I conducted research by visiting various archives in New Orleans in order to gather information about race relations in the city with a focus on the late 19th and early 20th century. The guiding lens is an analysis of George Washington Cable’s The Grandissimes (1880), a novel which reflects on social inequality and prejudice by writing to 1803 with a focus on “creoles” of the city with the novel being published in 1880. The novel uses “voudou” as one mode of agency for his Black characters, and I put a focus on the rhetoric surrounding New Orleans “voudou” through various time points to highlight the ways racial prejudice is present in the reporting and construction of “voudou.” I am also engaging with the text as it showcases various ways that Cable’s Black characters gain agency and power that strikes fear into the white French creoles of the novel.

The lens of dislocation and location is deeply rooted in my research on the frequent forced dislocation of Black people within New Orleans and in turn how they have to find their own place within the city. One example of this is the city ordinance of 1817 that restricted the gathering of enslaved peoples to Congo Square, located within the current day Louis Armstrong Park. With this ordinance, the community made this a space of cultural expression. This expression was viewed as lesser than and capable of being contained to such a small area of the city. George Washington Cable’s The Grandissimes engages with race relations and addresses social prejudice dislocation and location. Congo Square is also a significant site in his novel as this is where the legendary Bras-Coupé was found and captured. Further, the lens of dislocation and location is central to understanding the significance of Cable’s use of “voudou” and speaks to current constructions of New Orleans “voudou,” or voodoo.

I see work rooted in humanities as the foundation for building a social awareness that in turn fosters a desire to lead or participate in movements for change. Through my coursework, I have gained a knowledge that allows me to learn about various life experiences that are vastly different than mine. Without engaging with various English, Religion, and Critical Ethnic Studies classes, my social awareness and political viewpoints could be considered uninformed. We can also work to advance knowledge and respect for other human experiences while honoring respective differences without claiming ownership and using extractive or damaging practices. For instance, by further engaging with research and the ethical boundaries of research practices, we can move towards a more just society that is not so deeply engaged with exploitative practices in terms of gathering knowledge. Furthermore, the humanities need to constantly be questioned and that allows for more research, generative conversations, and actionable change that work to uplift marginalized communities. By engaging with the past and studying it intimately, we can then lead from an informed place that is dedicated to no longer repeating abusive practices for the profit of the few.

The power of story is an integral part of my summer research. It engages with a work of literature that is also a political statement critical of the white French creole’s desire to restrict community building through racial and classist prejudices. Through story, George Washington Cable is also capable of a sort of time travel that forces readers to engage with the past while understanding that it informs the present. I, more specifically, am in conversation with the story of Cable’s Bras-Coupé, an enslaved man who became legendary by striking fear in the hearts of the novel’s characters. The story of Bras-Coupé is the novel’s equivalent to a story central to a community’s consciousness and Cable uses it to showcase racial prejudice, the cruelty of enslavement, and more.

I also grappled with contradictions and tensions of the past because my research is rooted in the 19th and 20th century. History as a living legacy started a train of thinking that, for me, opened up The Grandissimes as a way to analyze race relations still shaping today’s society, politics, religious understandings, etc. Within New Orleans, I came to see the legacy of past decisions. The construction of voodoo, for example, supports Hollywood demonization of the practice. This continued rhetoric is visible when going through old newspapers.

A Case for Shapeshifting: A collection of essays, literary analysis, interviews, and poems [that] identifies beings and the world around us as “shapeshifters”. By recognizing our capacity to be changed by the world and each other, the avenues for cultural transformation are laid bare. This acknowledgment of change enables reflection on our ability to act towards love and liberation.  

In my time in New Orleans, my most frequented destination was without a doubt the Community Book Center, an African centered bookstore on Bayou Road. I had the pleasure of meeting and eventually interviewing the bookstore’s co-owners, Mama Jen and Mama Vera.  

New Orleans as a city, a home to various communities, and a site of natural and manufactured disaster, is a shapeshifter itself, shaping and being shaped by cultural history and action. Amidst the chaos, Mama Jen and Mama Vera rooted themselves and built their center to remind readers of our collective histories, our shapes, and strategies to build power. I am many things, but when in New Orleans, I am a sweaty young writer, swinging my tote bag around, in awe of the plants around me. The connections we formed enables us to uplift each other and strengthen our work. My project would not be what it is without them and I am doing my best to return the favor.  

The stories we tell and share, fictional or not, become part of our lived experience. We absorb the messaging, good and bad, and strengthen our ability to discern our place in the world and how we’d like to move forward. For the majority of my life, I’ve read white authors talking about their white communities with their white perspectives. While many stories have been exciting and thought provoking, it did not reflect the world my family or my peers lived in. In my time at K, I have been supported and encouraged to read from individuals with a deep, holistic understanding of our world’s issues. The Combahee River Collective’s analysis remains true: the most logical way to transform exploitative structures are by centering the needs and visions of those who experience the most marginalization.  

Stories have been my greatest teacher in empathy, connection building, and critical thought. My relationships to others magnifies its complexity. I’ll be honest, humanities hasn’t taught me how to interact with others (only interacting with others does that). I’m pretty awkward and have developed my confidence and leadership skills through years of trial and error. Still, the humanities has offered a significant abundance of strategies and tools for community building. My perspective on the world has only been possible through the analysis and narratives I have engaged with. The power of [the] written word, our languages, are indicators of our experiences and influence the cultures we produce. By engaging with the humanities, our web of interconnectedness and desire for better conditions become more tangible.       

New Orleans is incredibly indicative of the challenges of inequities. One of my favorite facets from my summer research is that each interviewee shares their distinct way of knowing within New Orleans’ circles of community. You must know where you’ve been to know where you’re going.  

My NOLA research project was focused on community responsive art and the interaction between people and art. I aimed to understand more about how art is used as a way to express and represent oneself and the surrounding community. To achieve this, I talked to people in the art community and conducted interviews with art professors at local universities, staff at art organizations, and local artists. We discussed their views on public art in New Orleans and the importance of community as it relates to art.

I had many enriching conversations through interviews, but found that some of the most impactful interactions I had with locals were more natural, and ended up not being recorded. Frequent topics that would come up were things along the lines of differences in communities based on location, issues of dislocation and gentrification, and the sways and shifts of culture. One interaction that I found impactful occurred after I had toured StudioBE and was taking photos of murals nearby in Bywater. A woman saw me and asked if I was looking at the murals. She began to tell me about how her dad is one of the people depicted in a mural on St Claude and Franklin St, right near my Airbnb! The mural, titled “The Third Line,” is an homage to the city’s Second Line culture. She told me all about how her dad was known for Second Lining and how she knows a bunch of other people depicted in the mural, just by growing up in the city and culture.

This project, being humanities based, was a great way to be able to explore a new city through getting to know locals and them recounting personal experiences. I prefer to ask some questions that will elicit some emotional response, such as having someone recount their favorite celebration in the city or what is most important to them. I met people of all different identities, backgrounds, ages, etc., and I had found these conversations to be significant in seeing, as well as understanding, different points of view. The whole experience gave me such a broader view on life by simply talking with different people. At a base level, we all have things in common despite possible differing opinions. I think that getting to know people from all different walks of life and their life experiences is such an important learning skill in the way of understanding one another as people and exchanging knowledge, finding common ground, even if we’re seemingly ‘different.’

As I was in New Orleans and trying to conceptualize how I want to form my research, I began to think about the significance of oral history. I was reminded of the Civilizations in Africa class I took which expressed the significance of oral stories in many non-Western cultures, even though historically, Western academia holds written history at a higher significance or standard. As I touched on earlier, my project was primarily conversation based, some recorded some not. New Orleans is very unique in its cultural history, community, and art. It’s also a place that has and still does face many challenges and inequalities, such as natural disasters, systemic effects of racism due to the aftermath of slavery and colonization, current gentrification and redlining, etc. With my research, I began to scratch the surface of understanding place, history, and people through art, and how culture creates art. I had conversations with different people about the presence of public art that commemorates Confederate history, some of these have been removed recently. We also talked about public murals and sculptures which are meant to uplift and recognize influential historical Black figures of the area, such as Allen Toussaint, or envision a future for a better world. One piece I saw that really stuck with me was also at StudioBE; it was a sculpture of a cop car overturned. Above it, a lawn chair and tree sat, expressing peace, relaxation, a new beginning. Many of the artists I talked to coincidentally touched on how art is a way to respond or interact with your surroundings or world circumstances, as well as a way to reimagine the world we live in.

The purpose of the research project is to study the effects of dislocation in the Lower 9^th Ward of New Orleans by working on construction sites for resident houses that were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The work was done through volunteering with lowernine.org, a community organization that provides housing reconstruction and food services to residents. It also involved two interviews with the director of the organization, Laura Paul.

One of the ideas I found to be the most interesting upon arriving in New Orleans was how visually prominent the issue of displacement is. I stayed in an Airbnb in a neighborhood just outside of the French Quarter, and every morning to get to the Lower 9^th Ward, I drove on St. Claude Avenue which passes directly through the main parts of New Orleans. These drives in the mornings (and evenings) were one of the most interesting visual aspects of my time researching, because this particular street passes through a range of neighborhoods still completely destroyed with dangerous debris and materials all around, but around seven minutes down the same road towards downtown are neighborhoods with some of the most expensive mansions and properties in Louisiana. It was an interesting time to arrive on post-Katrina sites more than 15 years after the fact, but I think it also provided a bigger picture perspective to see how neighborhoods as a whole were affected and how much quicker particular wealthier areas recovered compared to others whose entire neighborhoods are still suffering.

I think work in humanities is one of the most important areas of study that could help determine and improve the emotional (and overall) health trajectory of the current world and for generations to come. I believe it is absurd that we have evolved so extensively as a species in terms of technological, infrastructure, economic, etc. development but are still so unclear on many of the basic human emotions and thought processes that have always existed, and how they function in an ever-changing society. Because of this, I feel very passionate about work that in essence is compassionate and rooted in studying, understanding, and validating the limitless perspectives and experiences that so many around the world have to offer, particularly those that are more likely to be overlooked due to the competitive nature of the capitalist system.

I was at the Lower 9^th Ward each week from 8am-4pm working in construction, moving boxes and old supplies, transferring food pantry supplies to and from other pantries in the area, and more, and felt that while six weeks could never truly embody the reality of the hardships residents face, I was immersed deeply in what their recovery processes look like for the time I was there. Being embedded in their daily routines for recovery allowed me to conceptualize and see for myself a portion of what it means to have lost your home and endure the seemingly unending consequences in the aftermath, something that would be impossible to replicate by reading or watching films. There is extreme power in living in experiences versus studying them on paper due to the diversity of culture and community on our planet, and reflecting on my experience now I would never have expected to be as profoundly moved as I was doing something as simple as eating a sandwich with my coworkers on a newly constructed porch we had built after a long day.