Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans ?

As another natural disaster hits with a Typhoon in the Philippines I can’t help but wonder how the US will plan on stepping in. In class we discussed the delayed help that was received in Katrina and how it changed our perceptions on the US. The ulterior   motive it brings to the surface, why was the US so slow in getting the fellow aid to its own state of Louisiana. Once again we can look at this issue through the spectrum of race, class, and gender.

I encourage everyone to read this article; I was extremely impressed with it written in The New Yorker entitled “ Do You Know.” This is in regards to “ Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/neworleansjournal

My favorite quote from the article,  

“It’s the American way to focus on the future—we are dreamers and schemers, always chasing the horizon. Looking forward has made us great, but it comes at a price. (Mexican immigrants often describe life in the United States as puro reloj, or “nothing but the clock.”) New Orleanians, on the other hand, are excellent at the lost art of living in the moment.

As Americans we always want what we can’t have in the sense of ownership of land and bodies of people. While it is a great way to think in becoming successful and being powerful, the bulldozer effect doesn’t always work in regards to creating equal classes of people.  The line about the immigrants reminds me of the movie we watched in class, taking about how the immigrants were painted in the light that the US was the best thing for them and there family because America gave them so much opportunity to work hard and make money. However the reality of it was that they suffered in regards to equality that is the core of what this nation was founded on.