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Reporter's Notebook
"They’re full of hope, which is amazing to me because each person has been through so much."
By Jennifer Marshall
April 25, 2007
Youth Radio's Jennifer Marshall visited New Orleans for the first time, and reflects on her trip. Jennifer says that she expected to find destruction and remnants of an abandoned city ruined by the storm. Instead, she found that New Orleans was filled with a sense of hope and rebirth.
On my first trip to New Orleans, I expected to see abandoned, waterlogged buildings. But on the ride through the business district, I saw just the opposite. It looked like any urban city, not a place that had been destroyed only a year and a half ago. The watermarks were almost gone and people looked as though they were just living life like nothing had ever happened.
Walking into the French Quarter and Bourbon Street, there were lights and music everywhere. On that one street you can find any type of club. People were throwing beads everywhere, and off Bourbon Street it seemed like there was a Mardi Gras every night. One local restaurant owner that we met said jokingly, “You can tell who the tourists are, because they’re the ones running around with beads on, taking pictures, and acting a fool.” My friend Terry and I immediately removed our beads.
He then told us about the upcoming French Quarter Jazz Festival’s history. The French Quarter Jazz Festival was originally just a part of being a New Orleans native. They really didn’t like tourists attending it because it was part of their culture. However, this year they actually encouraged tourists to come because they need the money, and the exposure. But it leaves a lot of people feeling like Bourbon Street and the French Quarter are losing their culture to become a mini Las Vegas or Reno.
Despite all that, most residents said that if it helps bring their home back, why not? That’s the theme around New Orleans now: rebirth. Everywhere you go there are symbols, signs, and people saying it. They’re full of hope, which is amazing to me because each person has been through so much.
We all went on a tour of the Ninth Ward, and all the places that were still very broken. I was surprised that the business district looked like nothing had happened, whereas homes in the Ninth Ward were filled with mold and dirt, with people living in FEMA trailers next to all these empty houses. Houses had floated into other houses and on top of cars, and they’re still there today. Spray painted on these houses was this x symbol where they would put the date, the number of people dead and alive, the number of animals, and who had investigated the spot.
I don’t know how these people felt to see us driving through on a school bus taking pictures, and staring at their new way of life. I could only think that if that were me, and it had happened in the Bay, I would be so mad. Coming back to a destroyed house, living in a little trailer, then having people come around taking pictures would just be too much.
The most horrible part of all this is even though houses are slowly being rebuilt in these poorer wards, they are being rented back out at an inflated price. Houses that originally were $200 a month are being rented out for $1,000. A lot of the locals feel that it’s a way to drive out poverty in New Orleans and allow rich people to come through and change everything.
Racism is deep in the South, though you may not notice it just by going through the business district. Jermaine, Terry, and I were taking a cab. We had a Creole cab driver and the whole time he was talking to Jermaine, telling him not to go into certain neighborhoods because “this is the South” and that they will kill him for being black. Coming from the Bay Area, I couldn’t imagine that type of racism still existing (even though I know it does). The cab driver was talking about how he would roll down his window asking for directions and white people would roll theirs up.
When I left, I couldn’t think of anything to say to the cab driver. I told him that I hoped it would get better. He told me it wouldn’t. Afterwards, I felt so naïve about the whole experience. Who’d have thought that the city could, on one side, be a city of endless parties, but to another side, a city with endless poverty and racism? It really put the problems I’ve been having lately into perspective.
It also opened my eyes on what the real New Orleans really is about. You can feel the vibes of hope and anger. It’s a city of strong feelings. Everyone I talked to, from the cab driver, to the fortune teller in the French Quarter, to Mannie the bartender, said they wanted me to bring back the real story, and to show the real New Orleans. And that is my intention. On the plane ride over there, I knew that it was going to be an interesting trip, but I never thought that I would be so changed in the short week I spent there.
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