Louisiana Creole Diaspora

While I was back home this past weekend and discussing the evacuation of New Orleans with many people, I had a thought that has stuck with me. In order to place the hundreds of thousands of evacuees from New Orleans, people are being flown as far as Arizona, Tennessee and South Carolina. I started thinking about the people who are being evacuated so far from home and how few of them probably have the means or the will to return to New Orleans or even Louisiana for that matter. So there are hundreds of people with a culture that is very foreign to many parts of this country and they are being dispersed in groups of a few hundred around the continental US.

I was trying to imagine how hard it would be to adjust to life in a new city with a completely different cultural perspective on the world, but then thought about the fact that the hundreds of evacuees in each city could serve as support for one another as they settle into their new lives. I discussed this turn of events with family and friends and thought about how this has the potential to create a very interesting sub-culture around the country. Small enclaves of Creole culture, not unlike Chinatowns in major metropolitan areas, could conceivably develop in places like Phoenix, AZ, Chattanooga, TN, Columbia, SC and countless other cities that have taken in hundreds of evacuees.

Not surprisingly, others have thought the same thing as is evidenced by this AP article that I found on the Lafayette Daily Advertiser website on Wednesday afternoon.