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Weathering the Storms: The Impact of the 2005 Hurricane Season on Louisiana’s Creole Community - Donna Porche-Frilot

New Orleans is known for its music, food, dialects, architecture, atmosphere, and festivals—-much of which find origin in the city’s centuries-old pattern of ethnic diversity, race-mixing, and cultural amalgamation. Its Creole of color community rightly claims a position at the heart of this historic development. They, the multiracial descendents of free and freed Africans, Native Americans, and European colonists, became the medium for the interplay of the cultural elements that combined to give birth to Jazz, gumbo, and Mardi Gras Indians. In the wake of virulent resistance to their presence they built strong, close-knit communities, and an extensive network of social organizations and ground-breaking institutions. This presentation examines the impact of the destructive forces of Katrina, Rita, and FEMA on the city’s Creoles and their social structures.

Winds of Change: The Houma People and the Storms of 2005 - Michael T.Mayheart Dardar and Brenda Dardar Robichaux

In the old language we called them monhele’ me’nte, to our Choctaw brethren they are apeli and to most of the world they are hurricanes. As children of this land they call Louisiana, hurricanes have always been a part of our existence. They stand as signposts and markers in our collective memory, and our history is often told using their landfalls as reference points. Throughout the centuries we were a part of the natural cycle of destruction and rebirth. The natural wealth of soil and water was always there to enable our recovery. Katrina and Rita, the first such signposts for this century, mark the beginning of a new chapter in the Houma narrative. This new story of struggle and survival will become the source of inspiration and strength that carries the Houma people into our future.

Recent Challenges to the French Language in Louisiana and the Cajun Community - David Cheramie

The passage of hurricanes Katrina and Rita through Louisiana has given an added sense of urgency to the mission of the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana. The storms were a direct hit, the latter more so than the former, to the French-speaking area of Louisiana known as Acadiana. This triangular region, with the Gulf of Mexico at its base, is home to the vast majority of the 200,000 or so Louisianians who declared themselves as Francophone on the 2000 US Census. While the effects of these hurricanes were devastating to all aspects of life in south Louisiana, this was not the first time in the state’s long history that events both natural and man-made have threatened its unique culture and language. From the Great Fire of 1794 to the Bush Administration’s No Child Left Behind Act, challenges have been presented to maintaining the cultural and linguistic diversity of Louisiana.

Paper: Winds of Change

Dr. Egéa-Kuehne is Professor in the College of Education and Director of the French Education Project for Research and Teacher Education at Louisiana State University. She publishes and lectures in English and in French in North America and in Europe on ethico-political and responsibility issues focusing on questions of diversity and social exclusion, on problems of languages, cultures and intercultural communication, and on human, cultural, and linguistic rights, especially in the contexts of education, knowledge, and educational institutions. She published Derrida & Education, Routledge (co-edited with Gert J. J. Biesta), and Levinas and Education: At the Intersection of Faith and Reason (Routledge) will be released March 2006.
http://asterix.ednet.lsu.edu/~dekuehne

Donna M. Porche-Frilot, Ph.D., is a graduate of Louisiana State University. Her principal scholarly interests include the recuperation of African American woman educators and their philosophies, investigating the nature of the relationships between reading, literacy, and a gendered identity, and issues of difference surrounding the representation of African American women in the curriculum. Dr. Porche-Frilot's doctoral research was based on a study of the literacy practices of religious black women during New Orleans antebellum period. She has presented papers at the LSU Women and Gender Studies Conference, and at the annual conventions of the National Council of Teachers of English and the American Educational Research Association. Her publications include "Perspective on Wang," in Curriculum Visions (2002) and, in preparation, "Whatever Diversity of Shade May Appear: Catholic Women Religious Educators in Louisiana, 1727-1862."

Brenda Dardar Robichaux is Principal Chief of the United Houma Nation. She began serving on the Tribal Council of the United Houma Nation in 1992. In 1997, she was elected Chairwoman of the 16,000 member Nation and in 2002 she attained the position of Principal Chief of the United Houma Nation. Under her leadership in both Indian Education and Tribal Government, the UHN has enjoyed unparalleled growth, a cultural resurgence and international recognition. Brenda Dardar Robuchaux is a board member of the Inter-Tribal Council of Louisiana and initiated the development of the Louisiana Indian Education Advocacy Committee. She serves on the Board of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, and is an officer and member of numerous other boards and organizations.

Michael T.Mayheart Dardar is the current Vice-Principal Chief and appointed tribal historian of the United Houma Nation. He has been a member of the UHN Tribal Council since 1992. He was inspired to Houma community service by the examples of his grandfather Jean Dardar and his aunt Helen Gindrat, who currently serves on the council. Through public talks and writings, Michael T.Mayheart Dardar is an outspoken advocate of Houma culture and political sovereignty. His writings include "Istrouma: A Houma Manifesto," "Houma Politics," "The Voice of the Houma," "Minority Status," "Leaves in The Wind: Life in Apple Logic," and "Women Chiefs and Crawfish Warriors: A Brief History of the Houma People."

David Cheramie is the Executive Director of the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL), a state agency for the preservation and promotion of the state's unique Francophone cultures and languages. Prior to that, he was Director of Programming and Communication for the Congrès Mondial Acadien-Louisiane 1999. He holds a Ph.D. in Francophone Studies from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and is a published poet, writing in French. He was recently named Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. He has also published several articles about different aspects of French in Louisiana. His work at CODOFIL has taken an added sense of urgency since hurricanes Katrina and Rita. While the effects of the former are well known for the city of New Orleans and the surrounding parishes, the latter struck an area of the state where the French-speaking populations are concentrated.