Mardi Gras Indians

America’s most beguiling metropolis started out as a snake-infested, hurricane-battered swamp. Through intense imperial rivalries and ambitious settlers who risked their lives to succeed in colonial America, the site became a crossroads for the Atlantic world. Powell gives us the full sweep of the city’s history from its founding through

In the documentary “Mardi Gras: Made in China” by David Redmon he documents what it is like to be a worker at China’s largest bead manufacturer/factory whose beads used at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The documentary explores the lives of four of the workers in the factory, showing their jobs and daily routines. The factory workers live on site in a 20 by 24 foot residence style accommodation in which ten girls live. The documentary also interviews the owner of the factory Roger Wong who discusses some of the methods used to keep the employees in check. One of the methods used to control the workers is through incentives, this is seen as workers receive a 10% bonus if their production levels meet the company standard and a 5% pay deduction if

Kimberley S. Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places: Free Black Society in Colonial New Orleans, 1769-1803 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997).

Those who aren’t in the entertainment and tourist attraction business are described as criminals. They aren’t just committing crimes in their own poor or middle class communities but they also commit them in the richer parts of New Orleans as well, where the majority of residents are white. Perry goes on to provide statistics on how New Orleans is one of the most criminalized cities and has one of the highest urban homicide rates in America. Hurricane Katrina took the biggest hit on African Americans. The state put their basic rights and protections on hold and reduced funding on public programs that helped poor and working class African Americans. The “new” New Orleans, as Perry put it, became more dedicated to the white and richer class in which majority of the lost jobs went to white people. However there are some African Americans that have become successful. Some bands from New Orleans have done pretty well and have even gone on tour. The article then goes on to to mention that Indians are also a huge part of Mardi Gras as well. Just like the African Americans who are involved in entertaining, Indians who practice their culture and perform are usually the ones that stay off the streets and out of prison.

Social neglect is one of the causes that are responsible for the deaths in her community. Throughout Ward’s memoir she explains how her community was constantly neglected economically and socially which impacted the citizens. “They gave the violence of New Orleans many names” (4). New Orleans is a symbol for social neglect and represents the process of racism. The city is branded a violent place because of the supposable threats made against White people. All of the blame is automatically put onto black people as they are constantly stereotyped to be responsible for all the problems. All the stereotypes eventually evolve into discrimination as people of color are given unfair advantages, which resulted in racism. The social neglect also affected other individuals socially. “It’s not uncommon for young Black men to drop out here” (26). Social neglect also affected young black men especially since they were never given the hope or

From a personal, yet natural perspective, Tretheway chose to form the portrait of the Gulfport district over the years by mixing poets, prose, handwritten letters and a few childhood photographs. Without a doubt, poems, coupe with prose, have successfully flesh out this tragic anecdote, though requiring individual interpretations and a deep understanding of the author’s perception. In this sense, my own analysis allows me to pick three poems, which altogether hold an ultimately general theme: the powerful return of Gulf Coast society – through memorization, reflection and above all, recovery.

New Orleans jazz is attractive to the military culture in the shared aspect that “New Orleans jazz developed as a synthesis of social and cultural factors that merged at a particular time and place in history” (Metzger and Ernest 406). Moreover, “the usual New Orleans musicians’ response to disaster … has long been an inclination to use music to mitigate the harsh realities endemic to a city that finds itself perennially in harm’s way” (Raeburn 812) in which, post-WWI, WWII, Cold War, Vietnam War, Desert Storm, and most recently post-9/11, directly relates to military sentimentality. Further justifying the connection of the need to mitigate harsh realities with music, a sentiment shared between both New Orleans natives and U. S. Military communities, “the Naval School of Music add[ed] classes to perform in real-world settings that include performances in war-torn and developing countries” (Jones 52). This resulted in its recent curriculum “innovation [of] a New Orleans style brass band to provide the ability to send small, mobile acoustic groups to entertain audiences in difficult performance conditions” (Jones 52). The Naval School of Music takes direction from the employed fleet musicians and their supervisors’ feedback, rather than faculty, to quickly adapt a curriculum to the changing naval landscape (Jones 47-52).

Growing up in a city known as the big melting pot, or big gumbo; New Orleans, La has many different cultures and is a very diverse city. Personally, I love the mixed culture of people from different background, beliefs, and way of living. At the same time, this intangible mixture can cause a lot of trouble and disagreements. From inside school grounds, to outside, cultures clash. During this month of August everyone is reminded of Hurricane Katrina and I cannot help, but to think about how during that experience so much trouble was going on between the different cultures in the city. Through that experience I also saw the entire city bind together and unify during the historic New Orleans and Atlanta Monday night football game. During that

It dawned on me that the city of New Orleans was considered out of town for most of my students as they all live, work, and play in that one area. My next scholastic purchase was made with this information in mind, and I bought many nonfiction books that will

Perhaps no other city has felt this injustice as strongly as New Orleans; still a bustling hub of authentic Creole and Cajun cuisine with influences from places such as France and West Africa. In fact, Louisiana as a whole has deep roots in vibrant home-cookery, most often passed down generationally, in the kitchen and with dirty hands. But sadly, the number of young African Americans taking to the kitchen is rapidly dwindling. How is it possible, then, that a culture steeped in tradition is quickly abandoning its origins? Simply put: access and availability; it’s illogical to think any home cooked meal could be

This paper is about Mardi Gras, A festival or Carnival celebrated once a year. In this paper I will discuss how Mardi Gras originated, when it is celebrated, how it is celebrated, and what does it mean to all the different cultures. Mardi Gras, in the French speaking parts of the world and in some US southern states is the last day of carnival festivities preceding Lent, the time of penitence observed by Christians in preparation for Easter. Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday") is a French term for Shrove Tuesday, the day before the start of Lent. Before Lent festivities reach the climax on a day in February or March, depending on what date Easter is.(Americana pg. 308)

Before the development of an extensive water management infrastructure, New Orleans city confined on the high grounds between the Mississippi river and the Back swamp. However, when the construction began, the city started to reclaim the wetlands and expanded onto the lower grounds. In this essay, I argue that the development of the extensive water management infrastructure in and around New Orleans directly interacted with the policies, beliefs and practices of Jim Crow era to make the people of color face the consequences of the highly segregated landscapes associated with higher risks. The following points support my argument, including the poor and people of color became concentrated on low lands and the affluent whites occupied the burbs

The ending of Friday night is met with the peak of the tall buildings touching the lavender sky as it closes in around the city. People in their offices looking down from their buildings. Bourbon Street is packed with thousands of people. Mardi Gras is in the air, happiness everywhere, shrimp gumbo, pork and sausage jambalaya, shrimp and andouille gumbo, turtle soup, and we cannot forget crawfish. It is all in the making.

TIME Magazine’s November 28, 2005 issue showcases the then-recent destruction of Hurricane Katrina on full display. The title, New Orleans Blues, is a play on words for the active blues scene in New Orleans and the lasting effects of Hurricane Katrina on the entire city. The image shows a dilapidated house with graffiti (used to signal families when it is mandatory for them to evacuate their homes) an oven thrown out of a house, fixed crookedly against a fence, general debris all over. This picture was taken in the Lower Ninth Ward, one of the hardest hit areas of New Orleans; TIME Magazine dedicated a front cover to inform the world about just how severe the effects of Hurricane Katrina were in the best way that they could. This picture along

But, no. It's not like anything. It's what it is. That's the hard part. He, with all of us, lacked the words.” Ford wants to explain that the disaster is without comparison. It cannot be compared to 9/11 nor Hiro-shima. Natural disasters do not happen often, and when they do, people do not have a handbook or basic knowledge on how to handle their losses. Ford does give his readers some hope to lash onto in his epilogue despite the difficult occurrence. “Something will be there when the flood recedes. We know that. It will be those people now […] many black, many poor. Homeless. Overlooked. And it will be New Orleans - though its memory may be shortened […] A city on firmer ground.” Ford shows his empathy for the poor and homeless people left in the city. But he also reassures the people in the city that New Orleans will become a city with a lot less chaos. He talks about a re-formed city. “I write in the place of others, today, for the ones who can't be found. […] But today is a beginning. There's no better way to think of it now. Those others surely will be writing soon.” Ford feels the presence of a new city. Ford wants his readers, the people of New Orleans and any-one connected to it, to move on knowing that the city is changed, but that it’s all right. The last sentence might be a metaphor,