Celebrating Belgium in Brussels, Wisconsin

This weekend marks the annual celebration of Belgian Days, a festival of all things Belgian, taking place in… Brussels, Wisconsin, reports the Peninsula Pulse. That's because the Brussels area of Wisconsin’s Door County is the largest Belgian-American settlement in the US, even 150 years after the first Belgian settlers set foot on the land. While most ethnic settlements have diversified, the Belgian heritage in Southern Door County remains strong. The local Belgian-Americans don't just celebrate their heritage in Wisconsin. Many participate in cultural exchanges with heritage clubs in Belgium, and travel back and forth to visit distant relatives and learn more about their ancestry.

Besides being the largest Belgian-American settlement in America, Southern Door County may be one of the only places Walloon, a language spoken in parts of Belgium, is spoken casually. Most people of Belgian heritage in Southern Door trace their ancestors to Wallonia, and some still speak the language. Lynda Baudhuin, whose husband spoke only Walloon until he was in seventh grade, said few, if any, young people speak the language. "There was a time some people were trying to teach it to the young people, but they didn't seem to have the interest, which is sad because it's a dying language," Baudhuin said. "It's pretty homogenous," Brussels resident Bill Chaudoir said. "If you survey the residents of the area, 80% of them have a strong Walloon heritage, which is pretty unusual. Usually after 150 years the population is pretty diluted."