James R. Domengeaux

For his efforts to save the French language in Louisiana, Domengeaux received an honorary doctorate from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, the Order of the Legion of Honor from the French government, and the Order of the Crown from Belgium, among numerous other citations. On November 11, 1986, coinciding with Veterans Day, Lafayette Mayor William Dudley "Dud" Lastrapes and Governor Edwin Washington Edwards proclaimed "Jimmy Domengeaux Day". The University of Louisiana at Lafayette created an "Eminent Scholar Chair in Foreign Languages" in Domengeaux's honor.

In the 1980s, Domengeaux embraced a new teaching method: French immersion, in which children were to be taught a variety of subjects in French for 60 percent of the school day. This method replaced the previous, less successful method of teaching French in only thirty-minute daily increments.

In 1976, Domengeaux arranged for the then French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing to visit Lafayette.

In 1968 Domengeaux accepted an appointment from Louisiana Governor John McKeithen, his fellow Democrat, to preside over a new state-charted organization called the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana, commonly known by the acronym CODOFIL.

In 1962, Domengeaux was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court. He was senior member of Domengeaux and Wright (1931–1984). The firm maintained offices in Lafayette, New Orleans, Hammond in Tangipahoa Parish, and Opelousas, the seat of St. Landry Parish in south central Louisiana.

Domengeaux did not seek reelection to Congress in 1948. Instead, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Senator Allen J. Ellender. He was succeeded in the House by the freshman State Senator Edwin E. Willis of St. Martinville, the seat of St. Martin Parish. He returned to the private practice of law in 1949.

He was a member, briefly, of the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1940, until he was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House. He defeated the Republican sugar planter, David W. Pipes, Jr., of Terrebonne Parish. Domengeaux first served in the U.S. House from 1941 to April 15, 1944, when he resigned to join the armed forces. He was a private in the Combat Engineers until he received a medical discharge. Thereafter, he was elected on November 7, 1944, to fill the vacancy in the 78th Congress caused by his own resignation. He hence served again from 1944 to 1949.

Domengeaux was born in Lafayette to J. Rudolph Domengeaux and the former Marthe Mouton. He attended Mount Carmel Academy and Cathedral High School in Lafayette. He obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (then "Southwestern Louisiana Institute"). He also studied in New Orleans at both Loyola University and Tulane University Law School, from which he received his legal degree in 1931. He was admitted to the bar that same year and launched his law practice in Lafayette.

Domengeaux was married to the former Eleanor St. Julien (1921–2004); they had no children. They are interred at St. John's Cemetery in Lafayette.

James R. Domengeaux, known as Jimmy Domengeaux (January 6, 1907 – April 11, 1988), was a lawyer from Lafayette, Louisiana, who served in the United States House of Representatives for Louisiana's 3rd congressional district from 1941 to 1949. He was a cultural activist of Cajun and Louisiana Creole descent who is best remembered for his efforts to preserve the French language in his native state.