In the book The Cajuns: Americanization of a people by Shane k. Bernard talks about how they were not allowed to speak French to the teachers. If French words were said, “they were delivered to the principal's office, where the principal had a set of rubber hoses tied together and we were whipped. Captured girls were punished differently, as they were forced to walk around the flagpole with bricks in their hands” (Bernard, p.19). In my latest interview Mrs. Winola comments that "school was fun at first, but the teachers didn't want us speaking French on school grounds, so if we were caught speaking that language we would be punished." She also talks about how she and her brother were caught speaking French and forced to write lines "we will not speak Cajun French on school grounds." The very fact that children were disciplined because they spoke the only language they really knew led them not to pass the language down to different generations and teaching meant that the language gradually became extinct. In another of my recent interviews, Mrs. Debbie Johnson says that one of her grandparents barely spoke English because of this and because she was not taught Cajun French, she rarely communicated with her grandfather, preventing her from having a close relationship with him. Ms. Debbie Johnson also stated in the interview “I