NOway: Out of it, Into it

I apologize for the scant posts, but I'm just emerging from a weekend of stifling influenza. It turns out that when you don't sleep for a couple of weeks, your body exacts a certain degree of revenge. (Thanks a lot, body—I'll get you back in your sleep.)

I live in a beautiful house that was built in the mid-1800s. It sits a couple hundred feet from the Mississippi River, next to probably the busiest railroad tracks outside of Penn Station. Every time a train goes by, which is constantly, the house vibrates as if it were a dog trying to shake off water. In addition to this, the train always blares its horn for 45 seconds as it approaches, just in case the house-shaking or unbearable screeching of wheels on tracks was not enough. What these trains contain is a mystery to me, but let us only hope that it is something absolutely necessary and worthwhile like sheet-rock, or mortar, or something that will be useful in rebuilding this shredded city.

Anchors

Last week, I interviewed a Vietnamese priest named Father Vien The Nguyen, whose congregation lives in New Orleans East. The story of this community is being touted across the city and region as an example of the power of "anchoring" in the redevelopment of New Orleans neighborhoods. Before the storm, New Orleans East was the most rapidly developing and expanding part of the city. It contained a large, middle-class black community and the third-largest Vietnamese community in the United States. Nguyen's people—some 1,200 families who had lived there since the early 1980s—were, like the rest of the city's residents, dispersed around the country to places like San Antonio and Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. The difference now is that almost 1,000 of the Vietnamese families are back, and almost none of the black families have returned.

One can make all kinds of arguments as to why this is so: Nguyen insists that it is the Vietnamese community's strong dedication to this land and to their church, which served during the storm as refuge and now as a disaster relief center. He also gives some of the credit to himself, deservedly: Following his many heroic efforts during the storm, he kept in touch with his parishioners via radio stations in Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. When he was finally evacuated from the church, he drove to Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Atlanta, Fort Chaffee, and many other cities to meet with his community and encourage them to come back. He made several trips to these places, appointed his assistant priest Father Luke to see that "his people" in Houston and San Antonio were taken care of. Vietnamese in these cities took families in, food was cooked, prayers were made, and now almost the entire community that was dispersed after the hurricane is back in New Orleans East. They are gutting their houses, they have electricity, they have a church, and they are a beacon to the rest of New Orleans East. It's an incredibly inspiring and moving story (which you can listen to here if you have the time and patience). They seem to have done the impossible. They seem to by saying: "We have done this, and so can you."

The only problem is that the real reason they were able to do it was not because of faith, or heroics, or a strong sense of togetherness or devotion to community. They did it because they could afford to. I don't think those poor black residents of the 9th Ward are any less devoted to their community, or any less heroic, or any less faithful. They just ain't coming back.

The question in New Orleans East is one that will arise more and more frequently in other neighborhoods closer to the soul of New Orleans as time moves on: If the only "anchors" and "beacons" we see are those earning more than $100,000 per year per family, what are the anchors holding down, and what are the beacons attracting—except more money?

3 Comments

An inspiring community highlights just how desolate the rest of the situation is there ... you must be running low on emotional reserves to witness the nonrecovery every day. I can barely watch NO stories on CNN, however suave Anderson Cooper is. I'm ashamed of my own country.

Posted by: ebarr | February 08, 2006 at 09:22 AM