James Domengeaux

James Domengeaux was a Lafayette lawyer who served in Congress in 1941 to 1944 and 1944 to 1949 before leading CODOFIL from its 1968 creation. His method was to recruit French teachers from France, Belgium, Quebec and elsewhere, which put him at odds with the local educational establishment. In the 1980s he adopted immersion, teaching subjects in French for 60 percent of the school day. Critics objected to his reliance on foreign teachers and his emphasis on continental French over Cajun French. In 1976 he arranged a visit to Lafayette by French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vermilionville — 1.6 mi
  A living-history village of about 23 acres on Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, opened in 1990 to interpret the Native peoples, Acadians, Creoles and people of African descent of the Attakapas region.
• Cypress Island Preserve at Lake Martin — 7.2 mi
  Nearly 10,000 acres of bottomland hardwood and cypress-tupelo swamp at the south end of Lake Martin, owned by The Nature Conservancy, with a boardwalk and a rookery of egrets, spoonbills and alligators.
• Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site — 13 mi
  A bayou-side state site on former Attakapas hunting ground, with a raised Creole cottage of about 1815, a reproduction 1800 farmstead and its slave quarters, and the story behind Longfellow's Evangeline.
• St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church — 13 mi
  The Mother Church of the Acadians, founded in 1765 on St. Martin Square in St. Martinville, with a late 1870s Lourdes grotto and, a block away, the Evangeline Oak on Bayou Teche.

More markers nearby

• Dedicated in Honor of Christiana Gordon Smith — 0.4 mi
• McNaspy Stadium Memorial — 0.4 mi
• Amédé Ardoin / Dennis McGee — 0.4 mi
• Pillars of Progress (Desegregation of SLI) — 0.6 mi