Hurricane Katrina: A Cultural Chernobyl

JERRY MCKERNAN AND KEVIN V. MULCAHY

ABSTRACT. This article is a scholarly overview and analysis of Hurricane Katrinas social and cultural devastation of the unique, indigenous culture of New Orleans. This study has been prepared as a scholarly and academic endeavor. However, it is also the basis for consideration of measures that could be taken to facilitate the reconstitution of the living environment of New Orleans in a way that is respectful of its folk culture. The physical devastation caused by the hurricane severely compromised the precious cultural communities of the French colonial Gulf Coast. The impact was most devastating to New Orleans because of its distinctive folk culture, which includes vivid cultural rituals such as the Mardi Gras Indians, jazz, the jazz funeral tradition, second line parades, and local cuisine. This culture is potentially fragile because it is a living culturenot based on collections preserved within the walls of a museum, but rather in the lives of its people. It is indisputably worthy of respect and revitalization. This project, realized through intensive research, will surely benefit the academic community and, most important, the people of New Orleans, to whom this document is dedicated. The project has been interesting, but it is an even greater honor to have the opportunity to advocate the necessity of reconstituting the folk culture of New Orleans through positive action to sustain the citys unique way of life. This will not be easy, but it is crucial for any new New Orleans.
Jerry McKernan is the founder of McKernan Law Firm PLLC in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and a former member of the Board of Supervisors of the Louisiana State University System. Kevin V. Mulcahy is the Sheldon Beychok Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at Louisiana State University and an executive editor of JAMLS. Copyright 2009 Heldref Publications

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The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society he collapse of the flood walls built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers led to the inundation of 80 percent of New Orleans. This deluge not only caused immense damage to homes and public institutions but also destabilized the culture of New Orleans, perhaps irrevocably. Accordingly, the use of the term cultural Chernobyl suggests a correspondence with the catastrophic 1986 nuclear disaster in the Ukraine that resulted in widespread devastation and the evacuation of tens of thousands of people. What is argued here is that the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina was similarly catastrophic in its physical and social scale and the infliction of, perhaps, a mortal blow to a unique urban folk culture. The physical destruction of a great part of New Orleans is well documented and visually apparent. However, the cultural consequences of the loss of half the citys population, predominantly the poor and black, is just in the process of being fully realized and is now only partially comprehended. As the U.S. city with the most significant African American presence, New Orleans has enjoyed a distinctive place in the mosaic that represents American society. The consequences of Hurricane Katrina are clearly recognized in the extent of the damage to the local economythe obliteration of entire neighborhoods, the population dispersion, and the severe impairment to basic public services such as public safety, education, health, and hospitals. Moreover, as noted, what must also be appreciated is the extent of the hurricanes destructive impact on the citys cultural fabric. This can be termed culturcidethat is, the eradication of a unique cultural expression which is truly one of a kind. It is the sense of culture as a way of life that was a major (arguably in the long run, the major) element destroyed in the deluge in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Without discounting the human tragedies, the loss of homes, and the destruction of the physical infrastructure, Katrinas greatest consequence may be that it fundamentally altered the social fabric of a great American city. This may be an irrevocable state of affairs, since once a communitys cultural bonds are severed, their reconstitution may be an impossibility. In this event, what is distinctive about a culture, what provides its spiritual essence (the philosophical term is geist), may be lost forever. THE CREOLE CULTURE OF NEW ORLEANS The unique significance of New Orleans has been its Creole culture, not its gentrified hospitality venues. New Orleans is unquestionably the major representation of a creolized society in the United States. Creole is one of those terms that is as exotically complex as the city itself. One meaning (widely applied throughout Latin America) refers to the descendents of Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonial settlers in the region. Prior to the Civil War, the term was applied to that special category of socially mixed people (typically the manumitted scions of relationships between slave owner 218 Vol. 38, No. 3

Hurricane Katrina: A Cultural Chernobyl and slave) known as free people of color or gens du coleur. The current meaning includes the above, but it is applied more generally to the mlange of people from south Louisiana, especially New Orleans, who are of mixed French, Spanish, and African ancestry. As will be discussed, Creole culture has had a profound impact on the city of New Orleans with its distinctive dialect, cuisine, and music that make for a significant folkloric tradition (Hirsch and Logsdon 1992). What Walt Whitman observed about America generally can be applied to New Orleans specifically: not simply a nation, but a teeming nation of nations (1855, preface). With its mixture of French, Spanish, African, and Caribbean elements, New Orleans may be compared metaphorically to one of its signature culinary preparations: gumbo (McKinney 2006, 12). As described in the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture,
the hearty soup known as gumbo is a hybrid created by southern Louisianas various population groups. The cooking process begins with the French technique of roux (flour slowly browned in oil); the soup gets its name from ngumbo, an Angolese word for okra, the mucilaginous vegetable transplanted from Africa and often added to the gumbo pot; while the alternative thickening and flavoring agent, fil (powdered sassafras leaves), is a Choctaw Indian contribution. (Aromatic vegetables, spices and fish and/or meat complete the dish, which is served with rice). The gumbo thus creates a distinct regional flavor by combining African, European and Native-American elements. (Wilson and Ferris 1989, 5023)

This unique creolized culture, even if decidedly localistic, generated a sophisticated sensibility that distinguished New Orleans not only from the rest of Louisiana, but from the rest of the South. A. J. Liebling, in his classic study of Louisiana politics during the late 1950s, the era of Governor Earl Long (the brother of the populist prophet Huey Long), observes that New Orleans resembled Genoa or Marseilles, or Beirut or the Egyptian Alexandria (Liebling 1961, 81). Even in the early nineteenth century, the heterogeneity of New Orleans was held to be unique. The following description gives a good feel of the citys flavor: No city perhaps on the globe with an equal number of human beings, presents a greater contrast of natural manners, language and complexion than does New Orleans (William Darby, qtd. in McKinney 2006, 13). Most important, New Orleans has been the site of the most influential and notable African American expressive culture in the United States (Miller 2006, 19). Accordingly, it served as the site of some of the earliest and most extensive Afro-American music development of an urban community in the nation (Jerdem 1987, 1). Although St. Louis and New York Citys Harlem area both claim the status of incubators of jazz, this uniquely American musical idiom arose in New Orleans as a blend of African rhythmic and ensemble patterns, European instruments and blues and sacred song, overlain with an African-American genius for improvisation (Joyner 1999, 1415). Fall 2008 219

The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society It is important to remember that the cultural achievements of New Orleans are indigenous forms that constitute a folk culture, which was created by poor people and maintained by their communities (Daly 2006, 145). These genres are performances and traditions, not texts, images or objects (Rosenstein 2007b, 2). The latter are the province of established arts institutions (such as museums and concert halls), while the former are a part of communal life with substantial popular participation. Nick Spitzer, a professor of folklore studies at the University of New Orleans, observes, In the modern world, we are increasingly cut off from community, but in New Orleans, this is much less the case. Here, the culture is at the center of the gravitas; it is not an add-on (qtd. in Read 2007). University of New Orleans historian Arnold Hirsch warns, Once you scatter the people, I dont know that youre going to be able to capture the past (qtd. in Texeira 2005). A diaspora is the dispersion of an originally homogenous entity, such as a language or culture (American Heritage Dictionary 1992); given the extent of this one, Katrina may have dealt a fatal blow to a genuinely local culture, as manifested in dialect, food, customs, religions, and worldview (Campanella 2006, 403). As noted, any comprehension of the long-term effects of Katrinas destruction in New Orleans must recognize the importance of this city as the largest African American cultural center in the United States. In particular, with its Creole heritage, New Orleans has had a joie de vivre not typical of other localities in Anglo-Saxon America. CULTURE AS A WAY OF LIFE An October 2005 article observes that the citys sons and daughters, spread nationwide, are speculating on how the culture will change in the wake of the flooding wrought by Katrina and Rita. Some even wonder whether it will survive at all (Associated Press 2005). It is the question of the cultural survival of New Orleans post-Katrina that concerns this research. It is perhaps unprecedented that the culture of a modern city should be destroyed as a result of a natural phenomenon. A conclusion can be anticipated here by noting that the most devastating consequence of Katrina for New Orleans is its similarity to a cultural ethnic cleansing. What follows is a general discussion of the nature of an urban folk culture and some of the particular manifestations found in the city of New Orleans. Urban Folk Culture
In New Orleans, culture doesnt come down from on high; it bubbles up from the street. Jazz patriarch Ellis Marsalis (qtd. in McKinney 2006)

The risk of the loss of cultural memory is particularly acute with folk cultures that are dependent on communal experience, as distinct from formalized 220 Vol. 38, No. 3

Hurricane Katrina: A Cultural Chernobyl learning, for their transmission. Moreover, the vitality of a folk culture, as the product of a cohesive group, is predicated upon participation in a common heritage. This constitutes an expressive way of life: the fabric of shared values (Mulcahy 2006). The landscape of folk culturedomestic architecture, public monuments, and community symbolsoffers clues to how these people interact with the environment (Rowntree 2003, 25). Wynton Marsalis, a scion of the famous New Orleans African American musical dynasty, remarks that culture is the spirit of our identity and that culture testifies across epochs to the quality and vitality of a community (2006). His statement, which was written for the Cultural Committee of the Mayors Bring New Orleans Back Commission, is worth excerpting because it summarizes with personal rhetoric a discussion of the major folk-cultural activities in New Orleans that are discussed below:
The way of life in New Orleans was and is so rich in fantasy and realism . . . and wisely includes fun. It is the collective expression of the varied background of our people in ways that have evolved so naturally as to seem pre-ordained. . . . It is the Creole experiment. Afro-Creoles gave us gumbo, jambalaya, and many of our emblematic foods. . . . New Orleans was fusion before Fusion. Neighborhoods maintain traditions which bespeak our joie de vivre: Jazz brass bands, social aid and pleasure clubs, Indian tribes, marching groups and second liners, all types of booth art, street markets. . . . Our culture builds from the ground up. For the world, New Orleans is the cradle of indigenous American culture and a Paris of the South: a city of romance, great food, and a Bacchanalian wildness. . . . The only city anyone knows that exudes a recognizable sound. This culture is the most wonderful thing about our city and if we are to rise to the challenge of rebuilding, cultural reinvigoration must be the focal point of our efforts. (Ibid.)

These six points highlight central themes concerning New Orleans culture that will be developed herein and serve as a useful overview of the concept of urban folk culture. First, this is culture as a way of life. Second, the culture is Creole. Third, it encompasses a broad spectrum of human expressions. Fourth, the culture is indigenous and community based. Fifth, New Orleans is a city that, considered as tout ensemble, may be the most culturally distinctive in the United States. Sixth, reinstating the folk culture of New Orleans is an essential element in the citys renaissance. What follows is a survey of a few of the main folklore activities that manifest the Creole folk culture of the city of New Orleans. Much has been written in-depth Fall 2008 221

The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society about each of these representative customs. What will be outlined here is a general sense of the defining New Orleanian traditions: the Mardi Gras Indians, jazz funerals, second line marches, jazz musical traditions, and cuisine. Mardi Gras Indians
Mardi Gras Indiansthe parade most white people dont see. The ceremonial procession is loose, the parade is not scheduled for a particular parade committee . . . that is up to the Big Chief. Larry Bannock (qtd. in McKinney 2006)

As distinct from the front of the town Mardi Gras krewes, the Black Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans are a unique subculture of the local population. As such, they are an integral part of the citys social fabric. Their arts and customs, too easily dismissed as peripheral and out-of-date, are part of a black heritage that goes back to the slave society of the eighteenth century. The contemporary Black Indian nation is organized into thirty-eight tribes, which labor throughout the year to create magnificent suits consisting of intricate hand-beading, false gems and stones, and decorative feathers and plumes. These suits have been valued between $20,000 and $50,000 for their material and labor. These working-class tribes, organized along neighborhood and family lines, walk the streets during Carnival dressed in elaborate and riotously colorful feathered and beaded costumes that reflect a stereotyped Plains Indian-look seen through the prism of Afro-diasporic visual aesthetic and cultural sensibility (Miller 2006, 19). On Mardi Gras day, the Black Indians sing and dance to traditional chants and have confrontations with members of rival tribes. It should be emphasized, however, that such confrontations take the form of highly ritualized dances that are, in effect, competitive events to reclaim public space through stylized performance. The United States is full of cities with neighborhoods populated by inhabitants with impoverished and marginalized lives. What has made New Orleans different is that this group has responded with counternarratives, countermusic, and counterart forms. The Mardi Gras Indians represent an interesting example of how an underclass has redressed the effects of economic and social discrimination by valorizing its cultural heritage. Jazz Funerals
Man, I really had a ball in New Orleansfive funerals! The Record Changer, 1950 (qtd. in McKinney 2006)

The jazz funeral is an important cornerstone of life in New Orleans. Indeed, a unique business model grew up to serve this tradition. This was the fraternal organization known as the social aid and pleasure club that arose 222 Vol. 38, No. 3

Hurricane Katrina: A Cultural Chernobyl to provide burial insurance for lower- and middle-class blacks that would guarantee an appropriate send-off for the deceased. Based on centuries-old African rituals, the jazz funeral became a social experience that is unique to New Orleans. Sidney Bechet, one of the founding fathers of jazz, observed, Music in New Orleans is as much a part of death as it is of life (qtd. in McKinney 2006, 100). The jazz funeral has been a sacred institution and a link with the citys musical foundations. Lamentably, jazz funerals and the clubs that sustain them have been in steady decline since the mid-1970s. As with the Black Mardi Gras Indians, the older generation is not being succeeded by a significant proportion of the younger generation. The decline in the adherents of such iconic manifestations of New Orleans folk culture is perhaps the inevitable consequence of modernity. Even the city that time forgot has been caught up in the broader homogenizing trends of American society. Of course, the diaspora brought about by Katrina has only exacerbated this situation. Second Line Marches
When I die, you better second line, When I die, you better second line, When the angel meets me at the gate, Be so happy to see my saviors face, Be so happy to see my saviors face. Kermit Ruffins (qtd. in McKinney 2006)

The second line tradition had its origins in the jazz funerals and parades sponsored by the social aid and pleasure clubs. What follows is a description of second line marches as they develop from the traditional funeral processions:
As the funeral procession makes its way through the streets, the casket is followed by a brass band and then by the family and other mourners. The slow dirge played on the way to the cemetery is in contrast to the upbeat Jazz and gospel melodies performed on the way home. The benevolent society parades are organized so that the band and society members are followed by family, friends, and members of other clubs; all others who march constitute the second line. (Jacobs 2001, 326)

The term second line is also used for an associated traditional dance style, which evolved from an old African dance known as the Bambula (Clark 1999, 3). As noted, the first line of a funeral consisted of the people who were an integral part of the ceremony, such as family and friends of the deceased, as well as the members of the benevolent society. The first line may also be termed the main line. To follow such processions, because one enjoyed the music of the brass band at the lead, came to be known as second lining. As this music is traditionally participatory and not something listened to without moving, uninhibited dancing at funeral parades, with heavy Fall 2008 223

The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society improvisations by paraders carrying umbrellas and handkerchiefs, came to distinguish second lining (Jacobs 2001, 326). There are about forty-two distinct second line parades held throughout the year in different neighborhoods, usually on Sunday afternoons. As second line parades are the descendents of jazz funerals, they follow many of the same traditions as they march down the street. The parades are not tied to any specific holiday or events. They are generally held for their own sakepour laissez les bons temps rouler. Mardi Gras Indians, brass bands, and second line marches are important symbols of New Orleans culture. Without downplaying the economic significance of Mardi Gras as a nationally known spectacle, the significance should be recognized of the feathers, umbrellas, and dancing of the tribes, benevolent societies, and marching clubs. These have become emblematic of New Orleans life and are part of any municipal ceremony. Moreover, as neighborhood-based, African American groups, the clubs have been long active in charitable work for the poor. Culture can be seen as a way to sell New Orleans to conventions and visitors, but the sustainability of the culture is as much a social commitment as an economic calculus. Jazz and Its New Orleans Birthplace
Oh, when the saints go marching in Oh, when the saints go marching in Lord, how I want to be in that number When the saints go marching in. Traditional gospel hymn

The origins of jazz can be traced from the slaves African homeland to seventeenth-century colonial Louisiana. The tradition of call-and-response has a counterpart in the interacting solo and ensemble devices of jazz. Both musical forms incorporate collective improvisation in which each voice or instrument has a specific function. The original elements of African music were preserved through various forms of music such as field hollers, lullabies, and the religious songs known as spirituals. All of these became integrated into the jazz idiom. Over the next two centuries, these African musical forms were affected by contact with European music. As American composers used African themes in combination with concert works, new forms of instrumental playing emerged. Africans in New Orleans received European musical education through frequent communication with urban musicians. Moreover, rural workers, who chanted in African forms of musical expression while working on the sugar and cotton plantations of Louisiana, were also sources of inspiration. The results of these early African-European musical combinations led to the musical syncretism known as New Orleans jazz. 224 Vol. 38, No. 3

Hurricane Katrina: A Cultural Chernobyl The development of early jazz involved combining the African five-note scale with the European eight-note scale. Key features in the musical aesthetic that defines the jazz form are blue notes, tones that restrict the music to a slightly higher or lower register than those of the eight-note scale. These notes developed as a hybrid of West African and New World styles with the accompaniment of repeated refrains from musicians playing the trumpet, clarinet, saxophone, and trombone. The rhythms of drums and string bass with harmonic backgrounds of piano, banjo, or guitar are also heard. As a musical form, Jazz is essentially improvisational, that is, largely determined by the moods and expression of the individual performer (Mardi Gras History 2005, 173). Very little of the music is written in formal notation. In sum, the communication is oral. It is a sound, a touch, a feel for a union of improvisations, moods, and expressions among the musicians. For example, Duke Ellington wrote of early jazz styles that call was very important to the music. Today, the form has matured and become quite scholastic, but it is au naturel, close to the primitive, where people send messages in what they play, calling somebody or making facts and emotions known (Ellington 1976, 47). Jazz does not seem to have emerged from a blueprint. With a large, educated class of free people of culture and a long musical tradition (New Orleans had the first opera in the United States), the musical aesthetics native to Africa and the formalized notation found in European music created a hybrid. In effect, the Creole musical world emerged as an expression of the black spirit in a predominantly white world. The most famous creation of this Creole culture is jazz, which is arguably the sole musical form that is exclusively an American creation. Most important, it is a black contribution (Southern 1983, 376). Traditionally, jazz was defined by blackness. Musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Nat King Cole, Miles Davis, Archie Shepp, and Wynton Marsalis long exemplified the evolving hopes, fears, dangers, joys, and frustrations of living as an African American. Modern musicians attempting jazz as a written musical form have wrestled with the problem of whiteness in jazz, that is, the appreciation, participation, appropriation, and innovation by nonAfrican Americans within what is often understood as a purely black music. Of course, no one would deny the immense contributions of white musicians such as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Harry James, Stan Getz, Dave Brubeck, and Charlie Haden. On the other hand, it remains irrefutable that the vast majority of the genres most influential players have originated from Afro-diasporic communities (Ake 1999, 15). To designate Paul White as the father of jazz is historically outrageous, given the early leadership of Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, Pops Foster, and Louis Armstrong. This is not the Fall 2008 225

The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society place to analyze race as it intersects with jazz (Gushee 1994); nevertheless, jazz is more than a musical aesthetic. It has a broader cultural and social context as the unique expression of the black community as shaped by the Creole milieu of New Orleans. New Orleans Cuisine: Creole and Soul
Were all missing each others food, and were missing each other. The loss is huge, and its across the board. Poppy Tooker (qtd. in McKinney 2006)

In the 1600s, New Orleans saw food supplies arriving by ship from Africa. West African cookery appeared in the urban center of the port and the French Market areas. Indigenous to West Africa were yams, peas, beans, rice, peanuts, sesame, pumpkins, melons, okra, eggplant, palm oil, mangoes, yellow plums, cashew nuts, and coffee (from the Americas, West Africa obtained tomatoes, pineapples, sweet potatoes, corn, avocados, and papayas). Africa had also obtained wheat, onions, citrus fruits, spices, and dates from the Arab caravans of North Africa and sugarcane, ginger, bananas, and coconut from the Far East, and Africans shared their food with the citizens of New Orleans. Furthermore, the West Africans arriving in the lands of the Louisiana Gulf Coast developed a unique cuisine by combining these ingredients into stews, gumbos, rice, and pea dishes with the addition of seafood, game, and livestock. In both Africa and New Orleans, chicken was baked, broiled, or fried and reserved for special occasions, such as Sundays and Catholic feast days. The culinary trinity of chopped onions, bell peppers, and celery defined the Creole cuisine of New Orleans. According to chef John Folse, nearly every main dish of New Orleans Creole cooking features these ingredients (Folse 2005, 68). Five months after Hurricane Katrina, Kim Severson described the restaurant scene: white tablecloth places thrive; small ones struggle (2006). After Severson interviewed chefs and restaurant owners, she concluded that
although high-end chefs cared about gumbos and other Creole dishes and put them on the menu, it was questionable whether the preparations reflected the soul of New Orleans cooking; which itself evoked the question of whether high food could survive without low food. What might fade forever are places where recipes are left to the discretion of cooks who prepared them thousands of times before taking their experience to white-tablecloth restaurants. (Ibid.)

Race and money have long separated the local New Orleans po boy (a French bread sandwich typically with shrimp or oysters) counters from the citys expensive, tourist-oriented restaurants, but the line between race and money was easily crossed in pursuit of something that tasted good. Neighborhood restaurants like Mandinas and Henrys Soul Food were New Orleans institutions 226 Vol. 38, No. 3

Hurricane Katrina: A Cultural Chernobyl as surely as the famous attractions such as Antoines, Galatoires, and Commanders Palace. The little sandwich shops that manage to fry up shrimp and oyster po boys are an essential part of the culinary chain that makes the Creole cuisine what it is. Writes Severson, If New Orleans becomes all about foie gras with grits, youve lost something grand. Those of us who live to eat are wringing our hands and wondering whats going to happen (2006). New Orleans cuisine is as significant a part of its folk culture as the participative activities discussed above. Like them, it is distinct and distinctive, local and sophisticated, indigenous and widely appreciated. To echo what has been frequently noted, the cuisine, like the other folk-cultural activities, is neither formally codified nor an upper-class creation. Creole cuisine is defined by the community, and, in turn, defines the community. The loss of this community may ultimately undermine the rich culinary tradition for which New Orleans is justly famous. KATRINAS CULTURCIDE: WHAT CAN BE DONE? As noted, the citys tourist infrastructure and historic architecture survivedand would surviveall but the most catastrophic flooding. There is an argument that this remnant should be what constitutes the new New Orleans, since the question remains whether any realistic measures can be taken to reverse the citys vulnerability considering the expense involved with any such effort. And given the costs and likelihood of residential reconstruction and the question of whether half the citys population is likely to return, this may be the best that can be realized, given such daunting obstacles. Of course, such an outcome would have tremendous ramifications; in particular, it would entail the loss of a city steeped in a culture that is specifically African-Americanfrom Jazz, blues, and hip-hop to Second Lines, Mardi Gras Indians, Jazz parades, and the tradition of red beans and rice on Monday nights (Flaherty 2007). All of this is to argue that New Orleans is not just a tourist destination or entertainment venue. New Orleans has a unique culture, one that is resilient and with a history of community and resistance. . . . [I]t is this culture we are in danger of losing (Flaherty 2007). Tourism would appear to be the best quick fix for the citys shattered economy. With the French Quarter, Garden District, and Uptown neighborhoods largely intact, as well as hotels and upscale restaurants, it might seem a simple matter of restoring visitor confidence and repatriating or replacing the tourist-industry employees displaced by the hurricane. Wynton Marsalis, in his statement for the Cultural Committee of the Mayors Commission, observes, Economically, we sit on a cultural gold mine. However, he also argues that there must be a cultural agenda that most authentically manifests the Soul and Spirit of our citizens (2006). Fall 2008 227

The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society There is also a disturbing philosophical problem with unfettered tourism and the consequences of cultural commodification. Cultural anthropologist Nelson Graham describes tourism as an exploitation of the cultures and habitats of the poorer other half of the world in such a way that the cultural debris of the lives of the disadvantaged eventually fall into the hands of the affluent, to be used, collected, museumized, and made valuable to the advantage of the new owners (1989, 25). Under these circumstances, local culture is, in effect, being expropriated, and the local people are being exploited (Greenwood 1989, 173). It is probably fruitless to bemoan the effective commercialization of Mardi Gras and the transformation of the French Quarter from the world of A Streetcar Named Desire to an adult playground. However, the situation postKatrina has exacerbated this problem. With a heavily damaged indigenous culture, there is the distinct prospect that what will remain is a simulacrum of the New Orleans way of life. Without the Mardi Gras Indians, the jazz funerals, the second line marches, the local jazz idiom, and the cooks steeped in the traditional cuisine, the tourist experience of the citys culture risks becoming a Disney-fied imitation of what New Orleans used to be. As Carole Rosenstein points out, Unlike the cultural assets of some other places, those in New Orleans are rooted firmly in its communities. Rather than its museums and symphony halls, it is the people, neighborhoods, local organizations, and small businesses of New Orleans that make it culturally distinct (Rosenstein 2007a, 1). Furthermore, community-based organizations and public sector cultural venues offer the best chance to realize inclusiveness and the least possibility of the effective marginalization, and exclusion, of the indigenous community and its culture from any new New Orleans. In a fundamental way, their unique cultural forms have given these poor communities the power to assert living in the face of dying, abundance in the face of scarcity, control in the face of disrespect (Rosenstein 2007b, 12). Clearly, the goal of an economic strategy based on tourism must also keep these values in mind. Finally, maintaining the authenticity and vitality of the community-based culture can also be a positive force in realizing the much-sought-after benefits of cultural tourism. When there are strong links between communities and economic development, a tourism strategy can realize economic benefits while preserving aesthetic integrity. Furthermore, these ties ensure the representation of underserved citizens in the resulting economic development (Walker, Jackson, and Rosenstein 2003). Most important, it is crucial to remember that the tourist experience derives from Creole cultural history and that the value for the tourist is inextricably intertwined with the authenticity of the experience.
KEYWORDS

Creole, folk culture, Hurricane Katrina, jazz, race, urban culture 228 Vol. 38, No. 3

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This paper was only possible because of the invaluable research assistance of Betty Walters DuPont, a PhD candidate in the Department of Communication Studies of Louisiana State University, and the editorial assistance of Jonathan Hunter Walker and James Keene, the Louisiana State University Chancellors Undergraduate Assistants. REFERENCES Ake, D. 1999. On Creole culture. Echo 1 (1): 1020. American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd ed. 1992. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Associated Press. 2005. New Orleans fights to regain cultural rootsBuffeted by Katrina, citys complex black community struggles to regroup. MSNBC.com, October 4. http://www.msnbc. msn.com/id/9567668/ (accessed November 14, 2008). Campanella, R. 2006. Geographies of New OrleansUrban fabrics before the storm. Lafayette: Center for Louisiana Studies. Clark, W. W., Jr. 1999. A short history of the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans. Mardi Gras Digest, November 16. Daly, E. M. 2006. New Orleans, invisible city. Nature and Culture 1 (2): 13348. Ellington, D. 1976. Music is my mistress. New York: Da Capo. Flaherty, J. 2005. Changing New Orleans. Z Magazine, November 6. http://www.zmag.org/znet/ viewArticle/5070 (accessed December 12, 2008). Folse, J. 2005. Encyclopedia of Creole and Cajun Cuisine. Gonzales, LA: Chef John Folse Publications. Graham, N. H. 1989. Tourism: The sacred journey. In Smith 1989, 2136. Greenwood, D. 1989. Culture by the pound: An anthropological perspective on tourism as cultural commodization. In Smith 1989, 17186. Gushee, L. 1994. The nineteenth century of jazz. Black Music Research Journal 2:15174. Hirsch, A. R., and J. F. Logsdon. 1992. Creole New Orleans: Race and Americanization. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press. Jacobs, C. F. 2001. Folk for whom? Tourist guidebooks, local color, and the spiritual churches of New Orleans. Journal of American Folklore 114 (453): 30930. Jerdem, C. D. 1987. Black music in New Orleans: A historical overview. Black Music Research Journal 10 (1): 1824. Joyner, C. 1999. Shared traditions: Southern history and folk culture. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press. Liebling, A. J. 1961. The Earl of Louisiana. New York: Simon & Schuster. Mardi Gras history. 2005. In Funk and Wagnalls new encyclopedia. New York: World Almanac Education Group. Marsalis, W. 2006. Vision for New Orleans culture. In Report of the cultural committee: Mayors Bring New Orleans Back Commission. New Orleans: Mayors Bring New Orleans Back Commission. http://www.nolaplans.com/plans/BNOB/Culture%20Committee%20Report%20 Attachment%20C.pdf (accessed November 14, 2008). McKinney, L. 2006. New Orleans: A cultural history. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. Miller, M. 2006. Bounce: Rap music and cultural survival in New Orleans. HypheNation 1 (1): 1530. Mulcahy, K. V. 2006. Cultural policy: Definitions and theoretical approaches. Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society 35 (4): 31929. Read, M. 2007. Loving New Orleans with a ready escape. New York Times, June 7. http://www. nytimes.com/2007/06/07/garden/07evac.html (accessed December 15, 2008). Rosenstein, C. 2007a. Policy challenges and proposed action steps: New Orleans arts and culture. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. . 2007b. Culture work as a centripetal force: The regenerative role of museums, culture bearers, and cultural policy in New Orleans after Katrina. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution.

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