justaniceguy

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If New Orleans or the general area then you are technically Creole and not Cajun

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The first usage of the term "Cajun" came about during the American Civil War, during the Union's invasion of French Louisiana.[8]

After conquering Vermilionville — the modern city of Lafayette, the hub of Cajun country — in 1863, Lieutenant George C. Harding of the 21st Indiana Infantry used the term "Cajun" to describe the region's inhabitants:

I will try and tell what a Cajun is. He is a half-savage creature, of mixed French and Indian blood, lives in swamps and subsists by cultivating small patches of corn and sweet potatoes. The wants of the Cajun are few, and his habits are simple... I can not say that we were abused by the Cajuns.[8]

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After the Civil War, urban Creoles began referring to the peasant class (petits habitants) as "Cajuns".

Cajuns inhabited the "Cajun Countries" of Mississippi and Louisiana.[9][10][11][12]

At the same time, "Creole" increasingly referred to Creoles of the middle class (bourgeoisie) or aristocratic class (grands habitants), and served as a designation for inhabitants of the "Creole Cities": Mobile, Alabama and New Orleans, Louisiana.[13][14][15]

Carl Brasseaux notes in Acadian to Cajun, Transformation of a People, that:

Cajun was used by Anglos to refer to all persons of French descent and low economic standing, regardless of their ethnic affiliation. Hence poor Creoles of the bayou and prairie regions came to be permanently identified as Cajun. The term Cajun thus became a socioeconomic classification for the multicultural amalgam of several culturally and linguistically distinct groups.

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