It's difficult to fathom that my relationship to this city has everything to do with hurricane Katrina. The storm's aftermath began my family's relationship to New Orleans, and now years later I'm beginning to call it home. There are hordes like me who found New Orleans in the time since - young people who've migrated here for the reasonable rents, exciting bar and music scenes, collaborations with non-profits, and perhaps the sense of purpose that comes with inhabiting a place in dramatic flux, the rare place whose permanence is brought into question. In our minds, perhaps, each of us believes our presence here is an act of committed preservation.
There are also the non-profits, the charter management companies, the TV and film producers, the celebrities, all of whom have flocked here to make their mark or their dollar or both, many with questionable results for the people who've lived here much longer, who called it home before and after the storm and floods, who may or may not have asked for help in this form, who may or may not appreciate the influx of outsiders who've suddenly taken an interest.
Katrina altered or destroyed so many lives here. The wreckage is still evident in lower-income parts of the city. Memories are still vivid. One of my co-workers yesterday shared his experience of witnessing the downed trees, flooded streets, houses lifted and dropped several blocks away, and the dogs, dozens of dogs, pitbulls hungry barking on street corners. Six years after the storm his voice still carried the storm's ominous weight, like a ship sinking slowly.
The irony isn't lost on me: without that unnatural disaster**, I'd likely never have found myself in New Orleans.
I'm not entirely sure what moved me to come here. In part, I think, is my belief that you can learn an awful lot about a society and a culture when you spend time on or around its margins. I felt that most strongly working at the prison garden, and I've felt it here in each of my visits. I've spent most of my life in places that hide much of the nature of our society and culture - Westchester County and Pomona College are paradigms, places that represent achievement and prosperity yet obscure the commensurate exploitation and exclusion - and this city seems a little more honest. Not that Katrina was the cause of much of the marginalization here - it existed long before and will continue to exist long after - but it did exacerbate it, expand it, and bring it to light for me. Nor does my experience here necessarily give me a view into that marginalization. That's up to me to locate and engage with responsibly.
Since I am necessarily an outsider here - and perhaps an extremely temporary one - I think it's only appropriate that I try to defer humbly to the customs, values, and cultures that were here long before August 29th, 2005.
This place will teach me if I let it.
**make no mistake that an appropriate system of levees - the one that was planned decades ago and never completed - would have prevented the storm surges that flooded the city, caused billions of property damage, lead to thousands of deaths, displaced hundreds of thousands, and ruined so many lives. This is to say nothing of the complete failure of the immediate response, ongoing rebuilding funds, and insurance coverage in the years that followed.
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