Child of a broken state
For the past week or two, I've been realizing that I'm finally in a place in my head where I can think a little bit about Katrina and south Louisiana and the Gulf coast in general. You may or may not know that I was born and raised in Baton Rouge, capital of Louisiana, a mere 90 miles from New Orleans, and Katrina and its after-effects typified in many ways a lot of what is wrong with the state and the area and why I left in such a decisive manner.
My parents are not from Louisiana. This might well be the most relevant fact about my upbringing that you'll ever need to know. They are from New York/New Jersy (Mom) and California (Dad). They met in grad school at U Wisc. Madison, got married, and moved to England for my dad to do his postdoc. The place that offered him a job when he was done with his postdoc was Louisiana State University, so they moved there. My mom tried hard to fit in, but even now, after she's been there very nearly 40 years, you can still tell she's not from there. An incident will illustrate:
My parents, before they were parents, were invited to a formal dinner at the home of one of my dad's colleagues. They were told a time, and they arrived at that time. The hosts were not even dressed yet, knowing as they did that in south Louisiana you did not actually arrive at parties on time - you were a MINIMUM of 45 minutes late. Even formal ones. My parents did not know this, having come from a very different background.
So I grew up in suburbia, a child of extremely well-educated people who were extreme liberals and Unitarians in a time when such leanings were almost kept hidden shamefully, like one had a disease. I never fit in, and it was a combination of all of these factors that kept me from feeling like I belonged there- no relatives (everyone else had cousins and grandmothers and uncles living nearby), no appreciable religion, and an abundance of education in a system where education was extremely hard to come by. I left in the summer of my 18th year, never to return for more than a week, and usually not for that long. I had much more culture shock moving from Louisiana to North Carolina than I did moving from North Carolina to northwestern England. People look at me funny when I say that, but it's true.
For better or for worse, though, Louisiana is where I'm from. It is very much easier to love it or even like it from a thousand miles away, with the occasional visit of 2-3 days every year or three thrown in for good measure. When the President came on TV 2 years ago and said that nobody had anticipated the levees breaking, I wanted to throw something through the TV screen, and from that moment until this week, I have avoided most stories about Katrina, about Louisiana in general, and about rebuilding anywhere. This is my disaster fatigue.
Understand - nobody in my family, small though its presence there is, was hurt directly. My mom actually benefited in some odd ways from the storm and the rebuilding efforts, and my father and his wife have carried on with their lives largely untouched by the tragedy. Sure, my dad had some scheduling problems that went on for at least 3 semesters, and since BR has literally doubled in size, he gripes about traffic and the fact that he had to put an alarm in his house. But nothing major really happened to any of them.
Also understand this - in a lot of ways, I hate New Orleans. It's a dirty, scary city that we were told to avoid when we were kids (ask cec about that one - he has much the same answer). It's corrupt, and it always has been, and there are hours of stories I could tell you about corrupt politicians, crooked cops, mobsters, and on and on.
It has plenty to offer, sure. I'll give you that - lots of culture, lots of economic goodwill as a major port and refining center, lots of tourist experience (not the same as culture), the food, the music... Most of that you can get elsewhere in Louisiana, usually better AND cheaper, but that's beside the point.
People say that Louisiana was broken LONG before Katrina hit. And it was. People did not get educated properly, there are things in the water and the air and the soil that will shock you senseless just hearing about them, the marshes and levees have had structural problems for decades, and so on.
I'm so deeply angry about the missed opportunities that could have been seized and used to make things so much better instead of just functional that it's all I can do not to break down and cry about it. I'm delighted about the many wonderful things that ARE happening there, but it isn't enough. Arguably it'll never be ENOUGH, but there is so much that isn't happening that it's just...
I'm not in a good enough place financially or emotionally that I can go down there and do anything to help, or even that I can send $$ to help, and I've decided than rather than let that tear me apart, I'm going to take care of myself and my family and my people here, and try to work toward preventing or averting another disaster of this type as best I can. But I'm starting to be ready to talk more about Louisiana in general, not just the post-Katrina state of that state, and what it means to me to have come from there and to have moved so far away so decisively.
My parents are not from Louisiana. This might well be the most relevant fact about my upbringing that you'll ever need to know. They are from New York/New Jersy (Mom) and California (Dad). They met in grad school at U Wisc. Madison, got married, and moved to England for my dad to do his postdoc. The place that offered him a job when he was done with his postdoc was Louisiana State University, so they moved there. My mom tried hard to fit in, but even now, after she's been there very nearly 40 years, you can still tell she's not from there. An incident will illustrate:
My parents, before they were parents, were invited to a formal dinner at the home of one of my dad's colleagues. They were told a time, and they arrived at that time. The hosts were not even dressed yet, knowing as they did that in south Louisiana you did not actually arrive at parties on time - you were a MINIMUM of 45 minutes late. Even formal ones. My parents did not know this, having come from a very different background.
So I grew up in suburbia, a child of extremely well-educated people who were extreme liberals and Unitarians in a time when such leanings were almost kept hidden shamefully, like one had a disease. I never fit in, and it was a combination of all of these factors that kept me from feeling like I belonged there- no relatives (everyone else had cousins and grandmothers and uncles living nearby), no appreciable religion, and an abundance of education in a system where education was extremely hard to come by. I left in the summer of my 18th year, never to return for more than a week, and usually not for that long. I had much more culture shock moving from Louisiana to North Carolina than I did moving from North Carolina to northwestern England. People look at me funny when I say that, but it's true.
For better or for worse, though, Louisiana is where I'm from. It is very much easier to love it or even like it from a thousand miles away, with the occasional visit of 2-3 days every year or three thrown in for good measure. When the President came on TV 2 years ago and said that nobody had anticipated the levees breaking, I wanted to throw something through the TV screen, and from that moment until this week, I have avoided most stories about Katrina, about Louisiana in general, and about rebuilding anywhere. This is my disaster fatigue.
Understand - nobody in my family, small though its presence there is, was hurt directly. My mom actually benefited in some odd ways from the storm and the rebuilding efforts, and my father and his wife have carried on with their lives largely untouched by the tragedy. Sure, my dad had some scheduling problems that went on for at least 3 semesters, and since BR has literally doubled in size, he gripes about traffic and the fact that he had to put an alarm in his house. But nothing major really happened to any of them.
Also understand this - in a lot of ways, I hate New Orleans. It's a dirty, scary city that we were told to avoid when we were kids (ask cec about that one - he has much the same answer). It's corrupt, and it always has been, and there are hours of stories I could tell you about corrupt politicians, crooked cops, mobsters, and on and on.
It has plenty to offer, sure. I'll give you that - lots of culture, lots of economic goodwill as a major port and refining center, lots of tourist experience (not the same as culture), the food, the music... Most of that you can get elsewhere in Louisiana, usually better AND cheaper, but that's beside the point.
People say that Louisiana was broken LONG before Katrina hit. And it was. People did not get educated properly, there are things in the water and the air and the soil that will shock you senseless just hearing about them, the marshes and levees have had structural problems for decades, and so on.
I'm so deeply angry about the missed opportunities that could have been seized and used to make things so much better instead of just functional that it's all I can do not to break down and cry about it. I'm delighted about the many wonderful things that ARE happening there, but it isn't enough. Arguably it'll never be ENOUGH, but there is so much that isn't happening that it's just...
I'm not in a good enough place financially or emotionally that I can go down there and do anything to help, or even that I can send $$ to help, and I've decided than rather than let that tear me apart, I'm going to take care of myself and my family and my people here, and try to work toward preventing or averting another disaster of this type as best I can. But I'm starting to be ready to talk more about Louisiana in general, not just the post-Katrina state of that state, and what it means to me to have come from there and to have moved so far away so decisively.