Walking up the steps of Archer’s front veranda March 14, students were greeted by rows of balloons and enthusiastic French teachers handing out raffle tickets. This tradition was one of many during the third annual French Around the World festival, celebrating the culture and history of the French language.
Head of the World Language Department Travis Nesbitt and French teachers Laurence Clerfeuille, Natalie Kang and Sara Gil Sáiz organized the French festival for the first time in 2023. While other cultural celebrations at Archer, such as the Hispanic Heritage Month festival or the Lunar New Year festival, are partly led by affinity groups, French students of all grade levels organize the French Around the World festival.
After two years of trial and error, Clerfeuille said there was a new ease in organizing the festival. Despite a rainy forecast, French students persevered and moved the festival inside, with booths set up and videos playing in the Zeller Student Center.
“I feel that we’re more confident this year; our only obstacle is the changing weather — rain, no rain, rain, no rain,” Clerfeuille said. “I’m actually quite happy with what the students have done because they’ve taken it seriously and are excited.”
French teachers created activities for the celebration based on class content from their curriculum. The seventh and eighth grade students created and displayed tri-fold posters with information about French regions and Francophone countries, including Belgium, Morocco, Tahiti and St. Martin.
The recent Paris Olympics were recapped by ninth graders, who spotlighted French-speaking athletes from France to Canada to Morocco. For the culinary portion, 10th graders cooked homemade dishes from Belgian chocolate mousse to French quiche Lorraine. Eleventh graders recapped the history of the French language, while the senior advanced study class — which has been studying Haitian, Canadian and West African literature — recited a text from a Quebecois writer.
“The French language, for a Haitian immigrant, is a language of oppression. At the same time, for Quebecois, it’s the opposite — English is the language of colonization and oppression,” Clerfeuille said. “[The festival] is a reflection on how the language [can break from] its ties to its history.”
French students could also participate in an integrated choir led by Nesbitt or an integrated dance troupe led by Clerfeuille. Two freshmen also helped lead these artistic showcases, with Natalie Subotky singing a solo and Sophia Lurie choreographing the French dance. Due to the rain, the performances were rescheduled to Friday, March 20 at 10:30 a.m.
Addie Butler, a seventh grader in Kang’s French 1A class, has spent the year learning basic French conversations. Although her class contributed a project for the festival, Butler instead chose to join the French orchestra; it was later canceled due to a lack of signups, so she joined the French choir. Butler said she applied her class knowledge while practicing singing “La Vie en Rose” and “Au Bout de Mes Rêves.”
“I think [this festival] is important so people can learn about France and all the different countries’ cultures and food,” Butler said. “I hope to keep participating in French culture at Archer in the next few years through these artistic performances.”
March is International Francaphonie Month, a time to celebrate the French language and culture worldwide. Contrary to popular understanding, Africa has the largest number of French-speaking people, despite the language often being viewed with a eurocentric perspective focusing on France. Clerfeuille emphasized that celebrating Francophone culture in Europe, the Americas, Haiti and Africa goes beyond Archer classrooms, and she hopes the festival sparked schoolwide interest in its nuances.
“It’s easy to be in L.A. and think, ‘We’re so far away from France or Quebec or Tahiti or Senegal,’ but it’s also important to remember that we are connected, and that’s what makes me the happiest,” Clerfeuille said. “It’s a little bit like Women’s History Month. Every month is implicitly Men’s History Month. It’s the same thing for languages — every day is English. We’re in a complicated political context with English as an official language, but symbolically, it’s important to remember that not everyone speaks the same language.”
Nesbitt said the main purpose of the festival is a combination of showcasing in-class learning and promoting intercultural understanding within the Archer community. He hopes the diversity of cultures present in the activities encourages students to expand their worldviews and work towards a bilingual lifestyle.
“As language teachers, especially in the United States, where people are uniquely allowed to be monolingual or monocultural, we are trying to emphasize that the world is much larger than Los Angeles,” Nesbitt said. “We live in a very multicultural city, and we are trying to showcase more diversity to remind folks that there are other languages, peoples and places out there.”
