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I have never heard of “heartlander identity”. What are its stories and who are its writers? Who are the big historical heroes? Are you sure you have enough manpower to lobby for your interests if the American upper class becomes less amenable to “heartlanders”? As a Cajun, you don’t want any unity with the French who share your heritage? How can your story be written so as to exclude the vast flood of central and south American migrants, or do you not care?
IMO this is a losing strategy. Take the Quebecoise — cool, they have their own unique post-French identity in a location they have control over (for now). What are their plans for the massive increase in Canadian Indians who may not relinquish their identity and who will control their parent-territory? They will go the way of the Samaritans who refused to unite with the twelve tribes. They will be a relic of the demographic museum like white south afrikkaners, with a timetable for their replacement. It’ll be like that Nazi cartoon of the last French white people. You’ll be the Kalash of Pakistan, temporarily tolerated by the unified Pashtun all around them.
I think this will happen to any small ethnicity which fails to adapt to global reality. Adaption is a reality of history which is why there was even a French people to begin with — a combined group of Frankish Germans, Celts, Roman ancestry. Imagine how silly you would be if you were the last remaining “heartlander” Celt in France, while Charlemagne rewrites the glory of your adapted relatives.
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