New Orleans: The Big Easy, The Crescent City, The Birthplace of Jazz, Crawfish Town. These nicknames show the glitz and glamour that we all think of when we talk about New Orleans. It is colorful, vibrant, and a city of celebration that attracts people from all walks of life. We know New Orleans for Mardi Gras, for live music, and as a culinary capital of the United States. However, many of us visiting this city don’t acknowledge the dark history that all this liveliness was built upon. Our journey Bookpacking thus far has allowed us to truly see the trauma of New Orleans, much of which is hiding in plain sight…
After arriving to the city at night, we decided to explore and get some food. Since we had been in Grand Isle starring into nothingness for 3 days, I was taken aback by all the bright lights. Everywhere I looked I saw crowds of people, live jazz bands, and colorful signs. This is the New Orleans that I have always known and heard about. It is the New Orleans that comes up on Google Images. It is the New Orleans that brings such joy to those experiencing it. I knew that New Orleans had a haunted side, but often becomes part of the tourist culture (i.e. the ghost tours). Reading Interview With The Vampire and thoroughly discussing the history of this place in seminar gave me a better look into the actual roots of The Big Easy.
For our first full day in New Orleans, we headed over to the French Quarter to explore this infamous part of the city. I remember feeling like I had time traveled. The buildings and roads looked completely untouched, and I got a first-hand glimpse into what life would’ve been like for the Creoles of New Orleans way back then. The area is still bustling with tourists, live performances, shops, and restaurants of every cuisine. From first glance, it seemed as though the French Quarter had this magical sense about it since its very founding. In fact, while reading Interview With the Vampire, Louis describes the opulence of this city, ignoring all the trauma once found on these very same streets.
Both photos taken from Google Images
“…a figure dressed for evening appeared at the railings, the glitter of jewels at her throat, her perfume adding a lush evanescent spice to the flowers in the air.”
New Orleans served as a symbol of wealth: if you lived in the French Quarter, it was a sign that you were successful. Even to this day, the French Quarter gives this same feeling. However, as we walked down these streets, I couldn’t help but think of the people whose stories will never be known, as they were the foundation to creating such a beautiful city still standing to this day. This is the French Quarter that Louis describes, and like many other wealthy individuals at the time, ignored the darkness that this city also created. His words help contribute to this culture of only focusing on the opulence and wealth of history. It is only through Bookpacking this city that we understood the trauma of the past (to the best that we can).
A few days later we took a trip to the Garden District. The Garden District was the area where the Americans lived, and it is full of these beautiful mansions. The sidewalks feel untouched, with the roots of the oak trees bursting through the cobblestones. I felt like I had entered some dystopic fantasy world where everyone lived these lavish lives. As I continued to marvel at the architecture, I discovered that many of these were former plantations. The pain and suffering of the enslaved people working on these pieces of land were masked by the luxury of these huge estates. Anybody walking through the area would unaware of the historical atrocities that happened right before their eyes. Even Louis, as he describes himself walking through this area, ignores the fact that this was the center of the worst part of American History.
“I could still find in the Uptown Garden District…the moonlight under its magnolia trees…I knew the same sweetness and peace I’d known in the old days…There were the honeysuckle and the roses, the glimpse, and the glimpse of Corinthian columns against the stars; and outside the gate were dreamy streets, other mansions…it was a citadel of grace.”
Bookpacking often allows us to feel better connected to our surrounding areas, but to be completely honest, Louis’ words made me feel more disconnected from New Orleans. He was describing what I see on the surface, but it is so hard for me not see the years of oppression hiding in plain sight behind these beautiful mansions. To be honest, it helps bury this history even more. I found it hard for myself to focus on the charm of the Garden District, when all I could think about was these unacknowledged stories.
The next day on our way to Storyville, we took a walk through the Central Business District. In seminar, we talked about how the very area that our hotel is in was where the slave auction houses were housed. Society’s elite living in the French Quarter did not want this “distastefulness” near their homes, so they made the Business District just outside of the French Quarter the hub for the slave market. While walking around, I remember all of us saying “It looks like Wall Street”, or “I feel like I’m in Manhattan right now!”. A street filled with wealth and success was built upon the buying and selling of other humans. There is no acknowledgement in the Central Business District of what came before these banks. Any person working in these buildings or walking passed would be completely ignorant not knowing that what happened over 150 years ago on this very same street. It’s moments like these that I am grateful to be experiencing New Orleans through the lens of a Bookpacker. We can feel all the exciting aspects of the city while acknowledging the historical obscenities that once happened on the very sidewalks that we step foot on.
Walking through the Central Business District
My experience Bookpacking through New Orleans has had a much more profound effect on me than traveling regularly. I can look past and see the deeply rooted traumatic history that this city has created. Cities such as New Orleans don’t want to acknowledge their past, leaving many visitors unaware of the extent of it. Uncovering and understanding this history in the exact places that they occurred has been a huge reason why I have enjoyed being in New Orleans so far. Everything that we’ve done so far only makes me more excited to do the same in other parts of Louisiana.