American Experience: New Orleans Reflection

Based on the movie American Experience: New Orleans I’ve learned that it is entirely possible for a city to have unity and diversity.  New Orleans’ history was very rough.  Segregation turned to separate but equal, which digressed into segregation again.  It’s amazing how a community, a culture, can overcome the past and become the functioning city that is New Orleans. 

“The culture of New Orleans is transferrable.”  There is no certain set of rules when it comes to the culture of New Orleans.  The people there say, “You stay where you’re comfortable.  You stay where you’re needed.”  After Katrina, the displaced residents of New Orleans never felt at home.  They were grateful, but never really felt like they were welcome wherever they went.  That’s because I believe that there is something special to be said about New Orleans and it’s people.

Their culture is a vast array of traditions, recipes, and celebrations.  Some traditions that they celebrate down there include Mardi Gras, and Jazz music. Every year, New Orleans has a parade that celebrates Mardi Gras, or fat Tuesday.  All the while, musicians are playing Jazz in the streets and entertaining the masses of people that help celebrate Mardi Gras.  Mardi Gras has helped make New Orleans famous.

They’re also famed for their gumbo.  Each recipe is different, much like a hot dish found in Minnesota.  But each recipe has been handed down from generation to generation.  Each recipe has been perfected and reworked to become the perfect gumbo. 

Celebrations have been, in a way, perfected in New Orleans.  Residents like to have picnics in cemeteries.  They will have lunch by a family member, or by someone else’s family member.  They don’t really care who it is.  They go there for the living, and not for the dead.  They don’t grieve the same way that we do in Minnesota.  They actually throw parties not because they’re ecstatic that a person has died, but to celebrate their life and all of their accomplishments and achievements in the life that was lived.

I learned a lot about the culture of New Orleans, but there is still much more for me to learn.  The people have variations on anything and everything, and everyone has their own way of doing things.  What makes New Orleans great is that everyone knows about the diversity of their culture, and yet it unifies them as individuals, as a city, and as New Orleans.