Presenting, Nueva New Orleans

On the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall, many Big Easy residents can’t help but refer to their city as New New Orleans. From what we’ve read, however, it’s more like Nueva New Orleans. (Azúcar!) We’re no mathematicians, but if you take one estimate of the town’s current population at 277,000–that’s about 60% of its pre-Katrina numbers–and pair it with an estimate of the Latino population at 100,000, you’ve got yourself a berg that’s over a third brown. The undocumented immigrants responsible for that latter figure ballooning the way it has have been banging down New Orleans’ doors (and rebuilding them) for nothing more and nothing less than job opportunities. At least that’s the way the Wall Street Journal sees it:

Out of our surveys and interviews with Latino workers in the post-Katrina New Orleans area, we see a microcosm of immigration and immigrants generally: self-sufficient, hard-working, entrepreneurial, law-abiding people simply trying to make a better life for themselves and their families.

Sure, they’ve encountered the wrath of politicians along the way. With the storm dissipated but a couple of weeks, Mayor Ray Nagin asked, “How do I ensure that New Orleans is not overrun by Mexican workers?” (Try not to build things, is our answer.) And how about the city council member who tried to ban taco trucks in Orleans Parish? Well, his uppance came when he plead guilty to accepting a bribe. (That’s business as usual in the Crescent City.) Assuming that these suits don’t actually speak for the everyday New Orleanian, we say the Hispanics of Nueva Orleans are there to stay. At least, until turning Mardi Gras into ‘Martes Gordo’ and Jazz Fest into ‘Yazz’ Fest gets them booted.

[Ed. Note: Given that Fredy Omar was a staple of the New Orleans salsa scene years and years before Katrina arrived, we figured his old album cover has since taken on new meaning.]

The New Latin Quarter [WSJ]
New Orleans Marks Katrina Anniversary [Forbes]
Image [Google]
Earlier, The Latino New World Order Starts In New Orleans