After the lecture on post-Katrina New Orleans literature, we had the pleasure to listen to two more talks. The first one was given by dr. Michael Mizell-Nelson from the History Department, who talked about the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank (www.hurricanearchive.org), a project co-created by John Mason University, University of New Orleans and the National Museum of American History. The aim of this endeavor is to establish historical record of post-Katrina stories and experiences as well as to give voice to those people whose stories were not reported by the media. To achieve this goal, the creators established a special website where survivors can download any kind of digital media materials (pictures, text messages, voice/video recordings, etc.) to share their Katrina experience. Those who do not have internet access can send their stories using a specially designed free postcard. Many of those testimonies show how people dealt with the hurricane on site, how they discovered their damaged houses and how they rebuilt their lives, thus giving a whole story of the disaster, survival and final victory. The project is affiliated with a similar endeavor that collects memories from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The final lecture dealt with the post Katrina
demographics of New Orleans. It was given by Dr. Christine Lucille Day from the Department of Political Science. We were presented with statistical data on the
number of white, black and latino populations in New Orleans before and after
the hurricane. It appears that after the hurricane the percentage of African
Americans in the city decreased from 67% to 60% whereas the number of white
people went up from 28% to 33%. What is more, the percentage of high school and
college graduates in the city also increased. In addition, the data also showed
that more educated and more white people moved to the city center after the
hurricane, thus changing the pre-Katrina demographic layout of the city. This
seems to indicate that fewer African Americans returned to NO after the
hurricane, the reasons behind this may be manifold. However, the lecturer indicated that this is probably connected with
the people’s financial status – poorer people had no means to return and
nothing to return to. The lecture proved to be very informative and
interesting.
The time we spent at Center Austria at the
University of New Orleans was on the one hand very academic and on the other
very sociable as we had the chance to meet the Center’s director, professor Guenter
Bischof who proved to be a very generous host (http://www.centeraustria.org/).
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