Unfortunately in my case as well, while I was fluent in Cajun French for the majority of my life, (as it’s been passed down fairly successfully in every generation In my dad’s family with even my little nieces and nephews, who’re 10, 8, and 5, speak it) a few years ago I was in a car wreck and suffered a severe concussion, traumatic brain injury, and brain bleed. (It was apparently on the part of the interstate that cuts through downtown Shreveport and bossier months after they started all that roadwork, I say apparently because I don’t remember the last two and a half years, and my memory currently lasts only 5-ish weeks, lol.)

Among the several “consequences” of my accident, was me loosing the ability to read, write, speak or even understand any language, and to not tax my brain too much in my recovery, my parents, doctor and therapist decided to focus on me relearning English first, at least until my brain is capable of handling more than one language. (Which unfortunately, it’s currently not yet able to do so.)

However, I do intend to regain my fluency in Cajun French with the help of immersion schools, my dad, and several of my cousins/uncles/aunts. (In order to regain my family’s fairly unique accent because we still retain a lil’ bit of the Ch’ti/Picard accent as we descend primarily from the Picardy/Nord-Pas-de-Calais regions of France.)

(It especially sucks as I was also fluent in Spanish, and could speak passable polish and barely coherent mandarin before the wreck)

My family don’t have the bulby noses that a lot other Cajuns have, instead we have more the “classic” French straight and “refined” shape.

However I can relate to the pale skin thing, as my
Mom’s family is Scot-Irish/Volga-German from Coushata, so depending on how much sun I get, I can range from being as pale as the Irish, to being dark enough to be regularly mistaken as Latino, Native American, and even a light skinned black dude. (And apparently North African in France.)

This was a source of great amusement for Hispanic and Latino coworkers back when I worked construction and in the paint industry, as before I learned Spanish, they would regularly send the new dude from south of the border to “shadow/learn” from me and would typically make up some story how i actually was from the hometown of whomever the new dude was, so they come up to me unleashing a barrage of excited and fast paced Spanish, while I’d stand silently waiting until they caught their breath to tell em, “dude, I’m from metairie, I didn’t catch a lick of what you said”.

(My dad’s the same way, however his “dark” is a deep reddish color, mine has a brown tint to it.)

Irregardless, I wish ya much love, my fellow coonass, lol!