Paulette Bourgeois: Hello. My name is Paulette Bourgeois. It's the name I was born with and for a long time I didn't like it much. My parents were expecting a boy and planned to name him Paul, but surprise, I was a girl. Paulette means little Paul and it's an old-fashioned name. I didn't meet another Paulette until I was grown up. My sir name, Bourgeois, is one that I can trace back to the earliest days in France. My ancestors were one of the first to arrive in what we now know as Canada. That's where I was born and still live.

They were proud, independent Acadians, but they were forced to leave their beautiful maritime homes during a war between the French and the English way back in 1755. My relatives were separated and they were all exiled in the coast of North America to Louisiana and even Western Canada. I didn't grow up speaking French, although my father is a Francophone. I've since studied the language and I don't think I maul it too badly, but mostly I speak English.