Los Isleños Museum Complex

Between 1778 and 1783, the Spanish Crown brought approximately 2,000 Canary Islanders to Louisiana to populate and defend the colony. They came as Isleños — islanders — and they stayed islanders, holding Spanish and the old songs in a pocket of swamp that let them be. For over two centuries they kept the language. They kept décimas, ten-line folk songs built to carry a story or a grudge. The isolation wasn't romantic. It was geographic fact, and it preserved what would have dissolved anywhere closer to the city.

The museum complex is anchored by the Dr. Louis A. Ducros House, built around 1790 and listed on the National Register. The house is old enough to have seen the colony change hands twice before the Louisiana Purchase. The Los Isleños Heritage and Cultural Society, founded in 1980, runs the site. The annual Isleños Fiesta brings out traditional food, music, and dance — the Canary Island repertoire as it was adapted here, not there.

St. Bernard Parish also held Saint Malo, one of the earliest Filipino settlements in North America, established by Manila Men who jumped ship from Spanish galleons. The delta collected people the empire couldn't hold.

Admission is free. Tours run by appointment. Check the website for the schedule.