Katrina’s Quiet Legacy

We stood under the shade of the same beautiful live oaks with Spanish moss hanging down, as it became clear that this side of the city was still suffering the effects of Katrina.

“Katrina’s postscript—the physical wasteland”
— Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House

This inconspicuous street was what we had been reading about all week. I felt like I knew the place. Sarah M. Broom’s careful descriptions of each of the houses on the street gave me a pretty good mental map of the area before we visited. I knew the people there, and the people who used to be there. I recognized the concrete slab where the Davis family used to live, the more affluent Ms. Octavia’s brick house, and the thin strip that is 4121 Wilson Avenue. The Yellow House.

“the short, industrialized end of Wilson Avenue, where I grew up, from the longer residential end of mostly brick houses,”
— Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House

Of course, the house doesn’t stand today; it’s just a thin strip of land next to an impound lot and junkyard. The only landmark on the property itself is the address under the long grass and weeds on the curb. I’ll be honest, it’s a little bizarre reading so much about this Yellow House just for it not to be there. I didn’t know I had this much anticipation to see it, but I have to admit it fits. The yellow house was the epicenter of the family. Throughout all of the struggles and life changes, the yellow house remained, even if it barely stood. Then, when it was gone, the epicenter of this family’s story went with it.

Our Professor pointed out that the old Cyprus was gone, too. This landmark has stood for New Orleans bookpackers in previous years, but it no longer does. I think it shows how this street is moving on from the story of the Yellow House. This place, which has held generations of people, is moving on, removing any trace of what came before. Soon, the book will be the only physical memory of what used to be here.

As we stood by the empty lot, a local working at the junkyard next door mentioned that her boss had bought the land and was planning on expanding. They had just taken out the tree a couple of weeks prior. I was surprised it had been so recent, since there hardly seemed to be a trace in all the overgrowth. It is all about to be gone.

As much as I recognized all of the landmarks as Sarah M. Broom had described them, something about the street hung with me. You could almost feel the emptiness; the people who had left this place behind. Places like these are a stark contrast to the French Quarter, where we spend so much of our time. Without the money to rebuild immediately, people have left. For every well-maintained house, there is one in disrepair and one empty one.

The street’s emptiness was contrasted by the active industrial zone, with multiple cars going into the junkyard while we were there. Wilson Street feels a little forgotten. Some houses remain standing, but the activity is only industrial. Tow trucks moving in and out, empty lots, and quiet disrepair don't fit in with the “affluent suburb” this place was supposed to be. The houses that stand are the ones that feel out of place.

“I repeated it back to myself: We lived on an industrial-zoned street where the houses were the exceptions.”
— Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House

Entrance Gate

Later that morning, we transitioned from focusing on what used to be to what could be. We drove onto the site where Emmy-winning composer Elvin Ross plans to build a film and corporate retreat complex. This park was built for Jazzland, a jazz-themed park, before it was acquired by Six Flags. The park didn’t last long under either name, with Hurricane Katrina taking it out nearly twenty years ago. The area has been falling into disrepair, with only its parking lot being used for a couple of blockbuster films.

Ross has an inspiring vision for the place and an acute understanding of what it could mean for the area. He imagines a variety of multipurpose modular sound stages being built, housing corporate retreats, e-sport tournaments, and blockbuster films alike. Ross also plans to build all the facilities required for these events on the park grounds, knowing that the shored-up swampland is currently the most valuable asset within the 120-150 acres it occupies.

We arrived at a historic moment for the park. Power was being connected for the first time in 20 years, kickstarting this ambitious project. As we walked through the gates, the bones of a theme park were immediately apparent. The remains of replications of historic French Quarter buildings were recognisable amidst the rubble and under the graffiti. You could see the waterline just above my chest height, where the devastating storm surge reached. It told a similar story to Wilson Street.

Katrina’s Waterline

Despite all of this rubble, the potential was evident. Ross and his son Landon took us around the park, showing us renderings of what they hoped to build, transforming the good bones that we stood on. Ideas for administrative offices, performance venues, cabanas, and soundstages showed a transformed park, part of a revitalized community.

As Edwin Ross described the potential for the education portion of this project, his love for the city was evident. That's exactly what a place like this needs. Bold investments could revitalize areas like this, injecting cash into a community that could use it.

Resilience is in the Water

We visited Sarah Broom’s “The Yellow House” that we spent the past week reading. It was a comical thing as we had not come to look for the actual yellow house that still stood on the block, but rather the empty lot of grass right next door which was formerly the Yellow House. As we walked further through this part of New Orleans East however, it was not so comical anymore. Humor gave way to heaviness as we felt the gravity of Hurricane Katrina’s destruction so many years later. Talking to local employees and homeowners, it seemed as though everyone in the area had a vivid story of where they were during Katrina and how it changed their lives in both the momentary and the long term sense. Every other lot on the street was empty, representing a home, a family, even a life that was once but is no longer. The houses that do stand however are a show of resilience like no other, having been rebuilt yet still ever-presently at the mercy of Gulf hurricanes’ impending wrath.

“I had no home. Mine had fallen all the way down. I understood then, that the place I never wanted to claim had, in fact, been containing me. We own what belongs to us whether we claim it or not”
— The Yellow House, Sarah M. Broom

In bookpacking “The Yellow House,” I began to notice a deeper layer in the narrative: the thread of social injustice that runs through the story of Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans East originally developed as a predominantly white suburban area, shifting over time into a predominantly African American community. After the devastation of Katrina, this area– like many predominantly Black neighborhoods – was disproportionately impacted and under-prioritized in relief and rebuilding efforts. It was truly shocking to see that even 20 years later, go-fund-me signs and posters calling for Brad Pitt to “Make It Right” (criticizing the lack of follow through with his relief campaign), still stand in the empty lawns of former homes that are yet to be rebuilt. More than just illustrating the tragic impact of natural disasters, this experience highlighted a form of environmental racism, where race and class influence who is the most exposed to environmental harm and who is left behind in recovery. In this context, water is more than a natural force of destruction- it becomes a symbol of injustice, something to be resisted rather than simply endured.

“I knew that nothing would ever be the same, displaced and fragmented as everything was… they were still reacting to Water. As was I.”
— The Yellow House, Sarah M. Broom

And yet, on the flip side of that coin, water can also be the very fuel inspiring resilience in the recovery from its harm. This complex sentiment in which water holds power over the city and its people while also telling their stories history resounds all around New Orleans. Just a block away from the hotel, I noticed a huge mural by BMIKE depicting an African American man and his child, with the words “Still Here” and “this water tells my story” incorporated into the picture. Much like Sarah’s narrative with the Yellow House, this mural conveys that water and hurricane storms can be seen as a storyteller beyond the threat they impose. The power of water cannot be fought but it can be acknowledged, woven into history in the ways it shapes cultural memory and identity, and somehow embraced. To embrace something that can cause so much harm is to embrace resilience. Thus, I found this imagery across our text and the city itself to be an incredibly powerful reclamation of such an unpredictable natural environment that New Orleanians call home, completely embodying resilience by doing so.

In the context of both Sarah’s relationship to the Yellow House as well as BMIKEs depiction of water telling a story, water forcing resilience may serve as a metaphor for Black resilience in New Orleans– a history marked by racial oppression but also by survival, creativity, growth. Much like how water comes and goes, flows, and is multi-generational yet changes with time, Black stories have developed and changed with time alongside the Gulf’s flowing water. Black people’s resilience helps wash away outdated societal norms, replacing them with new and ever growing cultural traditions, much like how a hurricane forces the society it imposes on to rebuild. Water is complex and while its destruction causes immense harm and tragedy, there is some resilience to be had in starting anew. Destruction reveals the often unrealized importance in what was lost, but it also forces one to move on. This is exactly what Sarah Broom ultimately concludes when the yellow house that she was always ashamed of is destroyed in Katrina.

“Shame is slow creeping. The most powerful things are quietest, if you think about it. Like water.”
— The Yellow House, Sarah M. Broom

We finished off the day in a secluded corner of the Central Business district where we observed a second mural by BMIKE, this one depicting famous Jazz cornetist Buddy Bolden. Being completely repainted after having been destroyed up to the top of Bolden’s head by Katrina’s water, this mural stood testament to the resilience of the community's ability to bounce back. Not only did this community take the time to repaint the mural, but the mural itself depicts a beautiful history of Jazz music which itself is filled with resilience and creativity. The artistic representation of Bolden’s “insanity” we read about in “Coming Through Slaughter” in intricate details like the bright Sun around his head really helped me to visualize what I struggled to understand whilst reading. Seeing history painted on the walls in such fashion took bookpacking to a new level, going beyond a sense of person and place to highlight its impact and importance with such a commemorative public piece of art.

What once was.

You’ll never understand a city unless you’re from there.

This is how I view tourism—and even the people who move to a city in their twenties, and end up staying. You can visit every iconic location, stroll through the streets, or pause at memorials. But you’ll never fully understand the place, not like someone who was born there. You don’t have anyone buried in the Lafayette Cemetery, or any ancestors who were related to the plantations you visit. In a perverse way, it turns you into a voyeur of pain, consuming history without being a part of it.

 

Reading The Yellow House by Sarah Broom helped me understand New Orleans through her eyes: a city shaped by memory, loss, and rootedness. Before our group had officially visited East New Orleans and the Ninth Ward, I had gone to a nail appointment with a girl who lived in the Lower Ninth Ward. It was early in the morning, an eight-a.m. appointment, but the air was still thick with the humidity I’ve come to associate with Louisiana. The initial impression of emptiness felt normal: it was Sunday, and extremely early, so I’d just assumed that it was normal. However, on the second visit, the emptiness stuck with me.

 

A call to action.

We spent the previous week immersed in the bold, bright culture of Bourbon Street and the well-preserved historical districts. But on that ‘tour’, I felt the stark divide. This city was not mine. It belonged to those born here, and to those buried here.

I recognize that feeling. Raised in South Central Los Angeles, I’ve seen the changes. I remember the Village before it became USC Village, when it was University Village. There was a Superior Grocers, a movie theater, and a Baskin Robbins where my madrina always ordered strawberry ice cream in a waffle cup. The Pollo Loco where I got French fries is now a Northern Café. I’ve watched University Gateway shops morph from an abandoned lot to a rotating cast of failed businesses—an overpriced minimalist grocery store, to a CREAM that didn’t last a year, and a sushi place that became a Dunkin' Donuts.

By my junior and senior year of high school, I was walking past homes on 36th Place that were being replaced by bulky apartment complexes for students, buildings with no parking and no connection to the community. The abandoned house behind mine became one of those complexes. And the irony is I never left, so I cannot be so shocked that it’s changed. I’ve stayed, but the changes weren’t made for people like me.

 

That disconnect, that sense of exclusion, feels even sharper in New Orleans. In both cities, you can measure how much the city “cares” by how well it maintains its streets. In Cudahy, where my cousin grew up, the sidewalks are broken, and the roots of trees push up through the concrete. Accessibility is an afterthought. East New Orleans is no different; overgrown lots where homes used to be, cracked roads that left me carsick, streets that feel forgotten.

What remains of The Yellow House.

It feels selfish to ask why no one has done anything. But eventually, you realize: maybe no one with power ever intended to. The people who live there don’t have the resources or influence to demand better. And when you’re fighting just to get by, there’s no energy left for hope. It’s easier to invest in what’s already thriving than to help the communities that have been abandoned.

In tourist areas of New Orleans, you hardly see any trash. IV Waste trucks roll through, spraying lemon-scented cleaning agents. But step into New Orleans East, and the illusion vanishes. You’re met with cracked sidewalks and scattered garbage. The money that flows into the city isn’t for the people, but for the image. It’s for those who visit, not those who live. The hurricanes stripped so much from these neighborhoods, and no one came to help pick up the pieces. You can see who had to give up after the hurricanes that have occurred here, who had little support in picking up the pieces. Residents were left to rebuild on their own until that, too, became too much. And then, they left.

What remains of Jazzland/Six Flags New Orleans.

That’s the cruelest part. Change makes people feel like they no longer belong. When everything around you shifts, it’s hard to find your place. There is pain in remembering what used to be. When you watch everything around you change, you wonder what your place is anymore. You leave, and the next time you return, the city feels less familiar. The nostalgia that kept you tied there fades. You try to hold on to what you remember, but it flickers like a flame, merging into something new and unrecognizable—a body you no longer see as your own.

My dad raised me alone, hiring a babysitter to take me to school from age four to thirteen. He’d wake up at four in the morning, drive me thirty minutes south down Vermont to her house, and I’d nap for another hour before she got me ready. We’d watch Despierta America as she brushed my hair into a ponytail, and we’d leave by 6:30 a.m. so I could be on time—she didn’t drive, but sometimes her husband would take us and even treat me to Jack in the Box if we had time.

Unlike Broom, I didn’t feel shame in that journey; it felt like a privilege not to be on the 204 for an hour. But I understand her discomfort. The private school she attended left the impression of a place she did not belong her; “We seem, in our car and in our lot, not the match the school to which I now belong.” This is how I feel about the ‘new’ that is coming to Los Angeles—the sleek apartments, the expensive restaurants. None of it was made with my community in mind. It makes people feel like outsiders in their own neighborhoods. Like we should be ashamed for not keeping up.

Never Turn a Blind Eye

Turning a blind eye is a severely common practice in today’s world. If it does not affect me, why should I care? I am no exception to this reality. It is easier to not care about a problem than it is to actually act on it. That does not mean it is right. Sarah Broom illustrates this dilemma in her novel The Yellow House following the disaster of Hurricane Katrina. This hurricane destroyed the Broom household, displacing her family for years. It displaced thousands of families in New Orleans East. Even now, much of the black population has not returned to the city since 2005. President Bush encouraged families to make their long-awaited return to the city to turn it back on its feet. But, how? Many of these communities did not have the financial capacity to return home. Furthermore, there was a glaring lack of support for these families. Specifically, people that originated from impoverished, predominantly Black neighborhoods. This depicted the situation in New Orleans East after Katrina. The government funneled aid to the visible parts of the city, like the French Quarter. Sarah Broom’s neighborhood was not included in these plans. This absence of care was unbelievably present when we visited the Ninth Ward and New Orleans East. Empty lots filled the land, signifying the families that never were able to return home. The land of Sarah’s childhood home was sold away since her family could not afford to rebuild it. Her family never returned to 4121 Wilson Avenue. 

“This is the place to which I belong, but much of what is great and praised about the city comes at the expense of its native black people, who are, more often than not, underemployed, underpaid, sometimes suffocated by the mythology that hides the city’s dysfunction and hopelessness.”
— Sarah Broom, The Yellow House

The signing away of the yellow house illustrated the systemic neglect of these areas by governmental institutions. The Yellow House no longer exists, it has recently been sold to the car junkyard. This neglect is a prime example of turning a blind eye. After Katrina ended and news started shifting to other topics, so did the sense of urgency to support those affected. People in power and the greater public of New Orleans largely disregarded the suffering of low-income families. However, Sarah’s work does not let us forget this. Through The Yellow House, she forces us to confront what happens when society collectively decides that certain problems and people are not worth investing in. She calls us to pay attention, even when it is inconvenient. 

Over the past two weeks, I have found myself relaxing in CC’s Coffee House in the French Quarter, the very place where Sarah Broom once worked. I usually order some type of over-priced iced coffee, along with a bagel (cream cheese costs an extra $1.05…ugh). Yesterday, as I sat here mindlessly sipping my iced mocha, I realized I was the exact person the Broom alludes to in The Yellow House: a tourist who only associates New Orleans with the French Quarter. Prior to reading the memoir, I was blissfully unaware of the other neighborhoods, like New Orleans East. I never paid attention to these impoverished communities that live in the shadow of the French Quarter. This realization mirrors the broader issues that Broom discusses. Money pours into transforming the city so that it is appealing to outsiders, while little of that revenue is directed towards rebuilding the areas that define the true identity of New Orleans. So, what does this dilemma say about the city, or us, when the communities that need the most care remain hidden from view?

Resthaven Memorial Park. This is where Sarah’s childhood best friend, Alvin, was buried after his death in a car accident on Chef Menteur Highway. His grave remains unmarked, with no headstone, or physical remembrance to commemorate his life. At the entrance of the cemetery, a massive stone stands to honor the Haydel family. It stands proudly next to a tiny podium that reads, “In memory of the unknown infant and all other victims of Hurricane Betsy, September 19, 1965, that will never be forgotten”. It is unclear if the Haydel name is in relation to the owners behind the Whitney Plantation. Regardless, the symbolic nature of this juxtaposition is striking. The grand memorial directly next to the anonymous victims’ marker relays a deeper story about who gets remembered and who slips into a historical silence. It is an illustration of the racial inequality that is etched into the very landscape of this city. Names like Haydel are preserved while lives of the most vulnerable, like Alive, are completely forgotten. 

This imagery instantly transported me to the Whitney Plantation and to the film, 12 Years a Slave. Watching this movie was emotionally taxing, showing intensely gruesome scenes based on a true story from Solomon Northup. I found myself wincing and desiring to look away. But, that is the point. It is supposed to make viewers uncomfortable. History this brutal is not meant to be digestible, it is meant to reveal the realities of our nation's past. At the Whitney Plantation, reading firsthand accounts from enslaved people who lived to see 1865 was haunting. Even after the Emancipation Proclamation, the fight did not end there. Freedom did not equate to equality. The struggle continued, and still does, for Black communities to claim spaces in an unjust world. This was evident while visiting the William Frantz School, where four young black girls had to fight for their spot at school. 

Our group visited places most affected by Hurricane Katrina, including the abandoned Six Flags. This land, once known as Jazzland, has been recently bought by Elvin Ross under another company. He took us around the empty lot. While the buildings are completely destroyed from the flooding, Mr. Ross sees potential. He plans to transform the area into a filming lot that doubles as a space for corporate retreats. His vision is ambitious as he plans to develop a multi-purpose filming space, a family recreational area, an eSports area, villas, etc. It was inspiring to witness a New Orleans native be passionate about addressing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It felt more so about reclaiming a space repeatedly written off by others. Mr. Ross expressed how he believes finishing Jazzland is important to the surrounding community as it is one of the final steps in rebuilding the city. 

While the Yellow House no longer stands and the land is being absorbed into a junkyard, the memories and stories still remain. Sarah Broom’s memoir forces readers to witness the people and places that society often chooses to ignore. From unmarked graves to forgotten neighborhoods, Broom reminds us that memory holds power and that silence is an active choice people make. Thus, we each hold a responsibility to not turn away when atrocities are being performed. We owe it to communities like New Orleans East to never turn a blind eye again. 

The Gold House

“There was the house we lived in and the house we thought we should live in. There was the house we thought we should live in and the house other people thought we lived in. These houses were colliding.””
— Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House

There’s a house in the New Orleans Museum of Art. An actual house.

When you enter the second floor exhibit filled with modern art pieces, you will see it.

It stands 14 feet wide, 14 feet long, and 13 feet tall – a life-size replica of Abraham Lincoln’s childhood log cabin. Its wooden exterior coated in gold, the house gleams warmly under the cold museum light.

Peeking through the opening of the window or entering through the doorway, you’ll see layers and panels of ordinary objects, all rigidly and compactly welded together in thin, neat lines not unlike the stripes of the American flag. The floor is laid with coils of shackles and chains. The fireplace is veneered with bricks of iPhones and iPads. The wall is divided into angular, geometric chunks filled with repeating objects – soda tabs, pills, keyboard keys, metal springs, seed cotton, candy, lightbulbs, telephone cords, railroad tires, corn – all clustering together like pieces of mosaic. The entirety of the house is painted gold, apart from sections of the wall that are constructed with hunks and wedges of black, lusterless coal.

This is Will Ryman’s 2013 sculpture America, a large-scale installation that critically reflects the industries and economies that have shaped the United States. From the brutal institution of slavery which has laid the foundations of this nation to to the gleaming prestige of today’s tech giants, America captures our nation as a glorious crystallization of generations of blood, sweat, and tears. Overwhelmed by the lustrous glow of the house, I found it easy to overlook the individual components composing it. It’s hard to focus on that one seemingly negligible, yet absolutely crucial, question: what has been the true cost of building such a beautiful structure, and by extension, our nation?

To me, this sculpture was a striking synthesis of everything we explored over the past week as we confronted New Orleans’ history of trauma and horror. Faced with the grotesque realities of slavery portrayed in 12 Years a Slave and in our visit to the Whitney Plantation, my prior image of New Orleans as a leisurely city of French delicacies and beautiful art crumbled. Accompanied by Sarah Broom’s words in The Yellow House, which echoed through our travels, I felt my own ignorance laid bare and called out by the very voices I had overlooked: “The mythology of New Orleans—that it is always the place for a good time; that its citizens are the happiest people alive, willing to smile, dance, cook, and entertain for you; that it is a progressive city open to whimsy and change—can sometimes suffocate the people who live and suffer under the place’s burden, burying them within layers and layers of signifiers, making it impossible to truly get at what is dysfunctional about the city.”

In many ways, we live in America, this gilded house of gold that is both New Orleans and the nation itself. As a young girl growing up in China, my parents and I looked across the Pacific toward this country, imagining it as a land of opportunity and dreams. From afar, we saw a place wrapped in mythologies of glamour, romance, and dazzling opulence: a house that, from the outside, seemed to shine with promise, drawing in those who longed to know what it might be like to live within its walls.


But America’s interior tells an entirely different story. Only those who built its doors, its frames, its walls and ceilings, can speak to the unpresentable scraps and discarded remnants hidden beneath its glittering surface. Only those who live inside can describe the pungent stench of cheap plastic, the gritty scent of coal embedded in its foundation and its walls. The story they tell is solemn, stripped of illusion. No veneer of gold can change this fact.

The French Quarter is a thorny rose dyed red with blood, flourishing atop the bones of unnamed victims buried deep within its elevated ground. In desperation, we tell ourselves that tormented souls haunt the streets at night – as if mystifying their suffering could soften its brutality, and granting them the power to haunt might offer some form of poetic justice.

These terrors from the past gnaw into our present. Like termite holes digging deep into the wood beams of an old cabin, memories and attitudes linger on in the form of mindless “plantation weddings” and tasteless scarf designs of plantations that line the Mississippi River. Again, I was reminded of what Sarah Broom wrote about New Orleans: “The historicized past is everywhere I walk in my daily rituals—to get to the store or to the gym on Rampart Street or to my car to visit with Carl. Historical markers are everywhere you look—underfoot and on buildings.”

Yet through it all, the story of New Orleans is one of resilience. In a world where all seemed lost, courageous African American communities found hope through various forms of art.

Hope is a set of vodou dolls that carry good luck, health, and happiness for family faraway. Hope is a gospel song echoing the words of Exodus, singing of faith and liberation. Hope is a Mardi Gras Indian costume adorned with colorful beads and lively feathers, a valiant expression of identity and heritage. Hope is the sound of a trumpet in a Second Line parade, where laughter rings out and the community gathers.

On the white walls of the museum, a two-line quote by Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu stood out to me: “An artist is a healer. First, they heal themselves, and then they try, bit by bit, to heal others.” Even in the darkest of times, art offers not only solace but also strength – it is not only a means of expression, but a chance to rewrite narratives and shift perspectives. Just like renovations to an old house can transform it into something new, our understanding of the world, our shared home, can also evolve and change with art pieces like America and the Yellow House

I really have faith that art and courage has the power to make the world a better place!

Resisting the Myth-Making

Sunrise by the RIver

The association between the vampire culture and the city makes a lot of sense to me. I never used to think that the birthing ground for something so elegantly evil could be these rusty alleyways and unpolished French corridors, but I come to understand that New Orleans is shared between the living and the dead.

Over the past few days, a thorough investigation into the haunted neighborhood prompted some surprising discoveries. When I first arrived at the Central Business District, I did not take this investigation as seriously. Fresh from our stay at the shore, I am still fascinated by the swampy landscapes and the geographical beauty. But the more I become drawn to the spiritual energy of the French Quarters, the more I feel incentivized to unveil the hidden secrets of this erosive society.

For multiple days in a row, I woke up early in the mornings to go on exploratory runs. The city is silent (and mostly clean) until 9 AM, then it resumes its usual shimmery delinquency. So, I learned to take advantage of the time before adults decide it is appropriate to start drinking again. Objectively speaking, the downtown is not the best urban district to linger around as a runner. My only goal is to watch the sunrise on the Mississippi River while sprinting freely down the sidewalk. However, even this desire proves impractical with the numerous small shops and vending machines set up along pedestrian paths.

Around 7 AM, I can’t find a single other runner (or biker, anything that involves aerobic cardio movements) besides myself. If this were Los Angeles, I would already be surrounded by a crew of lean and fit 20-something-year-olds maximizing their calorie burn. However, here, I suspect working out is not the norm or the preferred means of killing time. No one else has the desire to exercise outdoors: all the residents here sink deep into their chambers of sleep. Even the charming chirping of birds cannot wake them from their state of coma. This dullness scares me. When I am charging through the blocks utterly alone, I turn back every few seconds to check if I have been followed. If I were a character in a horror movie, my survival instincts would probably protect me until the very end. Making my way past the jazz lounges and painting collections, I noticed it’s easy to grow extremely dark thoughts. The soul-shattering atmosphere here is infectious. Even as an optimistic person, I am starting to doubt the existence of heaven. If the purgatory had a direct source on Earth that offered supplies endlessly, it must be here.

Although the streets smell like a mixture of the lemon-flavored cleanser and strong liquor, I can picture the scent of sweet, dangerous blood staining the concrete dark red. This hint of dark essence is not apparent to the nose; you will only accept the blood existing in broad daylight if you understand the context of the French Quarter. Similarly, you will also come to fear the discrete, run-down storefronts if you have heard whispers about their terrifying owners.

As a long-term reader of Southern Gothic, I pride myself in the fact that I am familiar with the genre as well as its historical backdrop. Compared to other parts of the country, the South is old enough and broad enough that you hear variations of cultural shifts told from the perspective of those who follow the status quo and those who push for changes. There is always a stark contrast between our idealized expectations of the sweet homes and the sharp realities of racial divides and violence. The legacy of this genre is the creation of flawed characters. Dynamic, complex people who battle with their faith, ethical guidelines, and relationship with their loved ones. I find myself drawn to these contradictions, yet I simultaneously resist the magnetic pull. The more the dark secrets make me uncomfortable, the more I sit through detailed depictions of gruesome death, either conveyed in between the lines or on the big screen. I have always loved Flannery O’Connor and Tennessee Williams, who write about the simple rural charm while incorporating dark, surrealist, yet magical elements. Nonetheless, the literature focused on New Orleans is more elaborate than most of the unconventional stories I have read about the decay and madness of aristocrats, peasants, and urban citizens alike.

Pastel colored front porches

If it isn’t for the fact that each session costs an exuberant amount, I would not be opposed to getting a tarot card reading outside Jackson Square. There are plenty of practitioners who lay out their toolkits with convincing advertisements. As a devout Catholic, I am definitely not supposed to adhere to these “demonic practices”. The spirits they conjure directly clash with my belief system. Under the Holy Trinity, there is no space for the immortal creatures or malicious ghosts. However, to justify my fixation on macabre stories, I justify this as a cultural survey outside of my normal religious practices, hoping that the Church would not be offended by my betrayal as God’s dearest child.

Our hotel is right next to St.John the Baptist, so on our way to class, we often passed by families in their Sunday Best attending Mass together. The women are adorned in exquisite white lace veils, and the men are dressed in their formal suits. Compared to their devotion, I feel out of place in my pajamas, and more importantly, I am absent from Mass. Instead of facing the Father and asking for a full-scale exorcism, I let the tiny hateful spirits prowl about within me.

Since I can’t engage with the demonic rituals in a close capacity, the next thing would be chasing them down through a haunted tour. With immense curiosity, we approached the highly commercial and almost theatrical experience with an open mind. I have previously taken similar trips in Savannah, Georgia, and this tour essentially reminded me of the same atmosphere: under the hues of the night sky, it’s hard to tell what is staged and what is real. Every creaking of metal doors and wind blowing through the oak trees can be seen as the spirits at play, and the mansion on St. Charles Avenue looks more appealing than ever.

The most recent version of the story as a TV Series

The tour guide’s voice becomes distant. I am now captivated by the steel galleries, illuminated in neon lights at night. The historical architecture begins to blend with the reflection of the disco ball, revealing the sinfulness of typical nighttime activities. Indeed, I am not referring to visitors like myself. The guide’s narrations of the horror stories begin to merge with my prior knowledge of mystical beliefs and other grotesque acts that have occurred in the area, including the iconic characterizations of Louis and Lestat. To fully understand the context of Interview with the Vampire, for several nights, I went down the rabbit hole of researching Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe. After hours of browsing synopses and reading about the franchise, I could tell that she had a complete vision for her vampire lovers. Although the Interview was the first book published more than fifty years ago, the most recent iterations of the vampire stories came out just a couple of years ago.

Similar to many fantasy authors, in Rice’s literary and cinematic series, there is no absolute definition of good and evil. At first, I found her lack of moral stance to be slightly unsettling. Although I never overcame this slight disgust and unease, I came to appreciate this ambiguity as I learned more about crime and justice in the city. Portraying ethics is challenging when there is little lawfulness in the town to begin with. Most of the tales the guide depicted to us have no factual evidence; they are either oral traditions or exaggerated speculations that have been disseminated and reproduced through iterative processes, such as these commodified walking tours. Nonetheless, even though the stories are not reliable recollections of the bloody tales that have taken place decades, if not centuries ago, they are vivid demonstrations of the rampant criminality that is somehow normalized in this area. This is the moment my pre-law knowledge comes in handy. As an international humanitarian law student, I am not particularly invested in forensics or capital punishment. Yet, my basic instincts remind me that the casual and frequent homicides and sexual offenses are tied to corrupt businesses and weak governance. After all, it’s easy for us to blame the murders and assaults on unnamed spirits and fearful presences, as opposed to looking inward to find the human beings who have committed these unspeakable acts. Therefore, relating the historical backdrop of New Orleans to my modern critical judgment, I have a bold theory that there is a chance the entire vampire culture is a scapegoat for a legal system that lacks integrity and rigor.

I bought more books at the bookstore

The newest novel produced by Professor Everett who taught me fiction writing. He is now known as one of the most brilliant African American authors of our century.

This is how myth-making occurs and becomes extremely successful. Those who retell the stories intentionally blur the line between fiction and reality, disorienting the audience until we too lose the ability to distinguish between ancient rituals and human nature. Under the disguise of twisted desire and eccentric power dynamics, such as the type of servant-master relationships described in Rice’s novels, I suspect that the core of these strange tensions actually has to do with the great injustice of the real world. Throughout the tour, I constantly made notes of the stories that involved wealthy, upper-class white perpetrators torturing their supposedly subservient affiliates of color. To me, noticing this pattern is not an afterthought but a spontaneous habit. Though most of the other participants on the tour outside of our group did not even flinch the slightest when they heard the grotesque descriptions of the perverted individuals tormenting their victims, I felt a sense of uneasiness trying to imagine the helplessness of those wounded or killed in the incidents. Is it really possible that every single one of the stories here is tainted by supernatural forces? What if the driving motivations have nothing to do with possessions or blood-thirsty impulses, but rather just a sense of hatred so strong that it compels someone to kill?

Pulling back to the realm of reality and the burden of staying pragmatic, I have to reject the theories emerging in my head. Observing the other amused (and potentially tipsy) patrons, my outcastness is clear even on a tour we paid for. The eccentricness of my mind prevents me from being agreeable, or at the very least, a regular listener who can endure through an hour tour without raising a series of questions that evolve from “where is the supporting evidence?” to “what is the social-cultural implication of this guilty sentence?” My skepticism all came from an earnest place, but it was driving me mad. When you have a stomach full of doubts, no amount of homemade gumbo or delicious seafood boils could fill the hole of eagerness. So when my stomach growls with a funny sound after only having two meals a day, it is also my body protesting for being given unsatisfactory explanations.

I guess we will never know whether the ruthless killers were proven to be small-minded, discriminatory syndicates, because I didn’t want to bring it up to the guide. It’s not that I didn’t have the nerve to open up a potentially unpleasant conversation. There are some grievances and deep frustrations that are hard to communicate verbally. I am fearful that no matter how much I try to explain the discrete social hierarchy embedded in the vampire fiction and the subtle tone of racial dispossession, it’s easy to dismiss and rebuke these angles of interpretation rather than leaning into them. After all, one may easily overlook this perspective by categorizing the sanguinarians as a product of a niche subculture. But this is not the type of underground rebellion that should be celebrated. In fact, the marginalization of these unspoken norms provides more reasons for the hedonistic individuals to conceal their true intentions under the name of deviance. But I concur we ought to call it for what it is. Some criminality extends beyond secret societies and loosely regulated lifestyles; they are fundamentally motivated by the desire to commit wrong without being held accountable, finding excuses through the myths passed down through bonfire circles and witchcraft.

Strolling around the French Quarter on a rainy day, I let my thoughts drift away with the monotonous sounds of the raindrops and feel that I have been transported back to the past, when people wore high collars and flat caps; or even earlier when carriages were stumping through the cobblestone; maybe even earlier than that, when chains robbed against each other as enslaved people walked through the headquarters of human trafficking commerce. These images, though far less intriguing and mesmerizing than the brothels and blacksmith bars painted in Rice’s novels, feel more intimate to me.

Midwives, migraines, and me

We’ve been in New Orleans for a week and I’ve cried on at least five separate occasions. Now, I promise I’m not a crybaby, though I’m pretty sure no one on this trip believes that. The first time it happened was on Saturday, during our visit to the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, basically every pharmacy student’s dream. 

I was beyond excited to go. During my personal research on NOLA, the museum was already on my list of places to visit, so seeing it embedded into the syllabus felt like fate. I genuinely enjoy my major (and I like to think I’m pretty good at it), so I couldn’t wait to explore what the museum had to offer and why it was nestled right into the middle of the French Quarter.

Senior-year Thalia visiting USC!

If you told my younger self I’d be pursuing a career in pharmacy, she wouldn’t believe you for a second. And if you were to ask high school me what I was in university for, she would’ve most definitely have said anything but a science-related major. But after the pandemic, I started experiencing recurring ear pain and migraines. I spent days in discomfort, confused and frustrated as to why I was cursed with pulsating pain in the brain. It came to a head (see what I did there), and I finally went to urgent care. I remember sitting there, clutching my head, thinking, “Please make this pain go away. Please make me feel like myself again.”

The doctors never gave me a clear diagnosis, but I was administered medication that helped ease the pain. It was one of the first times I fully realized and appreciated the impact of modern medicine, how powerful it is to be able to offer someone even a moment of relief. That experience sparked something in me, a fascination with medicine and a desire to help others feel better, just as I was. Once I imagined becoming a pharmacist, I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.

I try to hold onto that feeling, the gratitude and curiosity. I remember how it felt to get accepted into USC Mann, how fun it is to learn new concepts in class, and how rewarding this field can be. But as of late, I’ve found myself in a sophomore slump. I just finished the first semester of organic chemistry, which is not a walk in the park, lemme tell you. This hard semester had cracked my spirits and made me question whether I could actually thrive in this industry. 

The museum came at exactly the right time. Funnily enough, I’ve been going through a bout of migraines (#allergywarrior) and had one that morning. But I was determined to make sure that this would not boggle my day down. I perked up at any mention of the museum, and was buzzing with excitement to get in. Stepping into the door brought me so much glee.

The left wall was lined with shelves, jars filled with everything a pharmacist back in the day could ever need. The right wall displayed medications of the past, organized by the ailments they treated. I took a moment to absorb the entire room before honing in on the white placards that described the scene before me.

The museum, rightfully so, was filled to the brim with patrons so I decided to explore the upstairs portion before doubling back to the first room. As I climbed the stairs, I zoomed to a room that immediately caught my attention. I peered through the cases with sheer amazement, completely abandoning the group. Every section in these cases captivated me: homeopathy in New Orleans, the mythical and medical histories of different plants, tools and treatments used by early otolaryngologists. 

One particular section intrigued me: midwifery and obstetrics in Louisiana. It emphasized the critical role midwives played, especially enslaved midwives. There was a portion about a particular nurse and midwife, Aimee Potens, a woman of colour born in Haiti who escaped the island on the cusp of the Haitian Revolution. She ended up at a sugar plantation in St. James Parish, where she learned the skills to become a nurse and midwife. Eventually, Aimee became a free woman of colour and continued to serve as a midwife. She later lived in the antebellum New Orleans and raised her children, her second growing up to become a doctor, an activist, and the founder and publisher of New Orleans Tribune, the first Black daily newspaper in the U.S.

Reading her story filled me with indescribable pride. It was a testament to Haitian resilience and achievement, and I loved that it was something memorialized and honoured in this city. This history of New Orleans is greatly intertwined with Haitian history. In 1810, Haitians doubled the population of the city as they sought refuge from the instability post-revolution. Their legacy is woven into the city’s culture, cuisine, language, and traditions. 

I spent most of my time in the next room, an exhibit on African Americans in New Orleans, highlighting the early development of Black pharmacy education in the south and the barriers Black people faced in seeking healthcare and higher education. It was a painful but empowering experience. I felt a deep sorrow reading about the systemic obstacles, but also filled with pride as I learned how Black communities fought to overcome them.

The Xavier University College of Pharmacy was established in 1927 and offered a program to provide pharmacy education to young Black men and women. Despite earning their degree, many graduates couldn’t find work due to Jim Crow laws that barred them from internship and employment in white-owned pharmacies. In turn, many graduates, over the years open their own practices, such as LaBranche, LaSalle, and Bynum pharmacies. Many of these establishments, however, were eventually lost to history, closed due to the rise of major pharmaceutical chains or destroyed by natural disasters. 

As I stood there reading these stories, I began to tear up. Just then, maybe from a passing car on the back road, I heard the chorus of Micheal Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” drift through the room. And I absolutely broke down. A silent stream of tears flowed down my face as I was overcome with the clarity of purpose: I was meant to be a pharmacist. It felt as if the world aligned to give me this sign. The universe was speaking directly to me. This was my calling.

The pharmacy courtyard

It’s hard to put that feeling into words. But at that moment, I knew. I knew I was meant to be a pharmacist, to help others. I was meant to honour those who came before me by continuing the legacy they made possible. All my complaints about ochem or dreading my labs suddenly felt so silly to me. What a privilege it is to even have those challenges, to be in a position where I can pursue this path at all. Barely a hundred years prior, this opportunity simply wouldn’t have existed for someone like me. 


I carried that feeling with me into the courtyard. I sat on a bench facing the fountain, alone, enveloped in this melancholic realization. Surrounded by the beauty of this tiny slice of paradise, I cried again. I love what I’m studying, I love pharmacy. I can’t believe I ever doubted that this path wasn’t for me. 

I ended up spending over two hours at the museum, long after everyone else left. Without question, this was one of my favourite moments of the trip thus far. And now, I feel like I have a duty to carry this forward. Being a pharmacist is not just to help my current community but also my way of honouring those who came before me and ensuring their struggles weren't in vain. It's a reminder that my successes aren’t just mine alone, it’s a victory for Haitians, for Black Americans, for every person who fought to make sure people like me could be in these spaces. We all deserve to follow our passions and we will continue to thrive in a world that built against us.

Historical & Fantastical

“... I felt an extraordinary ease walking on those warm, flat pavements, under those familiar oaks, and listening to the ceaseless vibrant living sounds of the night ”
— Anne Rice, Interview with a Vampire

Arriving in New Orleans was the culmination of weeks of anticipation - and it did not disappoint.

Recovering from bad news in a state of despair, New Orleans immediately lifted my spirits. From the moment we stepped out of the van, the city’s vibrant energy was palpable. I would soon come to experience this through many cafe work sessions, walks through the French Quarter, and rides on the street car. Everywhere we walked, the inevitable sound of Jazz music echoed in the streets, and the delicious aromas of Southern cooking wafted through the air. Celebration, festivity and livelihood permeated every aspect of life here.

I was immediately struck by the cultural richness of the community, an intricate tapestry of traditions and lived experiences, too intertwined to distinguish each disparate origin. On our first night, we carefully made our way from our hotel in the business district, past Canal street and into the famous French Quarter we had learned so much history about. Walking down Bourbon street, we played the part of tourists, snapping our fair share of photos and taking it all in. Day and night, it buzzed with life. We explored different shops brimming with energy, and enjoyed the upbeat rhythms of drummers in the street. It was refreshing to hear accents of every kind and to see people of all ages and skin colors engaging in festivities together. With every bar we passed by, the music shifted: Country morphed into Hip Hop, which melded into live Jazz singing, becoming Caribbean Soca or Reggae and back again. The sheer variety of genres spanned in five minutes was an experience like none but my own eclectic playlist. Within this first exposure alone, I could tell New Orleans was a city inclusive of anyone with something for everyone to enjoy.

On our third day in New Orleans, we attended a Second Line Parade in the Tremé. It was Jazz, it was community and it was culture, concentrating the livelihood throughout the city into one affair of togetherness. It reminded me of my vibrant experience attending Caribana in Toronto, the largest annual Caribbean Carnival outside of the West Indies, filled with similar extravagant floats and costumes, live musicians and dancers, and DJs mixing familiar tunes with original beats. While this parade was smaller in scale and grounded in NOLA Jazz rather than the Soca music I grew up with, the sentiment was the same: community coming together around a shared joy for life through culture, music, and festivity in unison. I was amazed to find out that during NOLA parade season, this is a weekly tradition!

“The power and proof of the vampire was incontestable, so that the slaves scattered in all directions”
— Anne Rice, Interview with a Vampire

The more we continued to explore, the more apparent the mystical aspects of New Orleans became. Filled with tradition and history, every monument holds a story and every story holds legend and lore, encouraging the imagination to wander. Meandering the French Quarter by day, we learned about the complex historical significance of places like Jackson Square and industries like healthcare by visiting the Historical Pharmacy Museum. Going on a walking ghost tour at night, we passed by many of the same places, only now learning about them from the vantage point of the fantastical – through gruesome stories of vampire attacks and truths of past horrors like enslavement. Some of these traditions solicited oohs and ahs, filled with captivating creativity, while others revealed deeply problematic aspects of New Orleans’ past. Interview with a Vampire walks this fine line conflating historical trauma with the fantastical, where Anne Rice often mindlessly discusses the relationship between vampires and enslaved people on a plantation, with enslaved people being treated as disposable by vampires that feed on them. The lack of criticism of this particular dynamic leads me to read this as racism of the writer rather than the writer’s descriptions of racism.

We explored similar themes at the intersection of the fantastical and the historical when our class went to see the movie Sinners. This spontaneous excursion “film-packing” rather than “book-packing” gave us yet another vivid view into Southern mystical tradition. It was surreal seeing this movie at the Uptown Prytania Theatre: the exact setting of one of Ignatius Reilly’s eccentric adventures in “Confederacy of Dunces,” and the exact theatre where the movie’s original screening occurred (much of which was also filmed in Louisiana). This movie was a beautiful and thought-provoking expression of culture being shaped by various melding influences. It showcases the vast excellence in African American musical tradition from its African origins to the present, but also alludes to the complexities of colonization through unique intricacies of both Irish and African roots coming together to form genres like Country music. Here, vampirism is seen as a metaphor for liberation from a racist society where, despite being the antagonists, vampires are a community bridging gaps of race – not powerful white characters who benefit at the expense of enslaved Africans. Unlike Interview with a Vampire, this film authentically depicts racism as a tool to critique rather than replicate it.

“This was New Orleans, a magical and magnificent place to live. In which a vampire, richly dressed and gracefully walking through the pools of light of one gas lamp after another might attract no more notice in the evening than hundreds of other exotic creatures”
— Anne Rice, Interview with a Vampire

After just one week of experiences, I have encountered culture in every corner of New Orleans. I've gone from emotional exhaustion after confronting painful traumas of its past, to joyful anticipation energizing me in the face of its ever-present vitality. I have found New Orleans to be one of the most multifaceted places I have ever visited. It mirrors what I strive for: a balance between joy and responsibility, indulgence and reflection. This city makes time for the craziest fun but always cleans up in the mornings, washing or “lemon-freshing” the streets, getting back to business ready to constantly start anew. With each new day comes new experiences, yet the memories of the past never fade. There is always something to reflect on and always something to anticipate.

Vampiros de cultura.

After a few days of rest and relaxation in Grand Isle, our little group of bookpackers arrived in the New Orleans’ Central Business District, settling into our hotel rooms. Despite its nickname, “The Big Easy”, I’ve found very little about it to be easy so far.

I’m used to the organized chaos of Los Angeles; the ruckus of a melting pot. I know which bus will take me where, how to navigate the streets depending on which neighborhood I’m in, and where to go for a cheap meal nearby.

Maybe that’s why I feel so disoriented in New Orleans; it reminds me too much of Downtown LA. The unfamiliar morphs into the mundane with the snap of your fingers. There’s the unhoused sleeping on the sidewalks, and thick, warm air that you can’t quite escape. Both cities seem caught in the cycle of appealing to the ‘newcomers’: cafes with no prices listed, hotels plopped next to one another, shops that appeal to the niche of the city. However, being born and raised in Los Angeles confirms my belief that my city is being gentrified, I’m not quite sure if New Orleans has always been this way.

Eating out while staying in a hotel for three weeks is not for the cheapskates, such as I. Nearly every meal so far has cost me $20. This is more than I’d hope, but there seems to be an unspoken rule when it comes to being a tourist and spending without hesitation. You’re not just buying food; you’re paying for an experience you may never have again. That’s not too bad, as I have been personally victimized by the Hailey Bieber smoothie, but it adds up when you’re not working during this trip.

When you go somewhere as a tourist short-term, there’s a different level of control than when you’re a long-term tourist. It’s easy to spend because you don’t know when you’ll be back; you need all the memorabilia and will eat all the local food. You become aware of the façade. The urgency to collect souvenirs or eat ‘authentically’ fades into a quieter realization: it’s all available, over and over, from the ‘I Heart NOLA’ shirts to the beignets. The city wants you to spend, to believe in the illusion it casts. That’s the American cycle of tourism. You’re never just seeing a place—you’re consuming it. 

This awareness surprisingly came to me before we had officially arrived in New Orleans, while on the Cajun Pride Swamp Tour. The tour guide, who was friendly and full of jokes, pulled out the tour’s big showstopper: a baby alligator, who was to be passed around for anyone on the tour to ‘pet’. Its mouth was bound with what seemed like a bandage, safe for any liabilities and ready to take pictures with, like a party favor.  As our boat wound through the seemingly endless swamp, he called into the trees at every stop with a startling “AY-YUP”, summoning the conditioned wildlife with treats. Racoons, boars, and gators came out of nowhere to feast upon fistfuls of marshmallow and dried corn, all urbanized versions of themselves. Everyone there was trying to get something out of the other; the tour guide hoping to make some tips with his story telling, us tourists who wanted to immerse ourselves in the culture, and even the animals hoping to be fed. Perhaps we have not inherently caused interference with the animals’ way of life, but we’ve fed into it. We have smiled ear to ear, ooh’ed and ahh’ed at the creatures, held the baby gator, who was separated from his mother, while having our picture taken. As tourists, we are feeding into the economy that lets opportunities like this continue.

In this system, we are complicit. Our wonder feeds the machine. In Interview with The Vampire, Louis reflects, “Never in New Orleans had the kill to be disguised. The ravages of fever, plague, crime—these things competed with us always there, and outdid us.” Just as he fed on humans, tourists feed on the curated versions of local culture. The city does the same thing, needing to thrive on tourism and in doing so reducing the value of its culture. Louis saw New Orleans as a place where he could disappear, where horror mixed with beauty in a way that hid his darkness in plain sight. He was invisible because the city made room for monsters, because it had already learned to sell its suffering.

New Orleans, like LA, confuses origin with invention. In LA, I know what cultures shape the city—Latino and Asian communities have built it, and the American version has diffused it. Here, the history is more entangled: French, Spanish, African, Creole. Colonialism left its fingerprints everywhere, from architecture to cuisine. Maybe that’s why fast food seems strangely absent. You’re meant to eat gumbo, po’boys, and beignets. If you don’t, you’re “not doing it right.” You’re not consuming correctly.

As a group, we’ve been to various places north of the Mississippi River, yet not too north as to meet the lake. I cannot say I know New Orleans, because I have yet to know all of it. This is how I feel about people who have ‘visited’ Los Angeles; you do not know Los Angeles if you haven’t traveled South of the 10, or East of the 110.  

Louis’s love for New Orleans was always conditional, even if he does not acknowledge it. He could admire its decadence without ever being a part of it. The city cannot love him because it does not know him; if it did, it would reject him. Tourists enjoy the city the same way Louis does: from a distance. We don’t get to know the full truth, only the filtered version that we can tell friends and family about. We crave intimacy without responsibility.  

Perhaps, like Louis, we too are feeding off this place—its food, its stories, its tragedies polished into spectacle. The city dances for us, and we smile for photos. And when we leave, it will reset for the next group, the next “easy” experience. But nothing here is easy, not for the people, or the gators, or the culture.

Through the Eyes of a Vampire

91 degrees. 70% Humidity. Endless walking. Drenched in my own sweat. Doing everything to escape the heat. 

Why would THIS city be a vampire’s dream?

Anne Rice, a New Orleans native, chose to set her hit novel Interview with The Vampire in this vibrant city in the early 19th century. The gothic story follows Louis Pointe du Lac through his journey of vampirism. Louis escapes to New Orleans with Lestat after their identity is revealed. The city becomes their long-lasting home, where they house their ‘daughter’ Claudia and live as a family for around 65 years. We, the readers, gained insight into their safe haven wandering these streets. The ‘family’ resided in a home with a beautiful gallery, a prominent structure that we pass by daily. While Lestat chose NOLA for its practical advantages, Louis developed an emotional bond with the place he called home. So, I ask myself again, why choose New Orleans? 

This question echoed in my mind as I stepped foot into the smothering heat. I constantly found myself in a pool of my own sweat, seeking any form of air conditioning during our walks that seemed to last an eternity. This, most definitely, was not the breezy Grand Isle we had spent the last few days in. Yet, I find myself completely enamored with this city. The first night, our cohort journeyed down to the French Quarter for our first indulgence with jambalaya and gumbo. We walked aimlessly through the town for hours, witnessing the lively community present in the Quarter. From street marching bands, to perpetual jazz, to the sultry air thick with secrets, the Crescent City dances to a timeless rhythm. This singular night shifted my entire perspective: New Orleans is where a vampire’s soul is most alive. 

The city embodies the very essence of eternalness. It is a timeless city – surviving hurricanes, fires, and wars, refusing to fade into history. It births a breeding ground for the coexistence of past and present tales, catering to creatures who live for an eternity. Living in the shadows of a sleepless city, vampires are not subjected to survival, they are capable of fully indulging in the intoxicating forces that make New Orleans. As expressed in our seminars: it is a city of vices. It invites anything and everything. There is no doubt that this fulfills a vampire’s innermost desires. Similar to Louis, I find myself forever tethered to this high-spirited culture. 

“There was no city in America like New Orleans… a magical and magnificent place to live. In which a vampire, richly dresses and gracefully walking through the pools of light of one gas lamp after another might attract no more notice in the evening than hundreds of other exotic creatures”
— Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

Centuries later, I am interacting with these very streets, and living in the magic described by Louis in the early 19th century. The second night there we wandered into Bourbon Street, infamous for its constant inebriated visitors and wild revelry. Immediately we encountered jumbo, multi-flavored daiquiris and glittering beads! It was disappointing being the only 21 year old in our group ;). The moments spent on Bourbon reflected the ageless nature of New Orleans; a magnificent location filled with an air of flamboyancy from decades prior. It became clear how easily a vampire could move through these streets at night. 

However, it is not just the celebrations that linger through these streets. A grotesque history continues to prevail beneath these overflowing crowds. There is no hiding the scarred history of deep racism that the city wears. The very buildings we brisk by daily hold more memories than we can imagine. During our Ghost Tour of the French Quarter, our guide took us past Madame Lalaurie’s mansion. Through the various fictional stories relayed through the night, this one was horrifyingly real. This story is stained in my brain for years to come. Known for her cruel, torturous behavior towards countless enslaved people, Madame Lalaurie is a remembrance of the pain embedded in the city’ past. Her home still stands strongly on Royal Street, a haunting reminder that New Orleans is not just the beauty that meets our eyes. 

The very streets thousands of tourists step across today carry the bones of forgotten people below its surface. There are no named graves for these enslaved people. Their blood, sweat, and tears have built the very physical and metaphorical foundation of New Orleans. Our group walked through the Business District, witnessing buildings that used to be slave pens. There is no ignoring the truth that confronts us. Thus, the Crescent City cannot be fully understood, or truly loved, without truly acknowledging this history. Its attractiveness is inseparable from its suffering, and its spirit is shaped as much by resistance as by its festivities. 

My experience in New Orleans thus far has illustrated the answers to my question. New Orleans is the perfect setting for all types of creatures, vampires included. I share Louis’ deep affection for the seductiveness of New Orleans, yet it is impossible to to escape the darker truths that Anne Rice mindlessly overlooks. In her novel, Rice depicts vampires in their murderous form, especially towards enslaved people. She encapsulated the visual beauty of New Orleans while simultaneously neglecting the city’s development through racial oppression. Similar to Louis, I feel unbelievably drawn to the chaotic nature and vibrancy that the city brings. I will live my life in search of a place that matches this energy. In contrast, I carry the truths of NOLA’s painful past. Its enchantment and charm is undeniable, but so is the history that shaped it. Everything in New Orleans is eternal – from past to present.

The Soul of the City

Music has always been a special part of my life; it's the thing that “makes me tick.” I’ve played piano, violin, and guitar for most of my life in orchestras, small ensembles, and on my own. This is actually my second time in the city, and while I am too young to remember it, my parents love to tell stories of how I loved spending hours listening to the music on the street and riding in the streetcar. While my time in this city looks a little different with the addition of bookpacking and writing papers, when I am done with work for the day, it still closely resembles my visit about 17 years ago.


Our first full day in New Orleans began with a walking tour of the French Quarter, the original boundary of the city in 1718. As we dodged the sunny side of the sidewalk or banquette, as it’s called in NOLA, I started my Google Maps list of places to check out later. As overpowering as the heat was, it was no match for my excitement to be in this city of music.

One of my favorite areas we passed through was Jackson Square, honoring the complicated Founding Father, Andrew Jackson. Many of the statues and plaques still portray a somewhat rosy view of him and his legacy, although some recent additions add additional context to the complicated history of this city.


This square, which used to be the ground of military parades, now welcomes a new type of congregation, hosting many street vendors and musicians. Everything from tarot readings and colorful artwork to solo musicians and brass jazz bands. Our group stopped to listen to a classic brass sextet playing traditional New Orleans jazz, a subset that originated from a combination of jazz chord progressions and upbeat ragtime rhythms. Naturally, I was last to leave and had to run to catch up to the rest of the group on the way to the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum.

This museum addresses the gross injustice that African Americans and Women faced in access to quality pharmaceuticals, barriers to a pharmaceutical education, and barriers to the jobs they deserved once they did receive an education. The museum used examples from around the world, but had a specific focus on the neighborhood it's in. It was an important reminder of the difficult racial past of the city.

After the museum, we were off for the day to explore the city and continue bookpacking. I started making my way deeper into the French Quarter without a plan, simply following the music. While much of the live music is in 21+ establishments at night, they are typically open to everyone during the day.

I first found myself outside the Vampire Cafe, a themed restaurant near the center of the quarter. In a 10’ by 10’ tent outside the restaurant on the street, there was a three-piece band playing some Swamp Blues. This genre is a slower tempo blues with Cajun and Jazz influences, often known for soulful, ethereal vocals and a strong bassline. With just a keyboard, bass, drumset, and vocals, they captured my attention. I sat for the better part of an hour enjoying the music from the street. It’s hard to define what pulls me in so deep to this music, but something about the gritty vocals and the soaring piano runs kept me sat. There is nothing quite like the feeling of live music like this.

When the band finished their set, I finally moved on, still without a plan or deadline, just following my ears. I continued on my way, stopping in piano bars and cafes, just taking it in. This is by far my favorite part of the city. No timelines, just finding more music to enjoy.

Another one of my favorite stops was outside Cafe Beignet, a local chain. Right in the street, a musician was playing an impressive combination of guitar, harmonica, vocals, whistling, and drums and percussion with his feet. All of this, combined with a harmonizer pedal, brought an impressively full sound from just one person. I spent another hour listening to his music, commonly known as Neo-Soul Blues. This genre combines classical soul vocals and blues style with new instrumentations and forms. I thoroughly enjoyed this musician’s sound and innovative way of making classic blues music his own. Something about the way music relates to human emotions is special.

All in all, I spent about 5 hours exploring the French Quarter in heat I was not suited for as a Wisconsinite, but it was still one of my favorite days in the city.

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The musical exploration continued the next day, with a second line parade. These jubilant parades are put on every Sunday afternoon during the summer parade season. They began as a form of advertisement for neighborhood social aid organizations, and were also used in funerals as a celebration and honoring of life. They consist of a brass band parading down the street, with the club members following in colorful and coordinated outfits behind. Members of the community follow behind as the “second line.” These jubilant celebrations are at the heart of the city's cultural identity.

Yet again, we faced some oppressive heat, made worse by our preparation for a rainstorm that never came. As we got closer and closer, the sidewalks and medians started filling up with grills strapped to pickup trucks, pop-up tailgate bars, and lots of people. I didn’t know what to expect, but there was palpable excitement in the air.

As we neared the start of the parade, most of the group went into a local fried chicken restaurant on the corner, but I decided to try my luck with one of the barbecues in a truck. For just $6 I had one of the best smoked sausages I’ve ever tried.


Finally, the parade arrived! It was a sea of dancing people, lead by a brass jazz band, accompanied by all sorts of makeshift percussion. The energy was electric; all generations were dancing and having the time of their lives. Thousands of people marched with no differentiation between the road, yard, or sidewalk. Behind the jazz band, multiple open trailers played their own music, with people dancing and DJs spinning mostly hip-hop and rap.

We followed this parade until its end, about an hour and a half later, and I quickly made plans to return the next week. I’ve experienced parades before but it’s never been quite like this. The energy from the music is felt by everyone, making it a truly community-oriented event. The music I’ve heard in the French Quarter is the music of the city, but parades like these are where the residents themselves go to experience it.

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walking through the quarter

“I had a vision of him from long ago, that tall, stately gentleman in the swirling black cape, with his head thrown back, his rich, flawless voice singing the lilting air of the opera from which we’d only just come, his walking stick tapping the cobblestones in time with the music, his large, sparkling eye catching the young woman who stood by, enrapt, so that a smile spread over his face as the song died on his lips; and for one moment, that one moment when his eye met hers, all evil seemed obliterated in that flush of pleasure, that passion for merely being alive.””
— Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

At 9 pm on Friday, I dropped off my roommate Nicole at the Shrek rave.

Zig-zagging between a crowd of Puss-in-Boots and Lord Farquaads, I began to make my way back to the Lafayette hotel. There was something absurdly funny about this scene, and somewhat embarrassing too. I felt incredibly out of place in my plain navy top and boring denim shorts, like I had forgotten to dress up during spirit week of high school. I was a blatant intruder amongst a group of vibrant and distinct characters, all a part of a cohesive narrative that I missed out on.

A while ago, the sun had made its flamboyant exit from the sky. These saturated streaks of yellow, orange, and pink were long gone by now. Golden residue of sunshine lingering from the sunset had gradually receded upwards from the buildings, crawling up brick by brick, to reveal a novel scene. Like dimming lights before a long-anticipated performance, the world darkened and hushed to signal the start of a mesmerizing show – a spectacle of decadence and vivacity that played out on the ornate stage of New Orleans with unwavering flair every night.

In the ashes of the day, a neon phoenix of green, yellow, and purple fluttered to life. The Parisian elegance of the French Quarter died; what came back after a strenuous process of resuscitation was something more congruent to the gilded strip of Las Vegas, a vampire of a city ravenous for anything that shines and moves. New Orleans had arisen from its languid afternoon nap. Pastel-colored townhouses, cottages, and shotgun houses blinked awake, their windows brightening like attentive eyes awaiting every action in the streets below. Streetlights illuminated the pathways, casting spotlights onto the eager faces of each passerby.

I started down Decatur street, a modest alley occasionally disturbed by obnoxious motorcycles whose engines roared loudly and convertibles from which exploded pompous music. The songs would always be either upbeat country or angsty rap, their bassline forcefully pumping down the street and their rhythm pouring into every crevice of the atmosphere. Echoes of the loud music resonated through all the air in the vicinity of the vehicle, remaining in place long after their source had fled the scene.

Most of the cafes and galleries lining the sides of the streets were closed by now, their windows morphing into one-way mirrors. They were survived, or rather succeeded, by little oyster restaurants and quaint bars whose dimly lit interiors nevertheless beckoned at hungry, thirsty, or curious passersby. Affectionate couples strutted with arms sweetly linked like pairs of ducks swimming leisurely in a pond. Middle-aged women trotted forward with their girlfriends on the other side of the road, as if not a day had passed from their college years, when the naive light of girlhood softened all the sharp edges of life and rendered everything into a rosy song that one could not help but dance to.

I soon arrived at the edge of Canal Street. I stood and stared into the shifting waters of traffic. The wide road that extended endlessly onwards resembled a river much more than a canal. Incessant streams of cars whizzed past, their movement forming a current of lights. I could easily envision the scene as a long-exposure photo, the headlights and taillights of each car merging into one continuous line that goes on, and on, and on.

As I kept walking, though, I couldn’t help but feel so alone. Despite all its noise and glamour, New Orleans seemed, to me, an incredibly lonely place. The vulgar posters of barely-dressed women and the crude signs symbolic of different alcohol types on Bourbon Street masked a deep layer of melancholy that spread across the whole city.

Between the cracks of pathways separating clusters of buildings was a tired musician heaving a weighty guitar over his shoulder, soundlessly returning home after a long day of performing. At the other street corner, an old man battled the clamor of sensuous night clubs with the graceful music of his lone saxophone. A homeless man lay on the ground with his dog, basking under glowing signs of strip clubs that promised euphoria and a night of happiness to each passerby. On the curb across from him sat a waitress, smoking a cigarette and staring dully forward at nothing in particular.

In the words of Louis, the somber vampire who recounts his lengthy life in the novel Interview with the Vampire, New Orleans was “a magical and magnificent place” in which “a vampire, richly dressed and gracefully walking through the pools of light of one gas lamp after another might attract no more notice in the evening than hundreds of other exotic creatures”. This was a city of pleasures as much as it was a city calloused by overstimulation. New Orleans at night was a heavily processed meal drenched in an unnameable diversity of seasoning and sauces, such that the natural taste of food had become obscured and completely unsearchable. It was a distracting mass of noises, smells, and attractions that grabbed at your attention with overwhelming strength.

In the morning, the LEMON FRESH truck will wash away the dirt and grime, returning again an appearance of cleanliness to the city. As white bubbling tides of soap flow out from under the truck and crash onto the grey curbs of the sidewalk, the stinging smell of artificial lemon and chemical cleaning solution will replenish the streets. New Orleans will once again be safe, for now, from the multifaceted stench of cigarette smoke, trash, alcohol, and other miscellaneous substances. The cycle will continue day after day, even as tourists leave and return, even as taller buildings and newer car models appear one by one to take over the changing city.

The rest of my walk was a sequence of small alleys; I made my way through the artsy but sleepy Magazine Street and crossed over the more modern Poydras Street, arriving finally at the Lafayette hotel again. The grassy square was quiet. Desi Vega’s Steakhouse emanated its candlelight into the dark night. Inside, fancy customers and sharply dressed servers in black suits shifted around noiselessly like actors in a silent film or puppets in a dollhouse. For now, it was time to sleep. My tired legs begged for the softness of my bed– good night, New Orleans!

Old, New, Green, Blue

Something Old, Something New, Something Green, Something Blue

Swamp on the drive to Grand Isle

As we packed into the van at the MSY airport and began our long drive South to Grand Isle, I watched the world outside my window slowly empty of all colors but green and blue. Urban highways became swamps brimming with luscious cypress trees, which eventually gave way to marshes stretching toward the Gulf like fingers as we approached the bridge to Grand Isle. The air grew heavy and familiar - not unlike the warm humidity of my ancestral homeland, Guyana. The Louisiana bayou brought up familiar smells of the bright blue Caribbean sea water and Essequibo River black water I'd come to know, along with similar visions of crops growing on Guyanese rice plantations and bright green shrubbery reminiscent of the expansive South American rainforests. From the start, Grand Isle felt strangely familiar- like something old rediscovered, made anew.

Marsh near bridge to Grand Isle

That first impression stuck with me as we crossed the long bridge and entered the long-awaited Grand Isle. Something felt ancient but timeless in the water and wind, where the fishing docks sagging with the weight of countless hurricanes and the windswept grasses of endless summer days reminded me more of the Legend of Zelda video game I once played than of my real life. This place felt suspended in time, with a memory of its own. Seeing the various fishing boats pass by, I couldn’t help but think of Edna Pontellier stepping off the boat each summer to escape the social order of New Orleans for a more laid back living. As I grappled with what felt like a fever dream in my surroundings, I felt increasingly connected to Edna, who had lived out her own story in this very place. By the time I myself stepped out of the van and onto Grand Isle, I already felt less like a student pursuing her studies, and more like a traveler on the cusp of discovery.

Apart from the timelessness of this place, other aspects of the experience felt startlingly new. As we drove, small talk became vibrant conversation filled with humor and stories of shared and differing experiences. Our group of eight, who had only met once before, began to bond in anticipation of the coming month in shared company. Anxiety and fatigue from our air travel (some of us more tired than others- myself waking up at 3am) slowly dissipated as we succumbed to the awe of experiencing something so unusually fascinating and new. Getting out of the van for the first time, we pulled into Rouses Market where we stalked up the fridge for many collectively cooked family-style meals we would come to enjoy together. In short time, these new friends began to feel like old acquaintances I knew so well.

Beyond interacting with novel natural surroundings we also encountered customs that differed from our own, through experiences like trying venison and gator at the Starfish local restaurant, passing by tractors flying flags of differing political views from our own, or walking down a grocery store aisle dedicated to fishing nets, bait, and bug spray for the bayou climate- items you’d never find in LA. Just like Edna’s experience living between cultural codes- Catholic Creole and Presbyterian, artistic and domestic, complacent and nonconformist - we too found ourselves navigating between worlds: our familiar urban routines, and the slower seaside rhythms of Grand Isle living.

“The people walked in little groups toward the beach. They talked and laughed ; some of them sang… Most of them walked into the water as thought into a native element”
— Kate Chopin, "The Awakening"

On our first morning waking up in Grand Isle, our group of weary travelers decided to head down to the beach to read and relax. Laying on my towel under the sun in 90 degree heat, I opened up “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin for the very first time. I felt like I was on vacation, much like the summer-getaway of the Pontelliers and fellow families. Between each page that I flipped, I could not help but to look up at my surroundings to try and identify what exactly was being described. Whether it be the “sensuous” touch of the water, the “soft and warm” breeze, or the sweet “odor of the blossoms” of yellow jessamine flowers being picked by Edna, I experienced a sense of place more vividly than ever before.

The calm and relaxation of Grand Isle even penetrated into our class seminar sessions as we gathered around the couch for the homeliest classroom discussions I have ever experienced. The maps projected onto our makeshift projector screen (the living room TV) truly came to life upon seeing boats whiz by in the gleaming water outside whilst families and children played in the calm waves. I again felt myself in Edna’s shoes- people watching, observing, and taking in my surroundings before taking on the ocean myself.

“But there was a breeze blowing, a choppy, stiff wind that whipped the water into froth”
— Kate Chopin, "The Awakening"

Looking deeper, the ocean began to change, revealing what was always there, just hidden beneath the surface. As the waves became more tumultuous, the water turned over hermit crabs hiding in the surf and dragged up seaweed from the depths, exposing action behind the calm. Much in the same way, Edna Pontellier’s carefully cultivated exterior (which she attempted to portray internal peace in conversations with the local doctor) masked a storm of turbulent emotions beneath. Her outward tranquility, like the sea’s glassy surface, disguised powerful currents of unrevealed doubt and desire.

My personal highlight of our stay in Grand Isle however came on our third day; we decided to take a post-dinner, spontaneous sunset swim. The dark clouds in the sky threatened a thunderstorm, the ocean waves initially too intimidating to sink into. After extensively photographing the peach and golden sky however, the gentle warmth in the air and the vibrant smiles of my newfound friends gave me the encouragement I needed to swim too. As I entered the water, I pictured the very waves that Edna learned to swim in- a journey from discovery to demise.

To me the ocean washed away the stress of the past semester and my discomforts of travel. To Edna, it washed away the weight of societal expectations and the more burdensome elements of her identity as a mother, wife, friend and simply as a woman in a time that restricted her freedom. For us both, our first swim in this Gulf water was a fresh start and a newfound freedom. Submerging in the water was my final step in breaking down the intimidation of this new experience, now immersed and empowered to make the most of it. For Edna, the water represented more than an escape: it was her newfound autonomy and claim to selfhood, her final act of defiance, and ultimately surrender.

I left Grand Isle with the ocean breeze still tangled in my hair and the words of Kate Chopin lingering in my mind. This immersive literary and exploratory experience taught me that bookpacking isn’t just about reading about a place you visit, but rather letting its geography shape your understanding of text and deepen your sensation of place. For me, bookpacking in Grand Isle was a convergence of the blue water, the green marshes, the ancient air, and the fresh experiences coming together so thoughtfully through my reading:

  • Something Old - the memory of such a historic place, withstanding natural disasters and overcoming negative associations
  • Something New - building friendships from scratch and discovering this place together
  • Something Green - the strong resilience of this natural landscape, evergrowing and inspiring my growth within it
  • Something Blue - the sea full of mystery yet calm that once called for Edna and for this brief moment, me too

A Lazy Grand Isle

Hwy 1

The Grand Isle feels like a sort of haven, almost like you aren’t supposed to be there at all. There’s only one way in by land, although it hardly feels appropriate to call the soaring two-lane road “by land.” This pathway transported us dozens of miles, soaring over swamp, marsh, and open water to the small island. I’ve never seen roads like it. From tall stilts high above the Spanish moss-covered cypress trees, down to roads just inches above the water, we traveled from urban New Orleans through small towns to Grand Isle. Stepping out of the van for the first time since the airport, we get a small reprieve from Louisiana’s oppressive, humid heat from the ocean’s blustery wind whipping through the stilts of our home for the next five days. Once we finally lugged our luggage up the two flights of stairs to the house, it proved to be the perfect communal setup to get to know the people we would be spending the next four weeks with.

Our screened in porch overlooking the water

As our professor insisted, my first full day on the Isle began quite slowly. There was a lot to take in, from the three porch options to my favorite, the beach. Once again, we left the relaxing air conditioning and were hit with the intense wave of heat. While I've grown to expect this heat, I still can’t say I am used to it. Once we descended the two flights of stairs to the ground level, we were faced with a surprisingly treacherous embankment. Even though it was the same sight as before, being the only people on this beach was an impactful experience for me. The island is certainly developed, but it remains quiet during the off-season we found ourselves in.



My reading room

Unbeknownst to me when making my decision, I began reading Kate Chopin’s The Awakening just as I imagine protagonist Edna Pontellier would’ve spent much of her vacation, lazily lounging on the beach. While it wasn’t quite as lavish as Edna’s high-class retreat would’ve had it, I still had the same endless beauty of the ocean in front of me … and the same sand in my coffee from the ever-persistent wind.

I immediately recognized the laid-back nature of Grand Isle as it’s described in The Awakening in the world around me. Something about the island demands your undivided attention. It’s impossible to completely describe how the power and dependability of the ocean’s waves allow you to give in and just experience the world around you. This focus drew the nine of us closer at a pace that wouldn’t have been possible anywhere else. Escaping the bustle of college life in the city was truly a blessing right after finals.

“She felt as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to look upon and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality.

”
— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

The Grand Isle

The strong winds deterred most of the group from staying long, but I stayed and looked out over the same ocean as Edna, besides some plastic litter and oil rigs. As I lay on the beach just as she had, I was able to not just imagine, but understand her world. The slower-paced lifestyle is fundamental to the book's development and her decisions. This extra space to think and contemplate, paired with a location that seems so removed from the rest of the world, gives Edna the freedom to make these bold decisions. Pursuing Robert, ignoring her children, adopting a more French feeling of openness; all of these can be attributed to this unique destination we find ourselves in 155 years later.

Despite copious amounts of sunscreen, I felt a sunburn forming and was forced back inside. We were so clearly instructed to just relax, move slow, and enjoy where we are, but somehow that was more difficult for me than any papers or blog posts. Detaching and just living in the moment isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially right after finals. It was the ocean, the constant power of the waves, the unrelenting wind, and of course, the many hermit crabs that finally helped me relax. It was the music of New Orleans that brought me on this maymester, but the Grand Isle was an unanticipated bonus.

““The voice of the sea speaks to the soul.””
— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

Throughout the Grand Isle portion of our trip, I focused on taking in the natural world around us. I waded in the ocean every opportunity I got, I picked up countless shells looking for hermit crabs, and I even found a coconut. This was how I was able to just relax and exist. I love the beach, wherever it is, but I’ve never had an experience like this. Yes, there was a lot of seaweed to get through, and the waves weren’t big enough to bodysurf, but because of how we spent our time, this beach was more relaxing than any beach I’d been to before.

Pre-swim pictures

As beautiful as nature is on the island, it doesn’t tell the complete story. While the view looking out over the ocean certainly is, the island itself is not as I described. There are still the remains of houses likely destroyed by Hurricane Ida. The splintered wood and rusted metal tell the story of people that I don’t know. I can’t help but wonder about them and why they didn’t rebuild. These serve as a reminder of the fleeting nature of the island. Nothing can be permanent in such a vulnerable location, not even the land itself.

Remains of a pier destroyed by Hurricane Ida

The Sorrow of the South 

*Please feel free to read the blog post alongside the music for best effects.
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This May, I didn’t come to the South because I was curious about the miles and miles of swamp and the thick stench of the waves.

No. I returned to this rotten place buried in my personal history because I needed to test if the adolescent version of me was still alive somewhere in my body. The one who willingly traverses through the turbulent storms of thought. The one who admires the fallen palms. The one who clings on with youthful convictions. I was never fond of this dormant self, but she whines to the gust of wind by the waves, waiting to be summoned at the right time and place. I am familiar with tip-toes around the hundreds of lakes in one region, wildlife knocking on your backyard's door to disrupt civility with harmless invitation. But I have never lived next to the bayous. Under the gloomy, overcast sky, I know the haze is not supposed to be the norm. Nostalgia blooms as I enter the southern towns after three years of separation. Somewhere, beneath layers of adult resignation, she is as sharp as the ambitions I hold today. The Southern cities need not greet me as a traveler because I am indeed a ghost coming home. Perhaps the reincarnation of the desperate housewife or the duplicated spirit of the woman who drowns with the weariness of her fate.

The State of Louisiana sounds like my name. The European roots overlapping in their linguistic variations, suggesting me, the embodiment of the name, could be just as unkind and cruel as the land obtained from an epic purchase. Hence, reflecting on this experience, I am also looking inward. If I was not born into the household I came from, I would not receive this given name full of expectations and foreigness. I would not resonate with the poor Louisiana overcoming glamor and a troubled portfolio of stories.

At the young girl's core is an utterly discontented ideologist frozen in time. I am fearful that she knows about things I’ve tried to forget. Keep in mind that this consciousness would not exist without Brontë and Woolf, my well-revered “founding mothers” of intellectual discoveries—literary giants who revealed to me the required courage of being a woman. Tired of browsing through hundreds of pages daily, I developed an apprehension against the didactic lessons embedded in feminist literature.

But this time, the journey is guided by the sensuous book by Kate Chopin—my introduction to rebellion and the possibility of defiance. In a weird sense, her awakening is mine, too. Revisiting the great classics on ordinary summer days in Grand Isles for more spiritual and metaphysical wake-up calls to liberate the thoughts from the caged minds. The thickly textured sand begins to infiltrate the spine of the thin book. Grains of sand wedge into the plastic covers. The skeleton of my precious book becomes softer than usual. Moisture slowly deteriorates the physical binding as my fingers flick through the bound pages. To this day, my lungs are still not accustomed to the humidity that dampens my hair into a wet, soggy rag that vaporizes the last bit of my sanity. The water drops in the air decorate my face with a layer of fuzziness; I became constantly draped in a coat, insulating my skin from the outside world.

The pelicans line up in militant formations as they cruise in the humid air. The great migration shouldn’t be a rare sight to the children of the wild, but, too bad, we are products of the ruthless concrete jungles. Lying awake beneath the birds with great precision, I despise us for our chaos. We utter with wonder as we dip our toes into the shallow beaches blocked by fences made out of seaweed. I was patiently waiting for the rattlesnake to make an sudden appearance in the wetland. They happen to be more shy than the human explorers.

There is something uncanny about arriving in a location that has recently been redefined on the map; to some, we are standing by the “Gulf of America. It's a territorial rebranding that I can’t get myself to agree with. At least in my taxonomy, it is still undeniably the Gulf connecting to Central America. This open coastal region invites prosperity, exchanges, and soft mantles with the margins of the Atlantic. I can't even begin to talk about Confederate America, and the scars it leaves behind. Only it feels like today we are re-creating the supremacist separatist system in a sinful way; we are accepting a new empirical instinct, the renewed conscience of the selfish emperor. The scroll around the town becomes too painful when I am hyper-aware of the importance of statehood. This body of water is no longer apolitical and neutral.

The Symbol on My Arm

Everytime I miss the taste and sensuory attacks originating from the sea, I look down to find my waves tattoo gracefully, permanently implaneted on my arm. She is the testament to my determination: when I reach the end, I will not integrate with the soil but engulfed by the waves.

Scientifically speaking, the particles that run through the Mississippi River and the ocean are pretty similar. Sharing the same chemical composition, how disparate can they be? However, putting the technicality aside, one is the birthplace of civilizations, while the other is the agent of destruction. The River introduced the historical trading networks that dictated modern-day economical glory. At the same time, the Atlantic is the goddess commanding death at the palm of her irritable expressions, roaring with storms and occasionally the deathly hurricanes that reveal the dark side of motherhood. We all become witnesses to the unspeakable rage she endures as she relentlessly unleashes chaos on every roof, deck, and watchtower. The Atlantic is never the weeping mother we presume: she terrifies me as the killing machine that erases with joy. This is a deeper love from the creator to the mankind. We hide at the sound of thunder pulsing, but we fail to recognize this is the type of love we struggle to identify admist the trials and tribulations of our evolution.

When the waves of exasperation subsided, I heard Edna’s cries from afar. Am I the only one who is noticing the sorrow? The waves that drowned her still echo along these shores. As each hurricane peels back another layer of history, I am left to sift through the wreckage of the boats and the death of a woman who needed to escape from her cult of domesticity. The desperation that caged her for a lifetime. I want to find Edna and tell her she was not wrong and offensive for exploring what her heart desires. I want to gently rub her back as she unload her soul and reborn into a freed pelican.

Mourning over the loss of innocence, Edna’s womanhood repeatedly pulls me back to the sticky marrow of my childhood fears. I never want to succumb to her pain. I never want to lead a plain life that is carefully constructed by a loving suffocation. The excuse to kill me slowly, masked by the disguise of affection and care This isn't it, this could never be me. At the end of the day, I am lucky enough to have been born in the 21st century, carrying forward my ancestors' good wishes. On top of that, fortunately, I have the power to write and run outside of my confinement by writing determined words that elevate me above sensuous weight. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that women used to vanish under the heaviness of their social roles. We keep mistaking existential contemplations for romantic longing. Why can't we accept that the tragic ending is not a projection of loneliness? Why can't we comprehend that drowning in the sandy waves is returning our body to the generous, giving planet that granted us this life in the first place?

Aftermath of hurricanes on Grand Isles

Witnessing the destructions first-hand

Professor Chater casually brought up the fact that people here grow resilient to the frequent hurricanes. With this knowledge, they don't attempt to build stronger houses with more durable materials. Rebuilding over and over would suffice. The offhand comment helps me mourn the losses of those I have never met and could not name. Despite the hurt, I can confidently proclaim that it is the divine feminine in its most terrifying form, creating a cycle of prophetic language and retrospective reckoning. Looking back at the yellowing scrolls of history, every hurricane can be traced back to the ruins of these local establishments. And how much has humanity’s documentation been able to capture? This is a generational passage. I don't even need to talk to the locals to imagine their hurt. I don't dare to ask them about their rituals for picking apart and sensationalizing things they used to love deeply, places they used to reside from within.

Far too few of us learn our lessons about the inexplicable dangers of the mother planet that birthed us and, concurrently, is capable of taking away our livelihoods. Too torn down to be habitable but just astute enough to be recognized as the aftermath of recurring natural disasters that seek to swallow half of Earth’s landmass. The erosion of dirt and soil is not nearly as detrimental as the decimation of a culture that once meant searching for utopia. Despite wanting to know about the Creole people, despite wanting to learn more about the decomposition, we all silently agreed not to disturb the grief embedded in the soil. Hundreds of years later, the Mississippi flattens out the wrinkles of despair. My question is, do you ever wonder if the Gulf feels guilty for its (un)intentional murders? I can still taste the deceased flesh and blood in the valient raindrops.

When I was a teenager, stuck in the great sunshine state, every rainy season was accompanied by hurricane warnings, days off from school, and emergency evacuations. I didn’t use to understand the extent of damage people suffer from these calamities. In late September or early October, I can’t remember exactly when my schoolmates and I would break the curfew issued by the city and meet up to dance to music during the early waves of downpouring before the real hurricane came around to distort the Spanish architecture. We danced on the edge of disaster, a dumb vocation. My unshakeable joy from "dancing at the center of the hurricane" is the prelude to the great losses. I was rude to assume the unexpected holidays can be exhilarating and not a threat by any means. Occasionally, I heard the news of my friends’ friends losing their houses, caused by falling trees and hitting the electric wire, which turned into burning wood and bricks, then eventually nothing at all. But it all felt like a story happening to someone else at the time. Amidst the peaks and valleys of college, I am occasionally irritated by the encounter, fantasizing the peaceful afterlife if the flooding has looted me as opposed to those underserving of the blessing of the human demise. They make plans to survive, I create my agenda to exit, to perish, to decay with the spiteful rain.

My favorite architectural feature

The secret courtyards hidden among the buildings

The disappearance of the fishing community in Jefferson Parish showed us the unpredictability of the force of nature. One moment, you are harvesting oysters and trading sugar cane with the French-speaking neighbors; the next, their absences strike as a deliberate attack. When we gaze towards the abandoned porches, the docks also gaze us back. The scene is empty as if the entire village has collectively decided to withdraw and never return: they are now nothing more than distant memories in old maps that attempt to capture their presence along the sovereign water. In the drowned township, there used to be many other young women like myself, starring ajar into the lonesome coast across the body of water, hopefully confused, astonished by the lives they may possibly lead in the future.

I have yet to understand the connection between the cursed motherhood and my beloved planet that births my wild self-possessions. Why do you provide us the nutrients and liquids, then easily abduct the subsistence away from us? The sea takes in anything the world is not willing to protect, which makes me fear one day I too would be swept and collected by the waves.

Over the past few days, I have been haunted even thick into the night. The imagery of the Spanish moss attached to the ginormous oak trees keeps invading my dreams. I picture myself submerging just below the surface of the stream, floating with bursting air bubbles suspended in murky water, tangled in green laces. The epiphytic flowering plant is entangled with the gnarly tree branches swinging side by side in the tropical wind. This vision became an evident contrast with my nightmares of apocalyptic plots wiping out humanity with one touch. As much as I tell you I resent the South. As much as I proclaim I could not stand it. As much as you get the sense I need to escape. I find myself engulfed by her embrace upon my exile. The young girl is alive and well now, no longer kept in the eloquent, high towers of etiquette and madness. This is just the beginning of the revival, and I know without a doubt the blueness of my past, our collective past, is still coming for me.

Skip the preface.

Novel introductions are the cuckolds of the literary universe.

There is no greater joy than walking into a bookstore and picking up a new book. You find yourself excited at the prospect of something new, something you have yet to fully synthesize and digest. You’re at the threshold of a new understanding. You flip past the first few pages, still crisp and containing the aroma of ‘new book’, ignoring the copyright page and all the things that come before that first paragraph of text. You’ve gone through the foreplay—browsing the store, observing the covers, picking your poison. You reach the first real page, the one that contains substantial paragraphs, but find that it isn’t the novel itself. It’s the introduction.

That always ruins it for me.

My trauma with novel introductions began with David Cronenberg’s introduction to Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. I picked it up at the Downtown Central Library during my junior year of high school, not in preparation for any exam or class, but to understand literature that people called ‘classic’. Less than two pages into the introduction, Cronenberg spoiled the ending. In that instant, my sense of wonder, sprouted from the ambiguity and possibility of unfolding the text’s meaning, had disappeared. It turned the novel into a sterile text that I knew the points to.

Since that moment, I’ve refused to read introductions, especially when it comes to the classics.

That rule remained firm when I picked up The Awakening at Barnes & Noble, alongside the rest of the books required for the Maymester, in Santa Monica. The knowledge I had of Kate Chopin was limited from my work as a teaching assistant. Each school semester, I help prepare my class of seniors for their AP English Literature exams. One of our recurring texts is Chopin’s short story, The Kiss. The students are tasked with reading and annotating the story, then writing a thesis that responds to a prompt regarding the story. Yet, because the class only meets twice a month, and the grade they receive only impacts their standing in the program, I get the absolutely worst theses that don’t make any sense as to what is occurring in the actual story.

When I first exited the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport—or MSY, as I prefer to call it—with our group, I was hit with a wave of heavy, sickly heat. It was a reminder that summer had started, though I suppose that my Los Angeles upbringing had skewed my sense of what ‘summer’ felt like. As a late summer baby, you’d believe I’d love, or at least be used to, the heat. I grew up in apartments with subpar insulation that stops the cool air from the summer nights from coming in, making my home feel like an oven at night.

That morning, I had left home in a thick USC sweatshirt and black leggings, believing that I was capable of withstanding the under 90-degree heat of Louisiana. That frigid LA morning hadn’t prepared me for the smothering air. Arriving almost an hour later than scheduled, which had ruined the Houston Airport for me, I realized I was not prepared for what came next: a three-hour car ride with a pile of suitcases that preferred to topple over my head at every turn instead of remaining in a neat stack.

Still, I found myself unable to sleep on the ride. I watched Louisiana slowly transform from city to swamp, so unlike LA’s endless loop of houses, shops, and freeways. This place shifted from urban density into a raw rural landscape. The roads weren’t crowded with impatient drivers, not the ones that were too stupid to move forward and willing to hit you with their cars. There was space, stillness.

On our first full day at Grand Isle, we were given our first simple task: finish two thirds of The Awakening by the end of the day and finish it by our 5 p.m. seminar the next day. Here we were, surrounded by beach, tranquility, and the endless possibilities given by a new environment. You get so wrapped up in trying to experience Grand Isle and the limited time there that your brain tries to tell you to go, step on the beach, and get to know the people around you. But time was limited, and we all knew we had to read it.

Reading the novel in Grand Isle added an odd sense of dissonance. I struggled to map the novel’s world onto my own surroundings. Edna Pontellier’s Grand Isle was slow and romantic, painting a picture of pleasant summer evenings on the warm beach. The one I saw was cluttered with red seaweed that made you anxious to step on it, containing bits of washed-up garbage, and dense clouds that could almost trick you into believing that outside couldn’t possibly be that hot. The air was thick, unrelenting, enveloping you the second you stepped out of an air-conditioned space. No possibility of an Amazon delivery, or a quick bite at McDonald’s unless you wanted to drive 50 minutes away.

And yet, despite the environmental disconnect, I connected with Edna. I resisted the urge to look up a summary. Normally, I can’t help myself; if a movie or book moves slowly or is filled with flowery language, I will open the Wikipedia page without a second thought. But I held back. Edna’s internal state, her longing, her desire for complete autonomy—I knew it. While on Grand Isle, every day felt like I was waiting for something that never came, something that would propel me out of la-la-land and had me unable to fully relax. But it never did, regardless of that itch for transformation.

In Edna, I found myself enveloped by her similar feelings for longing and belonging, outside of my space in Grand Isle. It was the hope that you’d wake up and feel different, that your achievements would not only make you feel better but transform what you knew as life. That desperate desire for some accomplishment, some shift, that rewards you with the kind of happiness you’ve been looking for.


And somehow, this reminded me of why I don’t read introductions. I don’t want someone else’s interpretation shaping what I’m about to feel. I want the characters, the language, the setting, to meet me where I am. Knowing information and context about the author and the time in which the story was published is important to the understanding of the novel, but I don’t need it shoved and synthesized down my throat before I’ve read the first sentence. The Awakening didn’t need an introduction. It just needed space to reach me.

Hawaii in Louisiana

Since the news of my acceptance to the NOLA maymester, I was eagerly counting down the days until the end of the school year. I was so excited to jump into the next adventure and immerse myself in the unique culture of New Orleans. Ready to explore both the books and bayous, I woke up early Monday to hop on my flight. Hours of travel finally got me down south to Louisiana. The humid air hit my face like a warm embrace and a smile spread across my lips. It reminded me of home. Given its tropical locale, Hawaii’s climate has a signature heaviness in the air. Stepping off the plane, the moist air was a reminder of comfort but, I quickly realized Louisiana is no Hawaii. 

It has its own amazing charms that captivated me all the way to our first location. The roads arched over waters and ran alongside moss-adorned cypress trees that made me feel as if the whole state was floating. All I could do was marvel at the seemingly endless stretches of highway rising from these marsh lands. 

The view on the road

All of us heading to the beach!

Stepping out of the van once making it to our destination, the smell of salty air hit my nose, adding a pang of homesickness to my heart. We had stopped in the middle of Grand Isle, a quaint little barrier island in the shoreline of Louisiana where we’d be spending the first couple of days. Maybe it was the months away from home but Grand Isle really reminded me of Hawaii. The calming and subtle crashing of waves below a blue painted sky sang the song of serenity I was blessed to grow up with. 

Our cohort of eight wasted no time settling in and ventured out to the beach right behind our villa. To my surprise, this mismatched band of students had already started bonding during our two-hour ride to the coast. We explored the terrain, stepping on the red algae that lined the coast to dip our toes into the warm Atlantic ocean.

Our first lecture introduced us to the idea of bookpacking on Grand Isle. Our time here reflects the atmosphere of our first book, The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Much of the novel was set right there in the isle, transporting its readers to a tranquil summer at the turn of the twentieth century. For Edna Pontellier, the main character, Grand Isle became more than a vacation spot, it’s a place of emotional awakening, a pause from her structured life in New Orleans that allows her to rediscover her desires, her autonomy, and her sense of self. Grand Isle, as a setting, reflects the mannerisms of the French Creole people of the time, very relaxed and communal, that gave Enda the space to have this awakening.. 

LIke Edna, I didn’t arrive on Grand Isle seeking transformation, but the sound of the waves crashing on the shore, the softness of the sand, and the space to simply be began to unwind the knots of stress I hadn’t even realized I was carrying. I’ve been so caught up with the hustle and bustle of college life that I’d forgotten what it felt like to truly relax. I came to this maymester ready to be dazzled by all that makes New Orleans so unique, but these quiet days on the isle were a delight.

I started to listen closely to what I really needed. Though it wasn’t the great radical break Edna experienced, the rest, reflection, and connection of Grand Isle was my awakening to appreciating the present again instead of constantly rushing about to the next thing. 

As the days drifted on, our group drew closer. We soaked up the sun, lounged on the beach, shared our thoughts on the book, and embraced the “French way” of the characters. We spent our meals together and laughed our way into the night. I spent my days leisurely, iPad in hand, enveloping myself in Chopin’s words while listening to the very sea she wrote so descriptively of.  Yet again, I felt a kinship to home. It reminded me of “island time,” as we liked to say, where the slowness was natural and expected. 

“The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.
”
— Kate Chopin

When we finished the reading of Edna’s progressive tragedy, we returned to the water, just as she does in the final pages of the novel. The warmth of the Atlantic was a stark difference to the often-icy Pacific I was familiar with.  While bobbing in the waves, Cooper and I chatted about Hawaii, making connections between the two coastal worlds. There were little things here and there, like the funny beach-themed villa slogans and how the sno-balls in the isle were the very same shaved ice I grew up with. In reflection of what made the unfamiliar feel comfortably natural, the sea was always there. But in both places, the sea was so enticing and welcoming. As I floated about the Gulf, I could hear the voice of the sea. For Edna, it was a call to freedom. For me, it was a sign to pause, its own kind of freedom.  

In the midst of my fervor for the city, I completely overlooked what Grand Isle could offer me: peace, relaxation, and a break from the craziness of everyday life. I’m struck by how a place so far from home can feel so close in my heart. Great Isle isn’t Hawaii, but it has offered me the same peace, warmth, and comfort I didn’t realize I missed. This maymester has already reminded me of the value of slowing down, being present, and staying open to transformation. If these first days are any indication, I know New Orleans will cause its own awakening for me.

As they say here, Laissez les bon temps rouler Let the good times roll!

The Smoothie King Awakening

After landing at the Louis Armstrong Airport, Thalia and I swiftly exited the plane for the entirety of it was plagued by nauseating turbulence. We had three hours to fill before heading down to Grand Isle. I immediately locked eyes with the enticing Smoothie King logo when entering the terminal. As a California native, I just had to have my first-ever Smoothie King experience. This, I concluded, would be the cure to our queasy journey. After consulting Thalia, I ordered a medium Angel Food smoothie. The sweetness of the icy drink melted onto my tongue, unraveling the best drink ever. Realization quickly settled in after I took my final sip: I was in Louisiana. Founded in Kenner, Louisiana in 1973, Smoothie King unexpectedly became my first taste of the state’s rich culture and history.

Not even a full week into our month-long experience, and a deep sense of camaraderie has descended upon our eight person group. From home-cooked, family style meals to group sunset swims, a tight-knit community cultivated in Grand Isle from simply existing together. Small talk about the exhausting heat and potential thunderstorms transformed into enlightening discussions over Hawaiian culture, familial relations, and personal dilemmas. Unfiltered and inappropriate conservations flowed past midnight. I initiated communal dinners by cooking meals every night with Nicole, and by no means, do I consider myself a chef. It is safe to say that we quickly adopted the openness of Creole culture that encapsulates their group identity, as depicted by Edna Pontellier. 

“A characteristic which distinguished them and which impressed Mrs. Pontellier most forcibly was their entire absence of prudery. Their freedom of expression was at first incomprehensible to her, though she had no difficulty in reconciling it with a lofty chastity which in the Creole woman seems to be inborn and unmistakable.”
— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

Edna’s immersion into the Creole identity was vastly different from her Kentucky norms. This behavior, in a way, influenced her rash decisions to fulfill her innermost desire: independence. Encountering expressive personas, like Adele and Robert, allowed her to view her identity in a new manner. Existing in the freeing nature of Grand Isle fostered the beginning of her personal enlightenment. Learning to swim in the alluring ocean was Edna’s first discovery of autonomy, relieving herself from the torment of the feminine prison. Similarly, our Maymester group embraced our own version of independence. Alone, we gained the free will to participate in sunset swims, in the same waters as Edna, in an attempt to regain ourselves from the suffocating finals environment back at USC. The ocean was warm to the touch, urging me to swim further out and rejoin my friends. Being able to mimic the characters in our texts is an experience comparable to none. This remains my favorite memory from our days spent in Grand Isle.

“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”
— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

The lifestyle on the Isle heavily contradicts the bustling, fast-paced environment in Los Angeles. Our days consisted of engaging in a routine parallel to those in The Awakening by Kate Chopin. From speeding golf carts and the warmth of southern hospitality, to reading on the beach under the scorching sun. The population on Grand Isle is just short of 1,000, thus laboring close relationships amongst the Island. This community has bravely and repeatedly endured natural disasters through passion for their shared identity. Our group caught glimpses of these relationships via food: a bonding practice rooted in Creole culture. I do not consider myself an adventurous eater, yet 24 hours in the Isle, I was consuming fried alligator nuggets and venison tamales from ‘The Starfish’. This restaurant is one of few that inhabit the surrounding land. Our waitress, Tiffany, welcomed our tourism with open arms and drew us in with her endearing personality. We all ordered an assortment of items, with each bite bringing us closer to the long-standing history of Grand Isle. 


I am a creature of habit. Leaving California for a whole month led to thousands of worries. Much like Edna Pontellier, I long anticipated Grand Isle for the uncertainty of my individual growth. Her days spent on the island unleashed a dormant longing for self-expression under oppression. Although my experience differs from Edna and Kate Chopin, I realized that I often suppress myself for the desire of constant control and repetition. Being in Grand Isle started to strip these layers away. The immediate calmness of our surroundings forced feelings of comfortability. While Edna’s path ultimately led to her demise in the ocean in a final act of self-determination, I leave with an alternative journey of personal discovery. I depart with an awakened sense of living deliberately so as to not allow my fears dictate my decisions. 

evening swim on grand isle

“The foamy wavelets curled up to her white feet, and coiled like serpents about her ankles. She walked out. The water was chill, but she walked on. The water was deep, but she lifted her white body and reached out with a long, sweeping stroke. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”
— Kate Chopin, The Awakening
us at the beach
home-made spaghetti bolognese with chicken and asparagus.

The lingering embrace of the sun left the beach air buzzing with heat. After a hearty, but over-seasoned, meal of home-made spaghetti bolognese, chicken, and asparagus, we decided to go for a quick swim in the ocean. I watched as my friends, one by one, sprinted into the orange sea, a sparkling mirror image to the static sky painted with unmoving shades of pink and purple. Finally, I made the decision to jump in too!

It was our second full day in Grand Isle, a humble island cradled between the swampy marshlands of Louisiana's southern shore. There was something so foreign yet so familiar about this place; I felt as if we lived inside an Edward Hopper painting. Between bites of gator nuggets and venison tamales, these exotic delicacies which I had to search online to even imagine what they could look like, Grand Isle tugged on the hems of my memory towards the little snippets of Taiwan, my hometown. The palpable heat, the warm ocean, and the sparse blocky houses were all more reminiscent of those hot summer nights on the Baisha Bay than anything I have experienced here in the states, where California’s cold sea water and blue nights instantly banished any remainder of the day, the sun, and the warmth.

There was something procedural in the way that time passed on the island; each day rolled into another predictably like episodes in a TV show, leaving the idle town a crude juxtaposition to the primordial, unchanging shoreline. It seems as though moments can quietly unravel without leaving a mark, and that life can brush past your cheeks so lightly, repeating the same day forever without you ever noticing. I felt like I was stuck in a post-apocalyptic world where the rest of humanity had vanished – taking with them every indicator of change and leaving behind no means of perceiving any real passage of time.

The incessant swaying of waves soon lifted me off of my tip-toes. Swimming, not walking, appeared to be the only way to reach my peers. As I clumsily dog-paddled into the depth, I couldn’t help but think back to our earlier dissection of the Awakening and its disenchanting ending – a tragic scene that takes place right on this very island, in the very ocean that we were swimming in.

In the final scene of the book, Edna, the protagonist, swims out into the horizon and executes one final act of rebellion by committing suicide. As all her terror and exhaustion fades away, Edna swims towards a place with “no beginning and no end”, a place where she can finally be free from the grounding loneliness of everyday life, social responsibilities, and a constant, impenetrable sense of alienation. She leaves behind her family, her lover, and her children. The ocean posed a seductive alternative to everything else – its indomitability, beauty, and unboundedness at once symbols of insurmountable power and of uncurtailed freedom. On such a languid evening like ours, Edna approaches the sea and never returns. This was her choice.

In the distance, flickering waves flattened into an unmoving line. The coral glow of the sun had dulled to a gentle aftertaste now, swallowed by the cavernous night. Street lights blinked like eyes when the waves covered and uncovered them in swift motions.

At that moment, I felt both so powerless yet so free. The water was a giant palm that raised and lowered me with each rounded movement of every tide, the way that a child picks up and puts down her tiny dolls in recreating some epic play-pretend story from the imagination. I tilted my chin up to keep my nose above water, but the waves still hovered closely. That feeling reminded me of trying to fall asleep in a cold, cold room under a thick, heavy blanket. When the blanket was on, you felt the unbearable heat pressing you down into the mattress and drawing out every drop of sweat with its pressing humidity; when the blanket was off, the cool air seeped into your body from the space between your toes and made you shiver helplessly in the glow of the moonlight leaking through the curtains.

At the same time, there was also a sense of comfort underlying the unpredictable oscillating of the waters, like the gentle swing of a hammock on a grassy field. Something pristine glistened under the untameable nature of the ocean – an ancient childlike candidness that only existed in the wilderness, a sincerity that had long been extinguished by the grinding screech of modern city life. The ocean seemed to have a mind of its own – a mind contradictory, indecisive, yet stubbornly swinging like a weighty pendulum. It was at once an object of comfort and an object of terror – like the crawling sense of desperation that “flamed up for an instant” and “sank again” in Edna’s heart. It made you want to stay there forever.

sunset

After a while in the waters, my friends and I began to paddle back to shore. Despite the consistent ups and downs of the tide, we safely returned, the sandy ground rising up to meet our feet firmly. The dark blue sky had draped itself over the ocean, and hesitant clouds from the day stayed to indicate their presence, like persistent water stains on a used piece of cloth. The allure of the ocean had now faded into a small whisper of crashing and splashing, as sea foams appeared and disappeared like a flashing grin. As easy as it is to lose yourself in the waves, the shore beams with vitality even on the darkest nights – the plants fluttering with the evening breeze and the yellow flowers illuminated by scattered street lights lining the beach houses. No itching mosquito bite nor the heavy drag of my body through the sand, each grain clinging to my feet with stubborn persistence, can diminish the joy of looking at a sunset, hearing the sound of the waves, or feeling the nice ocean breeze. It was all worth it.

I don’t think Edna made the right choice. I don’t think running away, escape, and abandonment are truly expressions of freedom, courage, and romance. For me, these virtues are much better demonstrated in moving forward despite the swinging tides of life as one pushes towards what they see as beautiful and good. So here’s my choice – to swim back and not just face, but embrace the life that awaits back at the shore.

the yellow camomile and new friends

"YELLOW CAMOMILE AND NEW FRIENDS”

Settling down after finals, I’m overcome with relief and mundanity. A full month of non-stop stressing, studying, writing paper after paper, came to a close instantly. As grades pilled in, I was sitting with a blank slate and a full semester’s worth of fatigue. After a week of celebrating the semester's close came my next challenge, flying to New Orleans with a bunch of strangers to attend my next course. The first assignment?

Do Nothing.

Seriously! That’s what our professor, Andrew Chater, said. Relax, Rest, Observe. You’ve got nothing better to do than exist. It was not what I had been conditioned to do, nor what I had been originally expecting. However I decided to try my best to lean into it. All I had to do was trust the process.

“The walk to the beach was no inconsiderable one, consisting as it did of a long sandy path, upon which a sporadic and tangled growth that bordered it on either side made frequent and unexpected inroads. There were acres of yellow camomile reaching out on either hand.””
— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

A few hours after stepping onto Grand Isle, the same Island The Awakening is set, our group first walked to the ocean. Much like the novel, our path twisted and stretched, possibly retracing the steps Chopin once took. I took time to carefully avoid the yellow flowers, the camomile dotting the ground. Somehow the flowers had survived hurricanes and the test of time. It was almost like fiction was bleeding out into reality, and we got to see the world from the perspective of someone who lived it 100 years before us.

Our walk to the beach! (May 20th)

Sam Beating, Smashing, and Hammering a Chicken (May 20th)

Before arriving in the airport, I was worried about the individuals who I’d meet on this trip. However, even in the first day we all found ourselves extremely excited and happy to open up to one another. We keep joking, “We’ve only been with each-other for 72 hours?" because it feels like we’ve known each-other for much longer.

Yesterday, Thalia walked in from the patio with her mouth agape and stunned. She looked shook to her core. She had just finished the novel but refused to speak about the ending. I really wanted to know what happened at the end, so I got back to reading. One by one, everyone reached the final pages of the novel and had a similar response. I had to know the ending. By the time I caught up, the entire group surrounded me to witness my reaction. Feeling the eyes on me and flipping to the last page all I could respond with was a loud “seriously?!?”

Thalia absolutely GOBSMACKED (May 22nd)

Edna’s quiet walk into the ocean was devastating. Her either succumbing or rising above societal’s expectations placed upon her after she had fought so hard against the patriarchy and those around her was a brutal way for the story to end. To add insult to injury, it wasn’t just fiction.

We were planning to swim in the same water an hour later….

The same beach Edna died at (May 21st)

Standing waist-deep in the ocean, we discussed topics important to us: Hawaii culture, tourism, and eventually the topic switched to Edna’s unfortunate demise. We could feel the long-standing history that prevailed there, from the alluring perfume of the waves to the disappearance of the Cheniere Caminada. We tried shaking off the mood by discussing the legitimacy of her death (You have to walk FAR out to find somewhere you can’t simply stand!). However, physically sharing the space with the story changes things. The same sand, breeze, and subconscious allure are still prevalent, and the deeply rooted French culture still linguistically permeates the entire isle. While we aren’t tackling the exact same prejudices that Edna faced in the novel, her thoughts are so modern that it’s shocking she wasn’t a modern day theorist. We were floating in the water where Edna succumbed to her death, or the water Kate Chopin likely swam in while she grappled with similar radical ideas. History and contemporary thought oozed not only in the pages we read, but the air, the water, and importantly, the yellow camomile.

I’ll be honest here… I completely forgot to relax. The whole point of our adventure on the Isles was to unwind and just exist. Instead, I found myself busy every second of the day tanning, reading, and talking late into the night with people I first thought would kill me in my sleep (Richie, I’m looking at you!). I filled my time with urgency, trying to take it all in before it slipped away.

Sometimes being fully present is it’s own kind of meditation. Opening myself up to the land beneath my feet and the weight of the land’s history helps keep me grounded both in fiction and reality. Maybe I didn’t relax how I expected to, but I was living: shaping memories in a place with chapters much older than mine.