in slaveholding, and their increased dependence on the government indicate that they experienced critical social, cultural, and political changes as a result of the Grand Dérangement. Through their dispersal and their resettlement in the South, the Acadians’ quest for survival resulted in a new definition of what it meant to be “Acadian.”

This thesis explores the role of popular music in articulating socio-cultural identities by examining the contribution of the Acadian group, 1755. As the rapid modernization of Acadians' way of life led to a sense of cultural alienation, cultural products played a prominent role in asserting their cultural specificity. Accordingly, the 1970s were not only rich in artistic production, but also saw the development of a distinctive Acadian popular music practice. Responding to fears of acculturation and folklorization, Acadian popular music embodied Acadians' desire to embrace a modern identity all the while maintaining ties with their traditional identity. 1755's music actively took part in reinventing Acadian identity by constructing a cultural narrative that reflected Acadians' contemporary reality and by renegotiating what was commonly held as "Acadian" music. As a result, it became invested with ideological significance by Acadian consumers, regarded not merely as commercial music but rather as a symbol of their cultural emancipation.

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