Vignettes of Southern Hospitality

“A road is not by itself, Wesley, even if it’s empty. It’s part of the people who live on it, just like a vein is part of a body. ”

— Tim Gautreaux (Same Place, Same Things)

I found as we went bookpacking in the rural south, I couldn’t agree more with this statement. As we traveled down miles and miles of empty road, I couldn’t imagine how a community could remain close and welcoming. As an L.A. native, I’m used to people quite literally living on top of each other, but somehow not knowing their neighbors. I received quite the opposite feeling in Louisiana. This quote encapsulates the feeling of warmth you get from people in the south. You are never alone on the road even if there are miles that stretch ahead of you that may make it appear “empty”. The people of the south are a part of you and I think their reputation of having the welcoming warmth of southern hospitality lives in their “vein”.

Upon completing our month in Louisiana, I don’t look back on the amazing meals I ate or the fancy new book collection I started, although amazing, did not make me smile half as much as the people in Louisiana. The amount of connection I felt in such a short period of time to people that were virtually strangers before this trip is an irreplaceable feeling. Though there is no place like home, the people I met in Louisiana are rivaling this statement. Coming back to the hotels getting greeted like we were family kept blurring familial ties for me in the best of ways. So in the spirit of Tim Gautreaux’s style of writing in Same Place, Same Things, I wanted to write vignettes of lessons learned in thanks to the people I met and grew with that truly made my travels life-changing.

Just Pack Up and Go

Todd is the most amazing human I met at Lafayette Hotel working valet. He is full of life and the stories he tells of his travels sounds like he’s lived ten of them. He broke the taboo in my mind of needing loads of money in order to travel and enjoy the world. He’s backpacked and stayed in hostels and revealed that’s where he gets his joy. Though I might not go to his extreme of traveling alone, he definitely encouraged me to pack up and go. His latest love is sailing, where he invited us out on his boat on his day off. We all enjoyed po-boys and conversation about New Orleans from a local that knows the city and beyond. I found a friend and an adventurer all in one and I’m forever grateful for him.

Everybody Needs a Henry

Everybody needs a Henry. Henry is a soccer fanatic like myself who I catch watching soccer nonstop on the job. It’s a running joke that he devotes more of his time watching and talking soccer than actually working. The way his face lights up when he talks about the sport truly made me miss playing it and reconnect with the joy of soccer while I was away. I even gifted him with my soccer ball before I left and the look on his face was priceless.

Party For One

During the duration of my trip, I had quite a bit of dinner alone. But somehow asking for a party of one was sometimes more interesting than going with friends because I left myself open and searching for new conversations. A hotel staff member turned friend named Tank was in charge of the Desi Vega Steakhouse that I treated myself to. He noticed I was alone and told the staff to treat me their very best. It was all smiles talking to my waitress who recommended the very best food that I just so happened to get discounted. You are truly never alone in New Orleans.

Let the Good Times Roll

The night life in New Orleans is one of a kind. I am used to the hang outs occurring Friday night or Saturday night. But hanging out in New Orleans, the only rest day is Monday. My friend who is from New Orleans, but goes to USC introduced me to a new concept I couldn’t quite wrap my head around. But by the end of the trip all I wanted to do was treat myself to a fun time out every day.

Try the Alligator

During our time in Lafayette, I felt the most “Louisiana” so to speak. I bought clothes to dress the part, I went to the museums and read the books. But I hadn’t quite fully invested in the culture until I had all the essential delicacies. So sitting down at Bon Temps for dinner the last week was my final chance to do so. And I ate it! And it was so good and my waiter was so happy that I tried it too. It was so delicious that I 10/10 recommend it to anyone visiting.

Describing all these experiences almost felt like a constant way to continue paying the warmth and kindness forward. I want to spread the love that was shown to me in my everyday life at home.

Lastly, I am so thankful to all of the people I crossed paths with that I didn’t remember the names of.

So thank you to the bus driver who printed me a ticket when I was mistakenly routed down the freeway instead of down the street. Thank you to the Shop’s coffeehouse for telling me about the artists on the wall and surprising me with a new pastry every morning. Thank you to the Smoothie King worker who laughed at our jokes and remade our drink when we took the sip out of the wrong one. Thank you to the vintage shop owner who shared his journey from coming out of homelessness to having his own business (and giving me a major discount). Thank you to Cupid who taught me how to dance to jazz during the second-line parade. Thank you to the Gumbo Shop waiter who remembered my name and sat us by the window because that’s where pretty girls sit. Thank you to the lady at Willa Jean who remembered my face when I came back for breakfast the second time. Thank you Greg for boating us across the false river during your work day so we could swim while listening to music for hours. Thank you to the Cochon bartender for treating me like a friend when I was just a party for one. The list could go on and on, but most importantly, thank you New Orleans for welcoming me into your city and making me feel truly loved by your people.

Ma Pockets of Sunshine: A Sailor, Morganza Cake and a Fiddle

The summer of 2021, up until August 19th on move-in day of freshman year, I was brimming with excitement, bursting at the seams at the thought of a new life in the west coast, in utopian Southern California. But I could never have fathomed the kind of uprooting I had signed myself up for, the sheer loss and disorientation I would feel in the new chapter of my life I naively thought I was overdue for. As I cried the first night after landing in Los Angeles, the realization that I’d innocently and too eagerly believed the mantra that “college would be the best four years of a person’s life” sank my heart into my stomach and made me question whether I’d made a mistake–an almost irreversible and incredibly expensive mistake.

For the following two years, I found myself trapped in a cycle of mourning home and an even deeper cycle of toxic comparison–a cycle that seemed to tighten itself around me until I couldn’t see what I had to look forward to. Not being able to identify what could possibly be wrong when I had all of the obvious privileges presented to me – a reputable program, incredible professors, growing friendships – deepened a pain with no logical explanation or causation.

Despite time progressing and LA’s foreign environment becoming increasingly familiar, the hollowness, the inability to fully immerse myself in my environment during the semesters persisted. Although coping mechanisms were discovered and people I felt comfortable with were found, nothing internally felt resolved, simply numbed. This mentality continued and nearly spiraled after final exams, when I started preparing for a bookpacking class that would further take me away from home and to New Orleans, another strange unknown. And on May 13th, on the day of our flight, I was far from prepared for the sheer joys and pockets of sunshine I would experience and take with me for a lifetime.

Impossible to simply choose one aspect of the trip that I loved most, the connections I made with the people across southern Louisiana were unforgettably transformative.

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Todd works as valet at the Lafayette Hotel in the business district of New Orleans and has worked there for the past two years. Todd constantly wore a jovial expression, like he was about to tease us for studying too much, had an eagerness for life and the world everything it had to provide, called his sailboat and the water home, and didn’t stop spending his life the way did since he was 16 – traveling the world. When we left in the morning for seminar and returned home late at night from live jazz shows, we saw Todd and talked about our class, New Orleans nightlife and everything in between. He called Kianna “Cleveland” and called our group of bookpackers “studious.” He had an infectious laugh, had traveled nearly every continent except Asia and taught you can never be too old to be young at heart.

René was Sheriff René Thibodeaux in Pointe Coupée Parish and grew up in Morganza before moving to New Roads 10 minutes away. He went to school for baseball but followed in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps in becoming sheriff. From the moment he stepped into his office, René was heart-warmingly welcoming and fatally charming. Welcoming us to New Roads favorite restaurant Ma Mama’s, planning for us a crawfish boil at the District Attorney Tony’s house, welcoming new ideas and improvements for the sheriff’s department, planning for us a ride out on the lake, René made New Roads feel like home. He called Kianna “Ohio” and winked his left eye and bit his tongue after making a joke. He wore authentic alligator leather boots and rested his hands on his formidable buckle when listening to our thoughts and ideas. He showed all of his teeth when he smiled and talked with a warm, Southern accent that could reassure anyone’s deepest worries. And, after our lunch of crawfish and freshly baked bread at Ma Mama’s, René brought us back to his office and, along with the slice of his life, René gave us all a slice of Morganza cake, a chocolate, caramel filled and frosted slice of his childhood.

Tom owned his own fiddle repair and maintenance shop in the farming town of Arnaudville, Louisiana. He fell in love with the fiddle in Cajun and bluegrass music and brought it upon himself to learn the instrument in adulthood. After living in Connecticut and running a repair shop in Maine, Tom moved down to Louisiana for the weather, the people and the music. He showed us throughout the shop and allowed us to touch his invaluable creations of fiddles he’s repaired and created. Tom is kind and gentle in nature, and is contagiously passionate about what he creates and the Cajun culture of Louisiana. He patiently and thoroughly shared his passion in spite of our incessant questions. Tom shared his love by allowing us to sit in and listen to the JAMbalaya jam session gathering musicians all the way from Baton Rouge together for their love of Louisiana bluegrass. He gifted me the writing of a local author and the literature of Cajun music, and I felt as though he’d given part of his heart to share.

All of the existential worries and crises that I thought couldn’t be solved until I was back home had been solved in rural Louisiana, in humid farmland I had experienced for the first time 1,500 miles away. I believed “homesick” was strictly exclusive to the physical location of where someone was born or was raised in, but I’d grown homesick for the small towns and for the people I had only known for mere days. Maybe it was the authenticity of Southern hospitality or the tight knit nature of small towns or the simplicity and genuineness that was palpable in the people we met and in their belief of treating everyone with kindness that allowed me, for the first time, to perfectly envision what life was meant to be. It wasn’t until Todd, René, Tom and all of the people I’d met through our books that I knew what I’d been missing: community.

Guide to New Orleans

Activities 

2nd Line Parades

Every Sunday in New Orleans, you can experience a Social Aid and Pleasure Club 2nd Line Parade. Historically, Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs have helped support the Black community in New Orleans by raising money to support their members in times of need. These organizations continue to show off pride and culture and community through 2nd Line parade. The 2nd Line Parades is one of my favorite parts of New Orleans. You will see some amazing fashion, great brass bands and so much joy. Hundreds of community members attend 2nd lines to dance in the streets, and have a good time. During my time in New Orleans I had the chance to go to the Divine Ladies, Money Wasters and DAM social aid and pleasure clubs. This is an experience that cannot be missed. 

Frenchmen Street

For an amazing live music experience, head over to Frenchmen street. Every night, you will find a diverse range of range of music from various musical artists. You might even stumble upon an award winning artist jamming out. Enjoy the late-night markets and art displays which add to the overall vibrant atmosphere. 

Know NOLA Tour

Discover the rich Black history of New Orleans through a guided Know NOLA tour. Led by a native New Orleanian, Malik Bartholemule, you will learn the history of the Treme neighborhood, the French Quarter and the Garden District. This tour will explain the significance of the Black community in each place. Make sure to book reservations ahead of time to guarantee that you will get a tour during your trip. 

New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum

Learn the history of Voodoo in New Orleans at the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum. The religious practice of Voodoo is a combination of African religions and Catholicism that developed during the transatlantic slave trade. This museum breaks down the history of voodoo in New Orleans and works to disrupt harmful stereotypes surrounding voodoo. You can see many artifacts that highlight the voodoo tradition and the history of voodoo practitioners such as Marie Laveau.

Preservation Hall

Experience the soulful sound of jazz at Preservation Hall, one of the iconic Jazz venues in New Orleans. This venue has played a large role in the preservation and celebration of Jazz over the years. Some of the most talented jazz musicians in the city play at this venue. The space is small and intimate so every seat is a good seat. Prepare for an experience that you will not forget.

Backstreet Cultural Museum 

Discover a hidden gem in the historic Treme neighborhood at the Back Street Cultural Museum. The museum has displays of Mardi Graw Indians, Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs and New Orleans Bounce music. The collection, curated from local donation, provides a glimpse in the the cultural heritage of New Orleans. The knowledgeable museum curators are available to answer many of your questions about life in the city. 

Le Musée de f.p.c

Explore the historical significance of Free People of Color in New Orleans at Le Musée de f.p.c. During the era of French Colonialism, some black people were able to buy their freedom and live as free people in the city. This historic house converted into a museum honors that group that lived free in New Orleans. Don't miss the free hour-long historical reenactments on Friday and Saturdays. Unfortunately, during my time in the city I did not have the chance to attend a reenactment but it’s definitely worth checking out. Tours are by appointment only so make sure to schedule ahead of time. 

The New Orleans Historical Pharmacy Museum

Learn fascinating medical history at the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum. This museum is a  bit random for New Orleans, but it offers a unique and intriguing experience. It displays old techniques and practices of medicine through time. Trust me you will be surprised by some of the things you find.

New Orleans African American Museum 

Immerse yourself in the history of Black people in New Orleans at the New Orleans  The African American Cultural Museum. Learn about the triumphs and struggles of Black New Orlenians from enslavement to present day. This museum highlights topics such as free people of color, hometown heroes and New Orleans traditions. 

The Presbytére

Located next to Jackson square in the The Presbytére offers an insight on Mardi Gras and Hurricane Katrina. The top floor focuses on the history and traditions of Mardi Gras. In this exhibit you will learn the bits of history that shaped the way Mardi Gras is celebrated today. On the bottom floor is an exhibit about hurricane Katrina. This museum tackles the difficult topic of the storm that devastated New Orleans in 2005. At the exhibit where you can hear first person testimonials of their experience in the storm. 

Ashe Cultural Arts Center 

The Ashe Cultural Center is a nonprofit organization that works to preserve the art and culture of the Black community in New Orleans. During my time at the Ashe Cultural Arts Center I had the chance to see over 150 featured photographs from New Orleans photographers from the 1950s until present. Every couple months they are a new exhibit all centered around the Black New Orleanian experience. 

French Quarter Phantoms Ghost Tour

No visit to New Orleans is complete without a ghost tour. The French Quarter Phantoms ghost tour blends the history of the city with spooky stories about ghosts and vampires. This talks about New Orleans myths such as the Old Ursuline Convent, Vampire Alley and LaLaurie Mansion. On my tour even the most confident became a little skeptical by the end.

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Places to Go

Garden District 

Take a stroll through the Garden District and visit the beautiful Victorian style architecture and massive homes. In the garden district check out Lafayette cemetery No. 1 with out of ground tombs iconic to New Orleans. While you are in the area, walk down to Magazine Street and check out the local boutique shops.

City Park

Take a break from the busy city life at City park. This park is full of beautiful oak trees with Spanish moss, green space and bench swings. It’s a great place to slow down, pull out a book and read. Enjoy activities such as a small train for sightseeing, swan boating on the lake and a Café Du Mon in case you get hungry. City Park is also home to the New Orleans Museum of Art and Sculpture Garden. This art museum carries a diverse range of artwork from classical to modern with an emphasis on people of color, LGBTQ+ and women artists on the second floor.

Congo Square 

Visit Congo Square in Louis Armstrong Park and experience the historical gather place where enslaved Africans would gather to perform cultural practices and play traditional music. There are sculptures of honoring the history and benches for observing. Today, there are still drum circles on Sundays to honor the history of the space.

Lake Pontchartrain

Walk along the beautiful lakefront of Lake Pontchartrain. As a person from Cleveland I have a soft spot in my heart for lake fronts. Lake Pontchartrain is definitely a sight to see. This lake is so large you might even mistake it for the ocean. You can walk along the path by the waterfront and see people fishing and barbecuing. If you have some time take a drive on the bridge over the lake which is 23 miles long, one of the longest over water bridges in the world. 

Royal Street Art Studios and Antique Shops 

If you are spending time in the French Quarter take a stroll down Royal Street and check out the art studios and antique shops. There are so many talented artists in the city and it is so beautiful to see their work. The antique shops have beautiful chandeliers and luxury furniture and interior design options.

Bayou Road and Broad Street 

Explore the intersection of Bayou Road and Broad Street. This area is one of the oldest Black business centers in New Orleans and it is full of Black Women owned shops and businesses. Bayou Road recently got a face lift with the help of the New Orleans façade renewal program. The build exteriors show beautiful murals featuring artwork by Studio Be artist Brandon Odums. Some highlights of broad street include Addis Ethiopian Restaurant, the Community Book Center, and The Andre Cailloux Center of Performing Arts and Cultural Justice.

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Food Staples

Gumbo 

During your time in New Orleans you are likely to encounter many types of gumbo. It’s important to know the cultural significance behind it before trying. There are two main types: Creole and Cajun. Creole Gumbo is influenced by French, Spanish, and African culture. This type of gumbo has a reddish tint from the use of tomatoes while cooking the stew. On the other hand, Cajun gumbo is heavily influenced by Acadian culture. This stew appears darker and has a flour base. Regardless of these descriptions each person puts their own spin on the gumbo and gives it an original taste. So it’s definitely worth your dollar to try it at a couple of places.

Jambalaya

Jambalaya is a rice based dish usually cooked with tomatoes. The rice based dish is traditionally mixed with meats and vegetables. The origin of this dish stems from the combination of West African and French and Spanish cuisine.  Similar to gumbo there are Creole and Cajun variations of the dish. This was one of my favorite dishes that I tried while in New Orleans and it’s definitely worth a try. 

Beignets

A Beignet is a deep-fried breakfast pastry that is usually covered in powdered sugar. Depending on where you go the beignets can be flaky or fluffy, topped with chocolate or even filled with crawfish. Café du Monde in the French Quarter is always what we think of when it comes to beignets, but don’t be afraid to try them at other places too. My favorite place for beignets while in New Orleans was at Cafe geaux and the criollo restaurant. 

Crawfish 

Crawfish is a small crustacean found in the freshwaters of New Orleans. In New Orleans you will find crawfish featured on many menus. You can have it prepared as a crawfish boil, crawfish étouffée, a crawfish roll and more.  If you like seafood make sure that you get a taste of crawfish before you leave the city.

Poboy

Poboys are simple yet delicious sandwiches that consist of a type of meat and are dressed with lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise on a French bread roll. You don't have to spend an arm and a leg to get a good poboy the best ones can be found at mom and pops shops and stands. Whether you want shrimp, roast beef or fish a poboy offers a good lunch option.

Seafood Boil

Seafood boil is a combination of shrimp, crawfish, corn, potatoes or whatever you can get you hand on boiled in a giant pot with lots of seasoning. A New Orleans native told me that you know it’s good when the seasoning stings your nose. There are a few places to get seafood boil around the city, but if you have the chance to dine with a local at a cookout, take it. At crawfish boil people pour the food across the table and have a feast. Overall it’s a good time.

New Orleans is a city that is full of activities, music and joy. There are plenty of things that I missed on this list, so take the time to find your favorite paces. Remember to take it easy and let the spirit of the city guide you.

How Did The Mystical South Earn Its Name?

Stepping into the French Quarter in New Orleans for the first time, I could already sense its rich history. With my grandparents being from New Orleans, I can only imagine the times they lived through in this city. They grew up post Plessy v. Ferguson and lived in the heart of where the beginning of racial desegregation in public schools took place.

Diversity and the acceptance of various thinking and religions are so apparent in a place like New Orleans. I could tell by the Voodoo shops down the street from St. Louis Cathedral with a plethora of palmistry and fortune tellers on every other street corner.

So when I thought about why Anne Rice chose to set her novel, Interview with The Vampire, here in New Orleans, it made perfect sense to choose the mystical south. It’s where the supernatural could thrive in the dark alleys and edges of the city. They could blend in with the fans, like myself, that go on Vampire Tours as well as the actual vampires that participate in consensual blood drinking... So it’s a melting pot of culture to say the least.

In doing my own research about the mystical south, I went bookpacking around the city. Naturally, I visited several bookstores to investigate their feelings on why the south has earned its mystic reputation (as well as their favorite parts of the book!). I found it so fitting that Peter was working there that day because he is always so upbeat and the best source of information about anything New Orleans when we stop in. In an “Interview With Peter (The Bookseller)” from Faulkner’s Books, he speaks on this question about why the mystic south earned its name in relation to the book. Peter immediately refers to the “diversity of New Orleans” and how it’s been in place “since it was founded in 1718”.

Additionally, in speaking with Peter from Faulkner Books, it always seems like there is a hint of belief in the supernatural or supernatural occurrences. It’s a common theme in the workers I spoke to and we learned the extent in which it’s practiced at the Voodoo museum. Even if the people I spoke to had their own religious beliefs, they never completely wrote off the possibility of the supernatural existing in the mystic south. I think this is what Louis, the vampire in our novel, was referring to when he says New Orleans is “a magical and magnificent place to live”. He says “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- if he attracted any at all”. The fact that he can walk as his true self in the evening and blend in with “hundreds of other exotic creatures” perpetuates the idea that New Orleans serves as a part of the mystical south that accepts different thought and walks of life.

I was always curious about how New Orleans reached this mystical south status, especially from a person of color’s perspective. After visiting the NOLA African-American History Museum, I watched a PBS documentary detailing the history of black New Orleans. The narrator spoke of how the Tribune was America’s first black daily newspaper that spoke on social justice. A majority black city had a majority black local government and had somewhat of a voice before Jim Crow laws. Trailing further back in history, we spoke in seminars on how enslaved people in New Orleans were able to speak in their native tongue and practice their religion, unlike most areas in the south. A passage in the novel that offers a glimpse into the black experience during this time period is when Louis describes New Orleans as not only having ”black slaves, yet unhomogenized and fantastical in their different tribal garb and manners, but the great growing class of the free people of color, those marvelous people of our mixed blood and that of the islands, who produced a magnificent and unique caste of craftsmen, artists, poets, and renowned feminine beauty”.

Reading a novel about a vampire who owned a plantation with enslaved people, it was interesting to see certain snippets of African-American culture come through. Noting each interaction an enslaved person had with our main character, Louis, I noticed Louis’ shift in perspective on people of color in relation to his mortal versus immortal life. I also found it quite ironic how he considered himself a slave to his creator, considering his vampiric nature and the fact he makes money off of his enslaved people. This premise makes it even more understandable why the mystical south is essential to Louis’ continuation of existence. He uses the mystic of the south to blend in while quite literally surviving off of his enslaved people.

Unlike the stories I read of enslaved people being unable to speak in their native tongue in the deep south, New Orleans served as a bit of an exception in some instances. It let snippets of black culture seep through the cracks of enslavement. Louis describes this difference as enslaved people “not yet destroyed as Africans completely” like they had been in other locations.

Louis’ perspective and clarity shifts once he becomes immortal. He starts to see Lestat as “radiant, not luminous. And then I saw that not only Lestat had changed, but all things had changed. It was as if I had only just been able to see colors and shapes for the first time.” With “all things” changing, his perspective and misconceptions on people of color begin to shift as well. In his human life, enslaved people were “very black and totally foreign” singing “exotic and strange” songs. He admits that he “failed to realize that their experience with the supernatural was far greater than that of white men. In my own inexperience I still thought of them as childlike savages barely domesticated by slavery.” He is shocked by the knowledge that people of color already knew of a realm he just entered. He even admits to his “inexperience” and immaturity in thinking that enslaved people were lesser than. This awakening post mortality is further shown when he realizes that they would have been the best option for a job he overlooked them on. He acknowledges that he “had several extremely intelligent slaves who might have done his job just as well a long time before, if I had I recognized their intelligence and not feared their African appearance and manner. I studied them clearly now and gave the management of things over to them”. During his former years as a human he “feared” the people of color that worked for him prohibiting him from seeing their intelligence. In his new life as a vampire he’s able to see them “clearly now” and shift his prejudice. I find it interesting that in his life as a vampire when he is removed from fear and all human blood is the same to him, his language and prejudice around enslaved people changes.

Furthermore, various times throughout the novel Louis refers to himself as a slave to Lestat, his vampire creator. He feels that he was created just to serve Lestat and is caught having too much human emotion for his past life of when he was free from Lestat. I found his predicament extremely ironic as he is the owner of enslaved people on an indigo plantation. His term of slave is far from the struggles of the enslaved people on his plantation. Much of his plight is ridding himself of Lestat who only allows him to climb so high and threatens to endanger his newfound vampire family member, Claudia, if he threatens to leave. What he does onto enslaved people is a parallel to this, but much worse. It is overlooked which is why it is hard to muster compassion toward his mission to remove himself from being a "slave".

Louis’ challenge later becomes Claudia’s mission to solve. She tells him that Lestat’s creator “made a slave of him, and he would no more be a slave than I would be a slave, and so he killed him. Killed him before he knew what he might know, and then in panic made a slave of you. And you’ve been his slave… mindless accomplice…no slave…and i shall free us both”. The dire need to kill in order to free themselves was hard to connect to as they were still living a life of privilege doing as they please. I wasn’t sure what lifestyle Claudia wanted to “free” them from, but there was great irony in their pursuit of justice while stifling others.

In addition, Louis reveals that “the plantations had a great deal to do with it, really, my becoming a vampire”. This lifestyle of privilege he lives on the plantation is what sustains and shelters him. His property is separated enough to maintain mystery and the evenings in the mystic south don’t draw him extra attention. His life on the plantation is the perfect setting for a vampire. And he is using his enslaved people for profit while feeling he is a slave as well. But even when he says he has regard for human life, he chooses human blood over animal blood. He also never gives up ownership of his plantation which is where I find the greatest irony because he believes himself to be Lestat’s slave still.

Lastly, learning about the mystical south and how it relates to the perfect environment for vampires is so interconnected in the history, diversity, and mystery that is alive and well in New Orleans.

Interview with Peter (The Bookseller)

Ernest’s Lessons

The medieval Pointe Coupée Parish Courthouse

The Louisiana State Capitol and the Pointe Coupée Parish Courthouse, the governing bodies of Louisiana of both local and federal scale, were some of the most memorable locations from the past month. Not because of its politics or its exciting legislation, but because of the people who I connected with and the Southern hospitality. Often, Southern hospitality is commonly linked with food service and social situations, but in reality, it’s a way of life that permeates every facet of Southern life, even in its politics.

Sheriff René Thibodeaux and USC bookpacker Simone Jackson

It’s the kind of Southern hospitality and the sheen of kindness and generosity that makes you almost forget about its atrocities and pained history, it’s the kind of authenticity that makes you question how so many contradictions can coexist before you remember human nature and human beings are inherently complex. When reading A Lesson Before Dying, it’s almost instinctual to categorize the protagonists and antagonists by racial group. And in the days leading up to our visit to New Roads, specifically the parish courthouse, it seemed natural to prepare oneself, especially a person of color, against small-town mindsets and possible ignorance which I, wrongly but nonetheless, personified into a rural Southern courthouse. But what’s also essential to the small-town mindset is the kind of generosity and authenticity that treats every stranger as family, that creates home for anyone looking for acceptance.

Sheriff Guidry in A Lesson Before Dying represents part of the Southern population that believes it’s within their pride and identity to uplift values like the Lost Cause and visions of Southern grace and beauty, all of which relied on the cruelty of slavery. And because the injustices faced by Grant and Jefferson at the hands of Guidry feel so tangible and thoroughly distressing, it’s difficult to the extent that it feels immoral to separate fiction and literature from reality, especially when that literature is based in reality. But more importantly, it is that much more difficult to avoid generalization and the stereotyping of individuals of the same position simply because of their identity. And the epitome of these epiphanies is the sheriff of Pointe Coupée Parish Courthouse himself, Sheriff René Thibodeaux.

From the first meeting to the last goodbye, through repeated acts of unforeseen generosity and incomparable warmth and kindness, through open invitation of difficult conversations and difficult criticisms, through the offering of Morganza cake, through his welcome invitation of a childhood tree and a transformative boat ride, I was thoroughly embarrassed – so much so, that the defensive I had subconsciously built and prepared in the days leading up to New Roads, felt incredibly ridiculous and even ignorant on my part.

Southern hospitality, however, like Thibodeaux’s — deeply touching and affecting — they make it easy to forget and subconsciously avoid the conversations that require accountability and introspection, the kind of conversations that glaringly highlight the interpersonal differences and disagreements in belief and value systems that make the differences between physically different groups that much more unjustifiable. It’s this fear of confrontation, fear of dispute that results in regressive legislation, in the oppression of minority groups and in the guarantee that the internal – secret prejudice, generalizing, stereotyping – will flourish, remaining unchallenged.

The entrance to the Senate Chamber at the Louisiana State Capitol

The hot topics of the Black Lives Matter Movement and the opposing Blue Lives Matter Movement, of reparations and critical race theory seem unnecessary, especially for small towns and tight-knit communities where “color doesn’t matter.” But people of color experience and know that color only doesn’t matter in interpersonal relationships, in situations where there are no stakes but kindness and is based on the guise that equality has been achieved – both of which are created and used to convenience and absolve white guilt. Personified in the Louisiana State Capitol, on the ground floor where Senate committees gathered in the hearing rooms that accompanied each side of the gray carpet floor. Sitting down at a senate committee hearing discussing House Bill 321, I had the plan to only sit for 10 minutes until I spent the next half hour popping into every room, getting bite-sized samples of Louisiana politics. As the screen started to blur and it increasingly started to feel like I was in Sunday church and hearing the pastor continually drone on with his sermon in the background, I wanted to know which team to root for – partially to wake myself up but also out of sheer confusion and curiosity as to the bill’s proposition.

Hurriedly google-ing “house bill 321 louisiana state,” the first search result contained even more convoluted language and it became I started to weigh whether more thorough research and reading was worth it when after all of it, it would simply be about another routine zoning law that didn’t even pertain to the states that I lived in. But luckily, in the next article, I learned that House Bill 321 signified deeply flawed targeting and prejudice against juvenile offenders, children, in the criminal justice system. Because of child protection laws, the criminal records and accusations of juvenile offenders are sealed and only made available to the district attorney and the plaintiff. But with the potential passing of Bill 321, juvenile records would be made public, uploaded on an online database for any future employer or institution to access and weaponize against. Although it wouldn’t be sweeping legislation for the state, it isn’t surprising that the program will be piloted in five parishes, Orleans, Caddo, Bossier, Lafayette and East Baton Rouge, that have majority Black populations. And with Black adolescents facing a higher probability of conviction than white youths–due to a number of reasons such as over policing and the school-to-prison pipeline–this bill enforces the prison industrial complex, obstructing the hope for rehabilitation and maintaining a hierarchical system that targets a historically oppressed group.

The late Ernest James Gaines (Source: 64 Parishes)

The various themes of oppression that both Jefferson and Grant face in A Lesson Before Dying during the Jim Crow South remain relevant, even at the forefront of American politics, 80 years later. The dehumanization Grant faces when the sheriff searches his body when visiting the courthouse and when Pichot makes him wait in his kitchen for hours, the dehumanization Jefferson faces when his defense debases him to a hog and when the townspeople complain of his own execution, still persists–subtly–but still persists in the proposed legislation that disguises its discrimination as concern for public safety. And being written and created in the same capitol building built by the governor who swore to nail every kind of corruption in American politics for every person of every race and creed is legislation actively hunting and damning Black youths for life.

Despite seeing the Henri Pichot’s and Sheriff Guidry’s who believed in maintaining an older, traditional hierarchy, on the other side, we also saw the Grants, Miss Emmas and Tante Lous fighting for the dignity and rights of people who have had it stripped away for most of history. Those fighting against the bill in front of the Senate like Ashley Hill Hamilton of the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights embodied Tante Lou and Miss Emma, those who doggedly fought for their community with the refusal of taking anything but “yes” as an answer. Those like criminal defense attorney Sarah Omojola embodied Grant who spoke about the fight with a realistic cynicism and tiredness that entailed years of being entrenched in a system that made little progress and easily regressed, being entrenched in a cycle that often felt hopeless. In the same fight a century later, remnants of Ernest Gaines’ characters are reenvisioned in our modern activists and scholars.

Daddy Went to Get Milk

Trombonist Ronell Johnson pictured here at a performance at Preservation Hall.

(Title Context: The phrase “Dad went to get milk” comes from an internet meme popular in the early 2010s in which its punchline is based on the common trope of unfaithful fathers claiming to get groceries like milk or cigarettes and never coming back home.)

At times, the notes seemed to punch through the walls but the other notes that carried and softened those blows simply lilted and bounced in the air. Every note was played with rhythm and every rhythm played with purpose. Sometimes, Powell sang with the Preservation All-Stars, like Armstrong, warm and gravelly, and let his voice accompany the music, letting the notes carry.

Preservation Hall in the French Quarter

The hall’s dimmed lights blurring everything into obscurity spotlight light up the performers and just enough of the peeling, exposed walls of mismatched materials and colors to transport you back to Preservation Hall in the 1960s and 70s, to a time where jazz was purely unfiltered and the plaster of the fabric of New Orleans. Dimming all of my senses except sound as the hall dimmed its lights, closing my eyes from all of the superfluous elements of the music posters and the wistful architecture, the music came alive, flowing directly to my ears. The music felt almost tangible, surrounding me, visualizing itself in bright, colorful swirls in my head. As the spotlight moved from the bassist to the trombonist to the cornetist, the decades-long rich history of New Orleans jazz, of the founding fathers of a generational tradition like Buddy Bolden, came alive in the dark room. Each song embodied jazz and all of the eccentricities of Bolden. Like Bolden and like the essence of New Orleans jazz, the Preservation All-Stars were unrestrained by technicality, unrestricted by formality, freeing and liberating everyone who plays and listens.

Preservation Hall throughout history

But as the cornet and trombone quiet, and the drums and bass soften to a low but firm guide of the music, laying down the blueprint for an emerging star, the pianist plays louder. Playing more intricate riffs and rhythms, the pianist unleashes the potential he quieted throughout the show to share the power of expression. But now that it’s his turn, he captures every space in the room, every attention, and tells a magnificently unforgettable story. For the next few minutes, a barrage of notes and chords, at times harmonious and at other times, discordant, the pianist with hair as dark as my father’s and his skin just as bronzed, starts to morph into the image of the man who had raised me and left without a word. Closing my eyes, I was brought back 10 years into the past to days of simplicity and scarcity as well as potential and unfettered hope for the future. I was brought back to memories of a house filled with incessant belting of arias and gospels, to mornings and nights of endless piano scales repeated to joyous madness. His slow, inevitable descent into mental illness, as his depression deepened and his temper worsened over lost dreams and failed potential, all remembrance of him had left as if the pain of his abandonment, the pain of a distance I’d never thought to be possible, had erased the entirety of his existence in my life. But, the memories of everything that I considered noise pricked the back of my throat and warmed my skin as I heard that noisy madness once again and as he revisited me in my thoughts.

Being graced with music that had been passed down for generations, with music that had enraptured every individual in the hall, as the image of my father was so intensely conjured, I also saw Buddy Bolden and his descent to both insanity and jazz. To have had the story of a man whose constant was music, whose natural expression was through music, personified through a personal parental figure during adolescence led to a naturally deeper understanding of Bolden and of my own father as well. To have not understood the necessity, why my father had to play everyday, why he had to sing everyday, and then to come to his understanding through the tragedy and success that is Buddy Bolden, I realized I had misunderstood him, couldn’t recognize him as more than a father.

Eun Joo and Jong Rack at Mary’s graduation

As a musician who played and sang for the love of music, despite so many similarities, I couldn’t see my father in Buddy until Preservation Hall. I mourned the father I first knew and my existence for sacrificing his dreams. I mourned the death of the potential of his talents, his unrewarded sacrifice for fame and acclaim. And what I saw everyday was the death of his lifelong passions for a daily cycle of wage labor and mere survival. But for Bolden, who left an unrecognized legacy, whose music and talents can never be truly actualized, recognized, heard or performed, simply his life, his present moments of performing was simply enough. Consciously or not, he found no value in the future’s worries, in permanence or in self-establishment. Recognizing the beauty of Bolden’s decision to remain present, it altered the perspective of my dad’s own story, changing the attitudes that defined a lack of fame as failed artistry. Learning Bolden’s story and seeing it represented at Preservation Hall, served as the empowerment and license to redefine what was conventionally viewed as failed potential for my dad, to give him the dignity and recognition he deserved for being brave enough to freely chase his passions – a success that goes beyond the traditional, conventional standards and markers of success. And for all of the musicians and artists who performed for their unadulterated love and passion for their art, for their music, for all of the artists who were OK with the invisibility and the lack of recognition, who did things for the joy of them, the Preservation All-Stars seemed to be playing for and in honor of them – the only difference was one happened to be on a stage.

The Complexity of Home

A house eerily in destruction at the intersection of Royal and Dumaine.

Coming back home for Louis wasn’t a reunion, it wasn’t a joyful meeting or nostalgic reminiscence. New Orleans for Louis was painful and tortured, layered with nostalgia and familiarity. Esplanade raised him in his life as a vampire, like how a mother raises her daughter yet leaves generational pain, intrinsically bonding the two until death. And like many flawed maternal relationships, Louis and his city harbors immense rejection, hurt and a lack of acceptance within familiarity.

The Garden District’s Gothic Briggs-Staub House

The complex relationship Louis has with his home reflects the relationship between humans and location, and how environment acts as a parental force that develops a child’s feelings and thoughts, and how the viewpoint in which they see and interact with the world with. Something as objective as a clapboard suburban house or a brick school building or humidity in the weather becomes deeply subjective, personal and unique to each individual that experiences it. Walking alongside the narrow streets, with the sunlight reaching through the shining oak leaves overhead, lighting up the columns, porches and swirling designs of the wrought-iron fences running across each house, the seemingly impossible and complex co-existence of beauty and pain was personified as we walked into sunset.

What makes Louis’ pain so deeply-rooted and internal is the rejection of who he is. As a vampire, there is no source or place of acceptance because of his identity. And rejection of this caliber that deeply cuts and wounds humans – living beings that are intrinsically and deeply in search of love and acceptance – is at times, unrecoverable and in the least, perpetual. Being the object of such hatred, being told that you simply are not and can not be enough is both the external hatred of someone that becomes internalized. Although Louis didn’t inherit his vampire identity by birth, this identity was yet forced upon him, cursing the rest of his eternity to a life he did not choose. Similarly, those born into any minority, those born with anything societally undesirable do not choose to be unwanted and unloved. They are instead an adaptation, a survivor of everything that has made them as a person a rejection.

Like many New Orleans and Louisiana natives, there is no other city comparable to New York and a seemingly objective location becomes part of the larger collective identity: being a New Yorker. Like the people whose ancestors settled in New Orleans generations ago or those who decide to establish their own families in the city, every person who succumbs to New York City and her bewitching charm become her undying ambassador. But, within her beauty, her whimsy, her candor, her vastness has the ability to harbor immense pain.

Bridge leading into Central Park’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Resesrvoir

At the Central Park carousel, where the vibrantly blooming elm trees tell us spring has arrived, the memories of summer are stained in every color of the racehorses and in each brick of the gazebo. Other than it lying directly across Sheep Meadow and it being the heart of Ella Enchanted’s glorified scenery of the New York City playground, the carousel was also too expensive for my parents to afford. And recognizing the $3.00 burden, a 6-year-old girl took a slice of its weight for herself through her act of disinterest and avoidance of the colorfully racing horses and cheery music. On Main Street, at the crossroads of the flavors and stories of migration and sacrifice character of Flushing, Queens, there were the neglected studio apartments above the restaurants out of their budget where a young mom in a foreign country quietly stayed awake to fight off the cockroaches and ticks every night as a newborn slept beside her. Right in the middle of 91st Street, only a 5-minute walk from Central Park and the notorious park-view apartments of Central Park West, among the green ash and silver maple leaves that sprinkle shade and sunlight along the sidewalk, among the smooth sandstone and weathered brick of the brownstones lining the street, a 13-year-old struggled to don the armor she needed to pass through the glass doors that led to incessant mocking and ostracization for the lack of wealth she was to inherit. In a city that was, to her, tainted with pain but inherently beautiful, in a city of complexities she was incapable of comprehending, to escape seemed to be the only answer for someone who believed that forgetting was the only road to healing.

Garden District mansion at Chestnut St and Jackson Ave

But after 2,000 miles and two years of distance, after self-transformation and changes in style and appearance, whatever acceptance she yearned for couldn’t be found until returning home. Experiencing confusion as sharp as the pain from a thousand paper cuts, returning to the streets and the trees that nurtured her, it was also the hurt that raised her. Standing in the glowing dusk were the enchanting landscape and collage of shamrock greens and tawny browns that were stained with the tears, guilt and pressure of fulfilling a minority myth and a false dream.

Louis’ reconciliation with his own rejection and his consequent agony starts in his escape from New Orleans and becomes his epiphany in his return. The beauty of New Orleans found in some parts of the Garden District, in its quietly content streets and patches of garden at every turn, is bewitching in the same way New York, San Francisco, Chicago, all of America’s biggest cities are to its lovers and admirers. It’s the acknowledgement of the deep-seated pain that has created its history and all of its admirable, commodified beauty. Out of and in disguise of the foundational role of slavery in the South, of a deeply racial and colorist caste system, of colonialism, New Orleans and the Garden District achieves, through its constant wrestling with hideousness, a reputation of beauty.

At the microscopic, Louis discovers this dichotomy through his own life in relation to New Orleans. It isn’t until his return, until his confrontation with the harsh realities and truths of his vampiric identity that Louis is given the power to fully love and admire the grotesque beauty of what he had always had, of his home.

American Folklore

On May 8th 2023, a native of New Orleans was released after being wrongly convicted of a crime and spending 29 years in jail. He was sentenced to life in prison at the age 15 for a crime that he did not commit. He is now 45 years old.

In 1988, Walter McMillan was wrongly convicted of murder, despite numerous eye witness testimonies supporting his alibi. He was originally sentenced to life in prison, but his sentence was changed to the death penalty through the process of judicial override. He spent 6 years on death row before his sentence was overturned.

In 1993, five teenagers in New York were wrongly convicted of several crimes in 1993.Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Antron McCray were sentenced 5-10 years in juvenile detention due to illiteracy and coercion. Kory Wise, 16 years old at the time, received a 15-year prison sentence All charges were overturned in 2002.

In 1946, Willie Francis murdered a store owner whom he accused of sexual abuse. After a short two-day trial Willie Francis, 16-year-old, was sentenced to death by an all-white jury. Due to a malfunction in the electric chair, known as “Gruesome Gerti,” he was sent to be executed again only a year later. 

As time passes, the details of these cases may fade. One person's story may become intertwined with another’s, names may be forgotten, and specific details become unclear. However, these stories are remembered in fragments, combined, and retold. They become part of American folklore and serve as reminders of the injustices endured by Black people. 

Folklore is often described as the stories passed down through generations of a community. These stories are usually rooted in reality and carry a message. “A Lesson Before Dying” is rich with stories of American history and sheds light on the experiences of Black people and the history of injustice in the judicial system.  

In “A Lesson Before Dying,” a 16-year-old boy named Jefferson is a witness to the death of 3 people, including a store owner. He is put on trial for murder in front of an all-white jury. During the trial Jefferson is demeaned and compared to a hog. He is wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to be executed by electric chair for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Jefferson, a 16 year old, was a witness to the death of three people, including a store owner. He is put on trial for murder in front of an all-white jury. He is wrongly sentenced to death for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 6 months later, he was executed by an electric chair. Does this sound familiar? 

Jefferson’s story represents more than just the story of Willie Francis; his story symbolizes the experiences of all Black men who have been mistreated by America’s criminal justice system. Throughout history, Black men have been disproportionately criminalized and imprisoned. In the criminal justice system Black men have been portrayed as “black beast” and “super predators.” These racist ideals have disrupted the Black community due to over policing, wrongful convictions, and extreme sentencing. 

These stories served as a warning of the cruelty of the world when I was growing up. Every day, before leaving the house, my parents would remind me to be safe. I could see the fear in their eyes fueled by these stories. They fear that like Jefferson, being in the wrong place and the wrong time will unjustly cost me my life.

The novel is set in the late 1940s in the fictional town of Bayonne, Louisiana. After Jefferson’s sentencing, his godmother Miss. Emma and Tante Luo enlist a schoolteacher named Grant to help teach Jefferson that he is a man that deserves dignity in his last six months to live. In the novel, the author Earnest Gaines tackles difficult topics that all fall in the realm of American folklore such as unjust sentencing, dehumanization and sacrificing oneself for the greater good.

Over 3 days of travel across southern Louisiana I unpack the story of Jefferson and dive deep into the generational trauma that is shared in the Black experience in the American South. During this journey I aim to uncover the ways these lessons have impacted my life and how they continue to be shared in the Black community. 

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Day One - The Courthouse

The Romanesque courthouse is made of baked red masonry. Just as it was described in the book, “it looks like a small castle you might see in the countryside somewhere in Europe.” Yet, this is not Bayonne; it is New Roads, Louisiana. The resemblance between New Roads and the fictional town Bayonne is no coincidence. In fact, New Roads is only a short distance away from the plantation that the author Earnest Gaines spent his childhood years. The location of this story is deeply intertwined with Gaines' own life and the experiences that shaped him. 

The grim interior of the jail house is a stark contrast to the vibrant red brick exterior. There is a long hallway complete with a metal detector and a guard wearing a blue grey uniform. As our group of ten people approach the metal detector, the guard stops our professor and inquiries about his purpose. Immediately, a rush of unease washes over me, fueled by the stories I have heard about unjust questioning by law enforcement. While the guard talks to our professor, I twist my mouth into an uncomfortable smile and make jokes with my classmates. 

There is an underlying fear within the Black community surrounding interaction with law enforcement.  This fear is exemplified by Grant, who instinctively lowers his head whenever questioned by someone in power. It is a learned behavior, born out of the power dynamic that was prevalent on plantation. Black people were expected to lower their heads, avoiding direct eye contact with white individuals unless explicitly instructed otherwise.  and not look a white person in the eyes unless instructed to do so. This behavior is replicated in Grant's actions and even in my own forced smile. 

Fortunately, Tammy intervenes and rescues us from further conversation with the guard. She guides us upstairs to the courthouse proper, where peeling paint and scratched benches adorn the space. Much like Grant, I did not need to be physically present in the courthouse to know what to expect. Through the book and other stories, I have heard, I had already formed a mental image of this room. Standing within its walls, listening to our guides' intellectual discourse, I envision the all-white jury occupying the box to the right of the judge. I imagine Jefferson seated among the audience, awaiting the pronouncement of his sentence.

Fortunately, Tammy, an employee at the sheriff's office intervenes and saves us the conversation with the guard. She guides us upstairs to the courtroom. The ceiling of the room is peeling toward the ground and the benches are full of scratches. Similar to Grant, I did not need to be in the courthouse to know what to expect. Through the book and related stories, it felt like I had already visited this room. While standing in the front row I imagine the all-white jury in the box to the right of the judge. I imagine Jefferson sitting in the seats waiting for the sentence to be declared. 

Leaving the courtroom, we proceed to the jail cells. Tammy takes us in the elevator that would separate the guard from the convict. Upon reaching the top floor, the first thing that strikes me is the heat. The lack of air conditioning makes the cells feel even smaller. Some of these cells would hold four people at a time chained next to each other. At the end of the hall there is a room that is fully enclosed. Its door creates a barrier from the other inmates with the exception of a small window used for delivering food. 

This is the cell that I imagine Jefferson would stay in. The room has nothing but a dirty toilet and barred window. The cell remains unchanged from the time the building was built. Even without a bed the space is tight and leaves extremely little room for standing. I imagine Jefferson in the room contemplating being called a “Hog,” while Miss Emma and the Reverend huddle in a corner. I think about how a small radio would echo off the walls, even at a low volume. The share the history etched into them by the former prisoners who documented their stories while incarcerated.

America has the largest prison population in the world. Like Jefferson, countless people in America spend years of their life confined in cells similar to the ones found in the Pointe Coupee Courthouse. Unfortunately, for Black men, it is more likely that they will receive harsher punishments for the same crimes as others. The prevalence of all white juries, mandatory minimums and judge overrides has eroded the Black communities trust in the judicial system. 

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Day 2 - The Schoolhouse 

The church located on the plantation quarter appears smaller in person than I imagined. Inside, eight wooden pews fill the space, while an elevated stage occupies the front. In the book, Grant describes in the book how students were divided by grade and assigned separate areas within the room. However, standing in the room now, it feels too cramped to fit a whole class, let alone six grades of students. If I were a child in this room, it would have been easy to become distracted from the other class and students' conversations.

In the schoolhouse, Grant feels a responsibility to teach children survival lessons alongside the curriculum. He teaches the children how to act in the presence of authority figures, such as the superintendent. He emphasizes that even small actions done incorrectly could potentially lead to outcomes similar to Jefferson.

The strict rule enforcement and emphasis on respect that Grant instills in the children feel eerily familiar my experiences in elementary school at Bethlehem Christian Academy. My elementary school prided itself on its high academics and commitment to discipline. These two factors are what drew my parents to the school. They believe that education and discipline will help me to be successful and safe in my future. I recall being in first grade and being forced to stand after reciting my weekly Bible verse incorrectly. Respect for elders and teachers was ingrained in us, and any form of talking back was disciplined and deemed unacceptable. 

In many Black households, parents and guardians feel the need to teach their children the lessons of surviving as a Black person in America. These teaching are direct responses to the overt systems of oppression that have shape the Black experience. While common example included guidance on interacting with police officers during traffic stops, there are numerous lesser known lesson on navigating life as a Black person. 

Throughout the novel, Grant plays the role of educator and mentor. Having grown up on a plantation and had a college education, he has learned how to navigate the world. However, it is evident that he resents having to abide by the rules imposed by people in power. He also recognizes the dangers of neglecting not teaching the children how to react and the possible harmful implication it could have on their lives. Grant carries a heavy expectation of educators on his shoulders and many times he considers running away because of it. 

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Day 3 - The Ernest Gaines Center

At 10am I arrived at the campus of University of Louisiana Lafitte to visit the Ernest Gaines Center. Cheylon, the archivist for the Ernest Gaines Center and doctoral student in Folklore, welcomes our group. Cheylon’s research focuses on Gaines’ novels, arguing that they serve as acts of historic preservation, capturing the stories of Black individuals growing up in the rural areas of Southern Louisiana. She emphasizes that while fictional, each of Gaines’ stories contain underlying truths preserved through the art of storytelling. 

Our conversation contemplated the ways Gaines' life story is expressed through his novels. We draw parallels between the plantation quarter where he spent his childhood and the plantation quarter described in “A Lesson Before Dying.” As a young boy, Gaines himself worked in the sugarcane fields and was raised by his aunt when his parents moved to California. His aunt was known for disciplining the children and keeping the children of the quarter in line. She mirrors the portrayal of many women in “A Lesson Before Dying” who cook, clean and care for Grant. 

In the Gaines Center, we explore the recurring theme of sacrificing oneself for the greater good. In the text, Grant dreams of leaving the small town in Louisiana to join his parents in California. However, his commitment to teaching the children, driven by love and a sense of obligation, keeps him rooted in the community. In this way, Grant sacrifices potential personal opportunities to serve and uplift his community. 

In the novel, north Grant and Jefferson are put into positions where they feel the weight of representing all Black people. Jefferson must walk to the execution chair with dignity to prove to the jury that he is deserving of human treatment. After he dies, he will serve as a martyr for the and people will retell his story with honor. 

These ideas continue today in the notion of “Black excellence.” From an early age, I have been taught that I must strive to be the best, as my achievement will be a reflection of my family and the Black community. Reading the text, I realize how the concept of Black excellence stems from the desire to counter stereotypes surrounding Black people and prove that we are capable and deserving of equal opportunities. 

Exploring Southern Louisiana with the guidance of Gaines' novel provided an insight into lived experiences in the American South. The experiences of Grant and Jefferson reflects broader realities of the experiences in the Black community. Through their stories he highlights the complex history of survival that gets passed down through generation in Black households. “A Lesson Before Dying” speaks on American history and its relevance lies in its reflection of ongoing struggle with American society.

A Night at the Prytania

The dolls get ready to see Rocky Horror

FRANCESCA

As our group of Bookpackers gathered outside of the Prytania theater, I shivered with antici…………pation, to quote the film and performance we were gathered to see - The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was all of our first times seeing the movie live, so a cast member came along to mark our faces with large “V”s etched crudely in thick red lipstick. Upon entering the theater, I noticed two figures who stood apart from the joyful freaks of delicious decadence that comprised the general population of the attendees (ourselves included in that description). One was a rather reserved and somewhat plain looking fellow chatting with a movie theater attendant about some smell of some exotic flower, and the other was a large, belching man wearing a green and ear-flapped hunting cap. The latter bloke was accompanied by a lithe beatnik woman - quite the remarkable pair. They sat in the exact center of the theater, while the quiet man sat a bit further back. As we passed by the fat man and his hip girl, we heard him shout, “What incalculable degeneracy is this! The state of this city has utterly decayed…These outfits are an absolute abomination to the principles of theology and geometry!” And with that he stuffed a large mitt of popcorn into his mouth. I could tell that the quiet man was amused by this. 

Standing outside of the Prytania in all its glory!

BINX

It was another day of simple satisfaction, as most of my days had been since I settled down with Kate. She was with Aunt Emily this evening and he had decided to see a movie, which he had not done for some time now. My life has been comfortable, pleasant, and wonderful in its new simplicity. After speaking with an old friend (an employee at the theater) I took my seat. I marveled at the Harmony Korinne-ish crowd, gold lamé shorts reminding me of Chloë Sevigny’s shining golden hair. I smiled at a big man with a worn green cap, and only after he passed did I realize that he had entranced me totally and completely. As the lights grew dim, I could not help but see his strangely intoxicating blue and yellow eyes in each painted face of the show’s performer’s. 

FRANCESCA

As the show began, we squeezed each other’s hands and giggled in excitement. Our prop kits (provided by the theater) were ready, and so were we. The show includes many actions to be done by the audience along with the film and the live performers. The first of these actions is to throw rice at the screen at the same time that the actors do when two characters get married. Our group gleefully tossed rice ahead of us, behind us, at one another, and I heard a large uproar that seemed less pleasant than the other shrieks in the sonic landscape. Someone had clearly not gotten the memo: the green cap exclaimed “OH, MY GOD! WE ARE UNDER SIEGE! SOMEONE ALERT THE CORRECT AUTHORITIES AT ONCE!” At that, everyone began to throw the rice directly at the poor freak. Such occurrences continued throughout the showing, until he was brought up on stage at the end and thanked by all of the performers. He looked appalled, but his female companion urged him onwards vehemently. 

BINX

When that peculiar and captivating presence was forced onto the stage by the circuslike performers, I felt sorry for him. More than this, though, I felt a terribly strange philosophy reemerge in my mind: it was the search. It was back. Something about the soft curl of his cheeks into the bulbous earlobes was impenetrably sensual. I could not explain it, I would not explain it, but when his beatnik girl came up to me and said that she wanted a word, I could not resist. My searchlight relit, I went home with them that night. I haven’t been apart from them a second since. 

FRANCESCA (epilogue)

I am back in New Orleans now two years after that first time at the Prytania. I am alone now, but I saw that Rocky Horror was playing again at the Prytania and thought that I might relive some old memories. Some of the cast remained the same, but others had been replaced. After watching the first few acts, the visions before me clicked. I had seen the new cast before! The new Frank N. Furter was that fabulously large man with the blue and yellow eyes, the new Rocky was the quiet man, and that slinky lady with the loud laugh who had been with the men before, well she was the new Magenta! How perfect, how fitting, how right. There is love and debauchery in the air tonight, and I breathe it in readily. 

(As a clarification for those who have not read these books, the green hunting cap is Ignatius J. Reilly and his companion is Myrna Minkoff from Confederacy of Dunces, Binx is himself from The Moviegoer. Our group did go see Rocky Horror at the Prytania, though these events are fictionalized as an exercise in imagination. Binx and Ignatius and Myrna are now in a polyamorous and cinephilic relationship. Happy Pride Month!)

Three Encounters With Jazz

ONE

Our view from the restaurant—St. Louis Cathedral, and the big band playing in the square. It’s almost fitting that you can’t see much of the musicians in this video I took—in my mind, they were part of the atmosphere.

I was sitting at a restaurant on the edge of Jackson Square, its doors and windows flung open to the fresh air. The sun was out, the birds were chirping, the bells of the St. Louis Cathedral were tolling. Then—to top it all off, a big band set up shop right outside. Before long, our conversations were drowned out by the hopping, shaking, earth-quaking good music. This is the atmosphere of New Orleans, the backdrop to my prized literary adventures.

Kamryn jumped up and down in her seat. “I love this song! I was hoping I would get to hear it on this trip! It’s Little Liza Jane.”

This moment struck me—I was warmed by her joy. I’d never be able to tell one song from the next, but Kamryn recognized the song instantly. To me, the big brass bands were practically a part of the scenery, but to Kamryn, a musician in the USC marching band, this moment—this song—were an integral part of her experience. Kamryn’s excitement reminded me that each of us on this trip has our own expertise, our own backgrounds and interests, that we bring to this class. When my eye is attuned to pick out spooky vibes, Kamryn is seeing the trip through her lens of musical appreciation. We each have a “thing” that jumps out at us. Even as we embark on this journey together, our shared experiences remain entirely subjective and defined by our tastes.

Taste is, of course, subjective—but a city like New Orleans, a city driven by art and music and architecture and culture, brings to mind the issue of aesthetic values. How do we define “good” taste? Who gets to decide what “good” taste is? These values determine what character of the city gets preserved, what art is sold in galleries or on the wrought-iron fence surrounding Jefferson Park, what music is played at Preservation Hall versus Frenchman Street versus the dive bar on the outskirts of town. Aesthetic values determine which elements of culture make their way into the city’s myth-building.

Photo of Preservation Hall in full swing, from NewOrleans.com. As no phones were allowed, I was unable to get a photo myself. This official photo shows the old-school flair of the jazz band at Preservation Hall.

At Preservation Hall, we had the privilege of listening to world-renowned jazz musicians. They played for a reverent audience packed into a wooden room. We stood for 40 minutes—gladly!—behind rows of benches arranged like pews at the altar of jazz. No phones allowed—one guy even got chastised for breaking this rule—because church was in session. This was music you were meant to feel, with no filters. Preservation Hall boasts the greatest of the great, the bastion of old-school jazz, and altogether has a very high-brow feel.

But jazz wasn’t always so well-respected. When jazz first came on the scene at the beginning of the 20th century, critics disparaged the genre for being a formless, unsophisticated explosion of feelings. This criticism was blatantly racially motivated; white critics targeted Harlem specifically as the origin of all degeneracy via jazz music. Just as later generations criticized rap music as a somehow inferior genre of music, white critics have repeatedly sought to delegitimize the innovations of Black music.

Our fourth Bookpacking text, Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje, personifies those early days of jazz through its fictionalization of the life of jazz trumpetist Buddy Bolden. Taken at face value, the book is a confusing read, a text meant to be experienced more than understood. With a non-chronological plot and choppy, poetic style, Coming Through Slaughter jumps between bits and pieces of Buddy’s life. Through the course of the novel, it is revealed that Buddy got in a violent altercation with a customer at his barber shop over an alleged affair with his wife Nora. Then, Buddy disappears—drops off the map for two years, until Nora hires his friend Webb to find him. Buddy has been living with another woman, and returns to playing music at home, until a mental health episode causes him to spend the rest of his days in a psychiatric institution. The form of the novel, haphazard and loose at times, coalesces into a larger narrative about violence, mental health, and music, coming together like the crescendo of a jazz solo.

Messing with the prose form to translate the experience of jazz to text feels like an undeniably high-brow move. It pushes the boundaries like all the most lauded contemporary literary fiction. But nonetheless, it’s a bold choice, and a risky one where commercial markets are concerned. Most importantly, experimenting with form to create something new, something meant to be entirely felt, is the very essence of jazz embodied. With Coming Through Slaughter, Ondaatje stays loyal to his subject matter, and in the process defies the standard conventions of what is deemed “great American literature” by the taste-makers of our time. Jazz necessitates this type of defiance to aesthetic authority, in order to keep its spirit alive.

TWO

The Second Line parade comes to a halt, but the dancing never stops. The brass band plays on.

Our next formal encounter with jazz was not so formal at all, with that homegrown feel that encapsulates the loose spirit of the music itself; we marched with the Second Line parade, just behind their marching band. All dressed in blue, the band played lively and bright, and the parade ebbed and flowed to a stop seemingly at random, meandering with the freedom of a jazz riff. It broke form, just like Coming Through Slaughter, an expression in and of itself. The parade itself added an experiential component to the jazz, but the best part of all was the happiness on everyone’s faces—a whole community come together, inviting us into their midst without question, letting us join in the dancing with open arms.

I was riding on this high when Bella and I caught an uber back to the hotel.

“Did you see the Second Line?” our driver asked. She was an older white woman and she had picked us up just off the parade route.

“Yes,” I told her, “It was beautiful!”

“Beautiful,” she said “huh.”

Bella and I glanced at each other—there was something in her tone.

“Second Line is just trash,” she said, “Look how they trash the streets. That’s all they do—trash.”

The pleasure of the afternoon came to a crashing halt in that uber. I was flabbergasted—that someone could witness what I had experienced as such an outpouring of community, joy, and resilience, and see only trash. What shocked me even more was our driver’s eagerness to tell us exactly what she thought of the Second Line.

Her words were racism, plain and simple, under the guise of an aesthetic claim. She made the implicit distinction between a “respectable” parade, one with artistic merit and aesthetic value, and a morally condemnable display. I find it hard to imagine that Mardi Gras parades don’t also leave behind their fair share of litter.

This interaction was all the more infuriating because we were reading Coming Through Slaughter, reading about the genius musician whose creativity at these very parades planted the seed that would grow into a bonafide musical revolution. In New Orleans, jazz is woven into the fabric of life and death, and it belongs to the people partying down Washington Ave, not just the people who can afford $50 front-row seats at Preservation Hall.

THREE

Francesca and I sat in our shared hotel room, frowning at each other with our respective covers pulled up to our chins. It was 11:30 PM. It had been a long day in the hot sun, and we were so tired. But it was our last Thursday in New Orleans—and Thursday was supposed to be THE night to see live jazz at Vaughan’s Lounge.

We grumbled. “Should we even go?” “Like, I’m just so tired. But I really want to.” “We’ll see other jazz. Ughhh but I really want to go!” Et cetera.

In the end, we fought against the lethargy with every fiber of our collective beings and pried ourselves out of bed and into the uber. And I can’t tell you how glad I am that we did. In the spirit of Bookpacking: Carpe Diem. Amen.

A short clip of Corey Henry & the Treme Funktet playing at Vaughan’s Lounge. Their weekly Thursday night performances draw the locals out in droves.

We pulled up at Vaughan’s after midnight, still sleepy but with spirits lifted. Opening the doors to the bar, the energy shifted. It looked like any other bar, but everyone seemed like a local. The music was loud, really loud, loud enough to fill the air and vibrate through your chest, but it was smooth on the ear like honey on the tongue. It never pierced.

As we made our way into the crowd, the barrier between musician and audience, music and person seemed to grow even thinner. I almost couldn’t believe that I was hearing this music with my own two ears—it felt like it was being transmuted directly into my head, almost too seamless to be believed. The performance was exhilarating. They played without a hitch, each song keeping me up on my feet and moving. One guitar solo could not be described as anything other than liquifying. The band, Corey Henry & the Treme Funktet, played a fusion of jazz, funk, and hip hop elements that felt wholly original, a testament to the artistic merit of these oft-maligned genres.

Our class stands in front of a mural recreating the only existing photograph of Buddy Bolden. He is highlighted with the golden halo, cornet in hand.

Even as I was dancing to the music, I found myself growing strangely sad. I was mourning even as I listened to these songs for the first time that this wasn’t being recorded. I wanted to replay that solo, that song, that moment, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to even before the moment was up.

But there are no existing recordings of Buddy Bolden’s trumpet-playing, his groundbreaking innovation, the birth of a genre. And Michael Ondaatje wrote Coming Through Slaughter without access to his sounds, only based on one surviving photograph of Buddy with his band and the testimony left in his wake. No one can ever replay Buddy either. At Vaughan’s I understood: jazz is meant for the moment, and the moment alone. It must be felt through your veins like the thrum of a crowd.

Artifice and Sexuality/Fear and Facade: the Spectacle of the Vampire

Image taken from Yelp - I forgot to take one of my own! Too enthralled…

Have you ever been to a joint Halloween/sex shop? Chances are, probably not - there is apparently only one in the world. That is at least what the store clerk inside of Nikki’s French Quarter Halloween Store told Ciena and me after we entered the eclectic business, intrigued by the “open 24 hours” and “adult superstore” signs placed underneath the large-lettered “Halloween.” We asked about the 24 hour sign, and the clerk, an intimidatingly cool elder goth with face tattoos and a black shroud about them, explained that “after a plague swept through the city a few years ago, I’m not sure if you heard about it, we are only open 18 hours a day.” Of course, they were referring to Covid – but how right it felt to hear it described as some medieval disaster. After chatting for a while about fright and drama and all the best things that the underbelly of this city has to offer, we learned that she was The Grand Maw, a horror drag performer named for her ripe age and her mouth that was toothless as it was full of metal, with a tongue that can lift 50 pounds. She went on, “of course, this is the only city where a store like this could survive.” She has lived in the subcultures of many cities, and said that perhaps San Francisco could sustain a horror sex store, but no, only New Orleans could keep a place like this alive. She explained that this city is the only place because of its history of haunting, aided by the blend Voodoo and Catholicism, and also of indulgence, aided by the French/Creole attitudes of openness to sex and wine and all things sensual. It makes complete sense, then, that Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire was birthed from this confluence of terror and debauchery. 

It is a tale of sexuality and fear, of philosophy and humanity, exemplified by the main character and narrator Louis’ constant moral musings and visceral descriptions of desire. He speaks constantly of his “vampire eyes,” how everything is more vivid and visually tactile. In many ways, I have experienced this just being here in New Orleans – music at every street corner fills the ears while the brightly colored houses and rich greens of tropical plants feed the eyes with their fanciful delights. 

A colorful and coordinated duo stroll by a band performing on the street - a combination of senses that is so befitting to New Orleans. I see through vampire’s eyes.

It is this focus on the senses, this utter sensuality, that makes New Orleans the perfect place not only for a vampire novel, but for a sexy vampire novel. A few friends from the class and I went into Faulkner House Books, and Simone asked the shopkeeper Peter what from IWTV struck him most. He thought for a moment, saying that he isn’t particularly captivated by fantasy novels like this, but then answered: Anne Rice made vampires sexy. Of course, this had been done before, but she popularized this trope. The widespread notion of the vampire was no longer just Nosferatu or Bela Lugosi, but Louis and Lestat and their woeful sex appeal. When Lestat, that erotically erratic first vampire, turns Louis, it is an ecstasy: “‘...he put his right arm around me and pulled me close to his chest. Never had I been this close to him before, and in the dim light I could see the magnificent radiance of his eye and the unnatural mask of his skin…I remember that the movement of his lips raised the hair all over my body, sent a shock of sensation through my body that was not unlike the pleasure of passion…’” (19). It is marvelously homoerotic, and in that sense progressive for its time. However, it also plays with eroticized pedophilia, perhaps an attempt to further a sense of subversion that these other beings exist in. When talking about Claudia, the 5 year old child that Louis drinks from and Lestat turns into a vampire, Louis says: “She had a voice equal to her physical beauty, clear like a little silver bell. It was sensual. She was sensual” and later in that conversation Lestat reasserts: “’She’s our daughter’” (93). It is taboo, as well as sexuality, that is so heralded in Rice’s novel – however problematic, it affords us a view into the debauched reality of her New Orleans. All of the descriptions of the vampires include some sense of their surreal appearances, as seen with Lestat’s “unnatural mask” of skin, which Louis also maintains: “‘As you can see, my face is very white and has a smooth, highly reflective surface, rather like that of polished marble.’ ‘Yes,’ the boy nodded, and appeared flustered. ‘It’s very…beautiful, actually,’ said the boy.’” (47). It is a sense that they are not only beautiful because they are severe looking, but because of how inhuman they appear. 

A photograph I took the first time I came to New Orleans. The plastic breasts hung on every tourist shop tell me that sex doesn’t just sell in New Orleans — sex is New Orleans.

This non-human, objectified beauty piqued my interest throughout the novel, but it was not until after we finished the book that I understood the idea of object-sexuality in relation to vampires. I have been highly interested in sex robots for some time now, not in an erotic fixation but in a theoretical and morbid fascination. I have followed one account on Instagram for a few months now, @km_amber, who is a “Doll Wife/Juggalette”. She is a multi-thousand dollar, hyper-realistic silicone sex doll, and her Instagram account is run by her very real human husband Vinny. On March 28, Vinny posted that Amber was “diagnosed” with an “advanced heart disease.” On May 21, 2023, at “age 28,” she was pronounced dead via Vinny’s personal Instagram account. It had been two days since I finished reading IWTV, and reading the news of her “death” I immediately thought of the failed killing of Lestat. What does it mean for an immortal non-human entity to “die,” especially when the primary physical characteristic of said being is their eternal youth and beauty? The death is not real, not lasting, but the plastic eternity is: artificiality is the only thing that lasts, and using this lens and understanding, I have come to see how New Orleans seems to champion artifice, particularly sexualized artifice, at every turn.

Blood bag and my book.

Ciena is writing a book that includes characters in a very specific subset of New Orleans subculture: the “real” vampires, some of whom are “sanguinarians” who engage in consensual blood drinking. Being a gothic-minded individual myself, she and I took a trip to the Vampire Boutique, a shop that sells overpriced (yet very fun) vampire wares. After perusing the boutique, we were directed to their sister business, the Vampire Café, where we drank from “blood bags” filled with a red-dyed cocktail. We sat outside, reading IWTV and chatting about our preteen emo years.

Later, we went to the Vampire conglomerate’s third location: the Vampire Speakeasy. She was told that the “real” vampires would sometimes hang around there, but when we arrived we saw the trifecta of the Vampire chain for what it was: a scheme playing to tourists’ desire for mediated gothic fun. However, I was not upset by its lack of “realness,” but instead marveled at the spectacle of it all. I imagined the magnificent Lestat coming through the door of the bar and carefully choosing a victim. I thought of the games he played with his victims. Louis describes one such scene: “There were women in the parlor…Lestat had his arm around one woman and was kissing her. She was very drunk and very beautiful…The woman on the settee with him was already teasing about his kisses, his coldness, his lack of desire for her.” (77) In the Vampire Speakeasy, among the tacky decorum, I could see Lestat laughing at the frivolity of it, at the childish desire for darkness that us mortal humans have and can never truly feel the way he feels it. He would love nothing more than to take the life of a young damsel who reveres the vampire for his sexuality, forgetting his true purpose of killing. He would watch her eyes grow sultry with desire and then wide with fear, striking just as she understands the severity of her errors. Would I be one such victim? Perhaps. As it was, I simply enjoyed the crafted artifice in this space of imagination. 

But what of the “real” vampires? The sanguinarians? Are they more genuine than this tourist nightclub, or less? They fancy themselves real vampires because they choose to drink each other’s blood consensually – yet this, too, is an act of roleplaying. These levels of deception devolve into delusion; it all stems from a desire to be different from a broader society in order to find community in a truly unique subculture. Above all, it is a subculture specific to New Orleans. Anne Rice created the sexy vampire, and they became the city’s own sexy vampires. While the blood may not be of nutritional value, it is of sexual value. It is sadomasochistic, inherently related to BDSM. I am reminded of the Halloween sex store, of its multitude of bondage and fetish gear. One piece specifically stuck out in my mind: a black faux leather collar with the word “SLAVE” attached in silver letters. In any other setting, I would accept this at face value as referring to a sex slave, a common trope in fetish communities. However, the relationship in IWTV between actual enslaved people and the vampires was distressing and rather under-addressed. 

Lestat sought out Louis for his wealth – a rich inheritance from his family’s sugar plantation. Lestat wanted to dress in the softest silks, sit in the most plush seats, and generally be surrounded by luxury. And he was. The book focuses so much on the opulence of the vampires’ lifestyle, but only touches upon the lives lost in order to maintain such a lifestyle. There is the obvious suffering of the vampires’ victims, but there is also the loss of blood of the enslaved in order to produce saccharine delights for the human Louis. Even before he was a vampire, he eked blood from undeserving victims in order to appease his taste for sweetness (literally, the sugar, but also a sweet life of comfort). Louis also often refers to himself as a slave of Lestat’s – again undermining the actual slavery that brought him to his current role as pseudo-slave. 

This is not just an issue within the novel, however. Overt opulence has always covered up the atrocities against humanity committed at such plantations. When we visited the Whitney Plantation, we first discussed how most other plantations are used as event venues rather than museums. Weddings, proms, and other extravagant celebrations are staged at these sites of terror because they are beautiful. When these plantations were used for slavery, there was a harsh and purposeful contrast between the big house and the slave quarters. Now, however, only beauty remains in such spaces – a facade of virtue for willfully ignorant individuals to celebrate their meaningless lives on the soil fertilized by the bodies of those who were punished for being born. The Whitney refuses this glamorization and aims to educate on the horrors of the past. It has removed the furniture from the big house, stripping it down to its bare bones to dissuade visitors from being dazzled by the glitz in which the masters enjoyed their pompous existences. However, as our tour guide stated repeatedly, they have recently had to change their touring program in order to appease wider audiences. People were offended when they heard the traumas executed on this site, and so the museum has had to sanitize their tour in order to stay in business. The most meaningful and important aspect of such a tour is to hear and see and understand the misery and torment that occurred in the history of these spaces. Even the sculpture depicting the decapitated heads of the revolutionary enslaved men of the 1811 German Coast Uprising, one of the most powerful and devastating things I have ever seen, was tucked away into a far corner of the museum’s property.

Statue honoring those executed - murdered - after the German Coast Uprising.

While these are understandably difficult concepts to grapple with, they are absolutely essential to understand in order to grasp our current reality as much as our past. But, in these plantations as much as in IWTV, we see that when the allure of a place (The Whitney) or a person (Louis) comes from a history of others’ agony, it is only the final visual appeal of opulence that is centered. As such, I was enthralled by the book and its fancifully enticing plot, but never once did I feel true pity for Louis throughout his trials of loss and despondency: I knew that he had brought them all upon himself. 

As a final note of the facade of beauty covering up a history of suffering, I refer to a seemingly unrelated yet entirely fascinating cultural history timeline. As I mentioned earlier, Ciena and I discussed our emo years during our talks of vampires. Our favorite band when we were both 13 was My Chemical Romance. The timeline goes like this: Gerard Way, the band’s frontrunner, worked at Cartoon Network in NYC, just blocks away from the World Trade Center. On September 11, 2001, he saw the towers fall. So distraught by this sight of tragedy, he decided to start a band and centralize suffering. But he was also theatrical, sexy, and they adopted that perfect trope that Anne Rice had popularized: the sexy vampire. So inspired and enthralled by MCR, Stephanie Meyers wrote her Twilight series in large part inspired by My Chemical Romance’s vampiric facade. Eventually, E.L. James wrote a smut fanfiction based off of Meyers’ own sexy vampire series. That fanfiction turned into the erotic romance novel series Fifty Shades of Grey. Today, sex and vampires and literature and music are so deeply intertwined, and it seems that we have Anne Rice to thank for this. Thus, it only seemed right that when Ciena and I went to a karaoke bar, we sang a song that was on Meyers’ inspiration playlist for Twilight: I’m (Not) Okay by My Chemical Romance. (INSERT VIDEO OF US SINGING) It was an homage to Rice as much as it was an homage to our own personal histories. The only incongruence, the only irony, is that I was okay. I was better than okay. Here, in this marvelous city, surrounded by spectacle and history, I had never been better. 

Ciena and I singing I’m (Not) Okay by My Chemical Romance. Ironically, the pages of my IWTV book are all torn and frayed! I bought a cheap copy and it promptly unraveled.

Fiction Collides with Reality

New Roads, Louisiana. Have you heard of it? Probably not, and neither did I. I didn’t think that so much of our trip would be exploring these small towns in Louisiana, nor did I think I would grow to love them as much as I did. The beauty of bookpacking is that the novel decides where we go. Sometimes it isn’t the most glamorous location, but I have learned to not "judge a book by its cover" when considering the historical significance of a place.

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Author Ernest J. Gaines

Our class read A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines. The novel is set in the 1940s and is about an innocent black man, Jefferson, on death row. A teacher named Grant is instructed by Jefferson’s godmother to make sure that he dies with dignity as a man because his defender had called him a hog. This was done with the intention to portray him as incapable of planning a murder, but it is nonetheless incredibly dehumanizing.

“What you see here is a thing that acts on command. A thing to hold the hand of a plow, a thing to load your bales of cotton… Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.
”

— Ernest J. Gaines

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When we first arrived at the courthouse where Jefferson was convicted, I looked at the steps leading to the door. I imagined Jefferson walking up those steps and knowing he was never leaving. We walked into the courtroom, and it was much more modern than it would have been in the novel. I started questioning what has happened here that I didn’t know of. Sure, it was just a little court room in a small town in Louisiana, but whose lives were changed right here? The story of Jefferson was based off true stories, after all.

The Point Coupee Courthouse that we visited.

One of the cells we visited.

I also thought of the fear that Jefferson must have felt when entering his cell. It is quite difficult to describe the feeling of the jail without stepping foot in it, but it gives you the shivers. The elevator itself felt directly out of a horror movie – it was deep in a janitor’s closet and pitch-black. There was a caged barrier in the elevator to separate the deputy from the prisoner. With no lights available, our guide had to use her phone light.

Upon entering, I was surprised by how small it was. Gaines had a way of making places seem bigger through writing as so much happens in these locations. The cells had enough room for one bed and a toilet; not much else. There was no air conditioning, and while it was hot when we visited, I can’t imagine what it must have been like at the peak of summer. I imagined Jefferson sitting there day after day. I also thought of his visitors. No wonder his godmother and the others requested a conference room – I can’t imagine four people in his cell at once with barely enough room for a single person! Below is a description of the cell from the novel.

“The cell was roughly six by ten, with a metal bunk covered by a thin mattress and a woolen army blanket; a toilet without a seat or toilet paper; a washbowl, brownish from residue and grime… a single light bulb hung over the center of the cell”

— Ernest J. Gaines

The execution room and room for solitary confinement were especially discomforting. The execution room was the most spacious as it was the only women’s cell, but this was because there were 4 women in the cramped space. There was a concrete slab on the ground, and the guide told us this is where people were hung. My brain couldn’t help but wonder if the women would be there for these hangings, or if they were asked to leave, knowing people repeatedly died where they slept. It is further unsettling that the people who died here never left – they suffered in the cells until they walked to this other one where they would face the end of their life. And as for the solitary confinement room, it was equally as small as the other cells except with a covered window and walls of pure metal. There was a little slot for the prisoner to receive their food. The cells themselves are already nightmarish, so I cannot even begin to fathom the mental toll that being in solitary confinement takes on someone.

The recreation area does not deserve this name. It was outside, yes, but there was nothing but white walls. It was blinding to look at while in the brutal sun. All one could see was the sky, the tops of trees, and whiteness.

Now, I asked some of the courthouse staff their opinions on the jail. It is critical to understand that it only became out of use in the 90s. One woman described this environment as truly being a punishment. She said that the prisons today were luxurious even, so why would people want to leave? She seemed to imply that what we had seen made more sense as a prison. I will say that I disagree with her because what I saw felt outright inhumane, but I can understand her perspective. Another man had actually worked at the prison for six months before it closed. He admitted it to being brutal but also said that the people who came wouldn’t relapse into committing crimes again. Fair point.  

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Up next on our A Lesson Before Dying bookpacking tour was visiting the plantation where Gaines (and Grant) grew up. While this was the 1940s and official slavery was not taking place in the South, sharecropping was definitely prominent. Individuals, most often African Americans, could work off the land owned by someone else, but the person whose land it was would take a significant amount of these profits. Many people were never able to make enough money to become free from the landowner and would be stuck working on the land for years and years, thus mirroring slavery.

The church and school that we had visited.

The plantation itself was massive – crops extended past where the eye could see. Now all the farming is done by machines, but it is important to remember that people were out in the fields for little to no wages, all day in the burning sun. We saw the church/ school where Grant taught and Gaines attended as a child. The students only went to school five and a half months out of the year as they were needed in the fields. It is evident that their labor was prioritized over their schooling. I cannot fathom Grant teaching grades K-sixth in this small building at the same time. The school was severely underfunded, and Grant had to make it work to the best of his abilities. The below quote shares how he managed to teach all the grades at once.

“I assigned three of my sixth-grade students to teach the primer, first, and second grades, while I taught third and fourth. Only by assigning the upper-grade students to teach the lower grades was it possible to reach all the students every day. I devoted the last two hours in the afternoon to the fifth and sixth grades.”

— Ernest J. Gaines

Gaines had a guest house that mirrored the layout of slave quarters yet was very modern. He also had put a pond in a sugar pot, something that was used to prepare the sugar from the fields for use. It was a brutal process that harmed many of the enslaved people with severe burns. I thought it was powerful Gaines made both the house and the pot something beautiful — I could only infer that this was his way of honoring his people and their stories while also trying to make beauty from an ugly past.

Lastly, we visited the cemetery where those who worked the land were buried, including Gaines himself. It was powerful to see how few people had graves and headstones. Many of the enslaved people were buried without identification, and our guide shared that a lot of the time, the person who died had family members that would plant a tree in honor of them. How many trees were cut down that was actually a memorial? Were we walking in places where people were buried below us, and we didn’t even know? It’s a grim thought.

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I really appreciate bookpacking. It is such a valuable way to see different places, and it allows you to look at them with a whole different lens. I didn’t just mindlessly walk through that jail – I thought of Jefferson. I thought of the people working in the fields as I looked across the plantation, and I visualized the students studying in the church, using their seats as desks while they sat bent over on the floor. My brain had clear stories to go along with what I was looking at, making the experience so much richer. I will forever be grateful for this.

The Latest Entry In The Musical Memoir: A Cajun Country Concert

Spring, 2012:

A picture of my old elementary school’s gymnasium. In the image - taken last year - students are shown performing music in front of a crowd of parents, a performance experience I myself went through when I attended the school.

A very young Aidan sits in the stuffy elementary school auditorium, packed in like a sardine along with the rest of the fourth grade class. It is an oddly warm spring day in the Bay Area, and the air conditioner has yet to be cranked up to account for the extra heat, leaving us students to languish in our sweaty state. However, I am not paying attention to the heat or the sweat rolling down from my temples to my chin. Instead, I am laser-focused on the presentation taking place on the auditorium's small, quaint stage. The elementary and middle school orchestra teacher, Ms. Dong, is presenting the opportunity to join the symphonic orchestra, showcasing the various instruments we could pick up and learn. Ms. Dong meticulously presents and describes each instrument - the violin, the viola, the cello, and the bass - proceeding to play small riffs of music on each instrument to demonstrate. All the various beautifully crafted wooden instruments entice me, but one instrument, in particular, captivates me. The cello, with its sleek design and elegant notes that are not so high as to be at times screechy like with the violin but not so deep you have to strain to hear the instrument be played like with the bass, was the instrument that on that day I chose to start learning, beginning a ten-years-long musical journey.

Fall, 2019:

Near the beginning of my freshman year of high school, my private cello instructor introduces me to the Bach Cello Suites, a collection of music that is a hallmark of cello solo performance. I slowly flip the pages of the new music book, taking in the new book scent as I lay my eyes upon the first song in this somewhat lengthy book: The Prelude to Suite One. I proceed to play the piece at the behest of my teacher. The recurring, swift crescendos that are followed by note drops putting me on whole different strings from one note to the next proves difficult for me when I first sight-read the piece. However, as I run through the music a few times, I start to catch on. The melody is deep and compelling, whenever I feel like I am figuring out the pattern of the piece, Bach switches up the tune in the next bar. However, throughout The Prelude there is a theme of rising and falling, rising from low to high notes and swiftly falling back down to low notes. After this lesson, I would continue to work through the Bach Cello Suites until the day I graduated from high school, a day when I turned my attention to my next musical challenge: figuring out how in god’s name I was going to learn the trumpet in time for the fall marching band season at USC.

Fall, 2022:

The USC Spirit of Troy Trojan Marching Band making its way down the field at last year’s Cottonbowl game against Tulane University in Dallas, Texas.

As the loud, domineering drums beat out a rhythm on the field for the first time this football season, the band, standing on the sidelines, readies itself to march. “Oh yay!” they shout, as they begin to walk down the football field, a tidal wave of red and gold swarming over the green turf. Five counts after the first row in our formation march out onto the field, I begin to make my way down the turf. The heat is nearly unbearable, as on this early fall day in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum where the USC vs. Rice University football game is taking place, a heat wave is sweeping through Los Angeles, putting temperatures at dangerously high levels. However, the band and I continue on through the sweltering heat, thanking our band director for at least letting us wear light USC athletic wear instead of our traditional, heavy Trojan uniforms. The second I start marching down the field, I begin to blow wind through the mouthpiece of my trumpet, letting out a high shrill that begins our first USC fight song. Over the last few months of summer, I have been religiously practicing my trumpet, getting to a level where I can comfortably play all of USC’s steeped-in-tradition songs. The practice pays off on the field, as I nearly flawlessly work through the music, adding to the chorus of sound coming from the band that riles up the crowd in the stadium. While a different experience from playing classical music in an orchestra - which is the music I primarily performed on cello for the majority of my ten years playing the instrument - marching and playing fight songs was a thrilling experience like no other, a moment that showed me there were many different, enjoyable ways to perform music.

June 4, 2023:

I haven’t picked up and played a cello in nearly five months when around Christmas I busked in a small coastal town in the Bay Area to raise funds for my brother’s youth symphonic orchestra. I also have not played bluegrass music since middle school during my brief and excruciatingly boring stint as a cello playing the tedious bass line in a small, school bluegrass band. Because of these two facts, I was understandably quite nervous when I uncertainly volunteered to join in and play with the group of local bluegrass and country musicians congregating for a jam session in Tom’s String Instrument Repair Shop. These musicians - who vary both in their individual musical ability and their instrument of choice, with the jam session featuring guitars, a mandolin, and a few fiddles - come from across Southern Cajun Louisiana, meeting the first Sunday of each month at Tom’s shop to play music, chat, and simply have fun.

Cole and I play along to a country tune struck up by a veteran guitar player in the music group

I wait patiently in the adjacent dining room with my cello as the circle of country musicians finishes their slow, heartfelt country tune in the front parlor of the small shop. As they are wrapping up the piece, I start processing in my head the overarching musical patterns of country and bluegrass music, attempting to understand what general rhythms I must follow to lay down a solid bass line in the songs to come. After the congregation is done with their piece, I walk into the room and take a seat, proceeding to bend down and extend the pin rod of my cello so it’ll make contact with the ground and hold the instrument in place when I play. Shortly after completing this, one of the guitarists strikes up a lighthearted, fleeting country tune. I sit there listening along to try and pick up the key the veteran guitarist is playing in. I figure the key is A minor, so I start plucking out an A note on the second lowest note string of my cello. As I get more accustomed to the music, I start picking out other notes in the piece, finding not only A notes, but E and C notes as well. I then begin to alternate between the three notes as the music demands, later adding little riffs and fancy trills to my note transitions. Playing along, I begin to lose track of time and a sense of where I am. At some point, I close my eyes, letting the music wash over me. I can feel the vibrations of the strings as I pluck out the bass line, the pressing of my fingers against the cello’s sturdy wooden fingerboard, and hear the departure of the notes as they leave my cello and join the beautiful mixture of sound made by the country musicians group. One song melds into the next until I can barely tell when songs start and end except for the fact that with each new song, I have to momentarily listen in to create a new, improvised bass line that fits the piece. As the last song comes to an end, I open my eyes. Other than my fingers - which haven’t plucked cello strings this much in months - feeling like they are on fire, I feel elated. Over the last semester, I became so busy with school that I was never able to play my instruments, so making music once again in such an intimate environment where everyone is playing for simple enjoyment felt more amazing than I ever imagined it would be coming into the experience. I had returned to making music, and it felt great.

The musical side of our journey is what, coming into this opportunity, I was most excited about. I remember during my previous visits to New Orleans for college tours strolling down Frenchman Street, hearing from all directions the sound of loud, lively jazz music that burst forth from the jazz bars and clubs lining the street, beckoning me to come inside and listen closer. As a musician and jazz enthusiast, New Orleans and Louisiana’s rich musical history enticed me, pushing me to explore Cajun, Creole, and New Orleans music further. I am pleased to say I certainly have been able to dive further into these unique musical genres during this trip. Though musical discovery has been present throughout the bookpacking experience - such as when we watched a live New Orleans jazz performance at Preservation Hall, read Michael Ondaatje’s novel on the life of famed early New Orleans jazz musician Buddy Boldin, titled “Coming Through Slaughter”, and explored Frenchman Street as a cohort - the culmination of this joyful musical discovery was certainly the small town, Cajun jam session at Tom’s Repair Shop. I can’t express how much joy this experience brought me, an experience I never would have had unless I had gone on this amazing bookpacking journey that brought me to remote areas of Louisiana I had never before explored.

I have been playing music for the past ten years, meaning time-wise the short time that I played impromptu bass in the small repair shop was only a small blip in my many years of playing. However, the emotional impact this unique music performance experience had on me has made this small moment immensely memorable. Though our bookpacking journey is unfortunately coming to an end, the memories I have made on this trip - and especially the musical memories - will never fade, always being a joy-filled, once-in-a-lifetime experience I can always look back on fondly.

Signing off, Aidan Williams

Two Things Can Be True At Once

In A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines, Jefferson, the young man unjustly given a death sentence for a murder he did not commit, often refers to both his own impending death and the death of Jesus in conversations with his old teacher Grant Wiggins. When discussing Christmas with Grant, Jefferson asks, “‘That’s when He was born, or that’s when He died’ he asked. ‘Who?’ I said. He looked at me, knowing that I knew who he was talking about. ‘Born,’ I said. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Easter when they nailed Him to the cross. And He never said a mumbling word.’” (139). While reading this passage, a song began to hum in my mind…

“Oh didn’t they crucify my Lord? Oh didn’t they crucify my Lord? Yes they crucified my Lord, and He never said a mumblin’ word, He just hung, Lord, Lord, His head and died…”

This is the opening refrain to the traditional African-American folk/gospel song “And He Never Said A Mumblin’ Word”. As with all traditional folk songs, there is no one known author – as the song is sung and passed down orally, there is multiplicity and variation in the versions and thus it belongs to the people and community in which the song exists rather than one individual person. However, one of the earliest known recordings is that made by father-son duo Alan and John Lomax in June 1933, sung by inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary (which is better known as “Angola” in reference to the slave plantation that previously occupied the land). I have linked a recording of the song, though this was made at the Mississippi State Penitentiary a few months later, as the original Angola recording was lost to technical fault.

Image of description card for sound recording in Angola, taken from the website of the Library of Congress' American Folklife Center

Many of the Lomax recordings were done in Southern prisons, and thus, because of the disproportionately high Black imprisonment, most of these recordings are historically African-American folk and gospel songs. They are historical in their origin, but still highly contemporary in the issues of suffering imposed on these groups. Angola remains the largest maximum-security prison in the United States, and is also referred to as a “farm” because of its harsh working conditions, with duties that include picking cotton. With a 72% Black population, the ties between this environment and enslavement are clear. The prison industrial complex is notoriously known as modern slavery – since slavery was abolished with the 13th amendment, there has been an exception for convicts, and institutions (and individuals) of white supremacy have ensured that prison demographics remain majority Black. 

Louisiana State Capitol

These are all issues that I have known about for years, but never have I been confronted with them so directly as when I visited the Louisiana State Capitol. Walking into its vicinity, we were first greeted by the utter grandeur of its visage. Peering at this edifice, I thought of Huey P. Long’s fascist ability to construct this in under two years; looking at the statue of his stately appearance erected after his death, I thought of how Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party hailing from Louisiana, was most likely named after Long. A dictatorial leader dearly loved by those championing ultimate freedom and armed civilians. Two things can be true at once.

The capitol was dazzling, yet its contents were disturbing. After exploring the inside and the lookout point at the very top of the building, Mary, Kiki, and I took an elevator down to what we thought was the ground floor. We ended up in a basement situation and, after seeing a strange room full of suited individuals, decided to explore. After wandering through the hall, we realized there was some sort of committee occurring, and sat down in an adjacent room where the meeting was being televised. After listening for a bit, we learned that the committee was discussing House Bill 321. HB321 proposes to introduce an online database for criminal charges and convictions, specifically targeting court records of juveniles aged 13 and older. The pilot program, if passed, will only be launched in three parishes. Those proposing the bill, led by Republican Representative Debbie Villio, claimed that the choice of these parishes has to do with their technological capabilities of sustaining such a program. However, as pointed out by those opposing HB321, all three of these parishes are majority Black. 

Committee on HB321 in the capitol.

Before sitting in on this discussion, I honestly did not understand the casual nature with which such bills are passed from one stage to the next. After harrowing testimonies from victims of violent crimes from both sides, then finishing with the opposition’s clear reasons why such a bill would not actually aid victims’ search for justice against their assailants as well as how many children’s lives could be ruined by the potentiality of such a bill, the representatives were ready to make a decision. Mere seconds after the opposition’s last point, a spokesperson asked the council members for their decisions. It seemed impossible that these senators could have listened, truly listened, to these arguments and immediately afterwards made a decision about the Bill. Were they listening? Or had they already made up their minds before a single speaker stepped foot in their room? “Yea.” “Nay.” “Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.” Decided. It was “reported with amendments” meaning that it will pass from this house onto the next. The only “Nay” was spoken by the only Black senator. The “Yea” and “Yes”es were spoken by white senators. 

Kiki, Mary, and I sat and looked at each other in disbelief as the members dispersed. I thought of a line from A Lesson Before Dying: “Twelve white men say a black man must die, and another white man sets the date and time without consulting one black person. Justice?” (157). Although not as immediate or as literal as Jefferson’s case, this Bill passing might have truly devastating effects on youths pushed into lives of crime, or even those charged without conviction, those with no proof of any crime but only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Our justice system still decides on the lives of marginalized peoples without their say. While Representative Villio’s pink plaid suit and gray snakeskin pumps appeared villainous and tacky in their appearance, it was her political stronghold that was tacky in its lasting capabilities. Sometimes, it takes one individual human being to continue a legacy of marginalization and pain. 

The courthouse in New Roads, the town that Bayonne was based on.

However, we know that it also sometimes takes one human to alter the future legacy of another individual’s personhood for the better: Grant Wiggins was that for Jefferson and, ironically, Sheriff Thibodeaux was that for me, albeit in an extremely different way. The courthouse was almost exactly as described in Gaines’ novel: “The courthouse, like most of the public buildings in town, was made of red brick. Built around the turn of the century, it looked like a small castle you might see in the countryside somewhere in Europe. The parking lot that surrounded the courthouse was covered with crushed seashells. A statue of a Confederate soldier stood to the right of the walk that led up to the courthouse door. Above the head of the statue, national, state, and Confederate flags flew on long metal poles. The big clock on the tower struck two as I parked opposite the statue and the flags.” (69) 

While there are no Confederate statues or crushed seashells, this was the most profound moment of Bookpacking thus far. I could see Grant Wiggins exiting his car, his gray ‘46 Ford, as that big clock struck two. Walking into the courthouse, I could see his apprehension towards the men who eyed him suspiciously, walking up the steps I could see him following behind Paul, and reaching those dilapidated jail cells, I could see him sitting with Jefferson in his cell where each of his the cells in his body screamed in pain and hurt. We did not follow Paul or Sheriff Guidry, we followed Tammy and a fellow officer. Tammy was like Paul, sweet and understanding; the other officer, in many ways, did remind me of Guidry. Upon entering the courtroom, we discussed youth imprisonment and the implications of HB321. He recounted to us a story that occurred in that very room: once, he had a juvenile girl in the court. He didn’t tell us what she was being tried with, but he told us that she cussed at the judge. He said, “I told her that she had to behave herself, and she hit me in the face right here.” He pointed to his cheek and continued, “I took her right to the floor. She got 18 months for that.” There was a look of pride on his face, a pride and grumble in his throat as he said he took her to the floor. Pride at taking down a young girl – yes, she had hit him, and no we do not know what she was charged with, but it was that pride that struck me. It was not pride at being an officer upholding the peace, but a gloating sneer that he had shut her away for attacking his personhood. He fit right into Gaines’ novel to me. 

But everyone else was kind, and in some ways, this was more shocking to me. After exploring the jail cells, after finding tattered documents of gruesome murders and dusty photographs of bloated carcasses, I was in a somber mood. Not only seeing the physical spaces where people’s lives were stripped of them, but seeing images that displayed alternately lifeless bodies – so much pain was held in this space. You could feel it in the air, in that stifling humidity, in that dust and decay. Walking into Sheriff Thibodeaux’s office, seeing his large Blue Lives Matter flag hung on the wall, seeing his jovial nature, I began to cry quietly in my seat at the conference table. It felt like whiplash, too much for my brain to comprehend at once. I felt myself bristle against his kindness, distrusting of what I thought to be a facade. The closest encounters I have had with police before this (besides traffic stops) have been at protests against them.

Eventually, I asked him what his Blue Lives Matter flag meant to him. I knew what it meant to me - a direct backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement aimed at uplifting the voices of Black Americans, so long pushed to the wayside. But his answer took me aback: his friend had made the flag for him, his father and grandfather were both policemen, and he was proud of his service. It seemed that he had no idea that the original purpose of this flag was in direct opposition to the BLM movement. And I slowly started to see how in a small town like this, the issue of corrupt police is limited to a few bad eggs. He knows everyone, and he holds all of his officers to the standard of treating each civilian like their cousin, because if they’re not their own cousin, they’re probably someone else’s on the force. It was a viewpoint that I had heard of, but never truly understood in a context where it could be applicable.

Myself and Sheriff Rene Thibodeaux

While my opinion of the police state in a broader sense has not changed (the larger institution of policing in America is too far gone to become anything other than an oppressive regime, that’s what it has always been and will continue to be until there is a large-scale revolutionary shift), I see now that smaller police forces actually are able to keep their officers to a high standard, that not all cops are inherently or intentionally forces of oppression - in a place like New Roads, most actually aren’t. It is an entirely different reality than I am used to, and this is a perspective for which I am eternally grateful. In terms of policy making, I think it necessary to combine these attitudes with conversations of institutional policing in order to find a truly progressive and comprehensive future of law and justice. Sheriff Thibodeaux was truly one of the loveliest people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, and I hope to see his sunny face again one day. 

I find this interplay between utter kindness and immeasurable historical pain very profound. The jail was one of the places that struck me the most in this sense, and Gaines’ home was the other space where I felt this so deeply. Cheylon, our marvelous guide to all things Gaines, spoke multiple times about the incongruence between descriptions of physical space in the book and the actual place in real life – the Church/schoolhouse being the best example of this. It was small - very small. I could see Irene Cole standing and commanding the younger students as Grant cracked his ruler over the head of a young boy, hear all of the sounds mixing together in the acoustically tight atmosphere, words climbing over each other to find a home in the mind of the children. Knowing that Gaines grew up on this plantation, I considered how he reimagined the space to feel larger in his novel. It was a literary technique to contrast the city of Bayonne, but it also spoke to his rewriting of his own history. He took back the plantation where he was raised, forced to work as a sharecropper, and turned it into this beautiful home for his children and grandchildren and pets to grow healthy and happy. It is this act of remembrance equal to reimagining that makes Gaines such a profound author and, it seemed, such a gracious human being. He never forgot where he and his people came from, where they struggled. However, where history is unalterable, he found victory in changing his own personal reality. By understanding this through seeing the physical space that he occupied, I further understood Jefferson’s veritable victory of dying with dignity. He, too, could not change the past or the court’s order to execute him, but he could change his mental attitude toward his physical reality (however dismal and cramped it was). Gaines had to return to the South to write his stories because he had to push through his own past of suffering to find victory and success in his mental state by way of the space that he occupied.

The grave of Ernest J. Gaines

It makes sense, then, that he chose his final resting place to be on that same land. The graveyard was small. Very small, actually. There were births and deaths dated from the early 1900s all the way up to 2023, yet I couldn’t help but think of all the bodies that lay deeper in the earth, further back in history, long ago eaten by worms that became fertilizer for the next crop of sugarcane. Blood sugar, the sweetness made possible only by death. Gaines clearly thought about this, too. His gravestone read: to lie with those who have no mark.

With his writing, he gave voice to the historically voiceless, telling the stories of his life and those around him with poignancy and elegance, with full emotional truths even if the facts were sometimes fabricated. Then, even in death, he gives voice to those otherwise forgotten. 

Standing by his grave, a movement caught my eye. Two butterflies circled above me then moved to be above his bones. One was black with yellow dots, the other yellow with black dots. Just like Jefferson’s butterfly, the one that Grant saw before he heard the news of his death: “Several feet away from where I sat under the tree was a hill of bull grass. I doubted that I had looked at it once in all the time that I had been sitting there. I probably would not have noticed it at all had a butterfly, a yellow butterfly with dark specks like ink dots on its wings, not lit there. What had brought it there?...I watched it fly over the ditch and down into the quarter, I watched it until I could not see it anymore. Yes, I told myself. It is finally over.” (252). When I was in third grade, my Nonna died. At her funeral, I sat next on the grass and watched a white butterfly flit around the white lillies that sat on her casket. Her best friend came up to me and told me that if a butterfly is at a funeral, that is the deceased loved one coming back to say hello, and that from now on every time I see a white butterfly that will be my Nonna coming to say hello. To this day, I think of her when I see white butterflies. Now, I have no doubt in my mind that these black and yellow butterflies were Jefferson and Gaines, finding comfort in each other and in their new free-flying forms. It is finally over: this book, this experience, their literal and literary lives, but the butterflies, their souls will not cease flight. The reading of Gaines’ work will not end. Now and forever, they will drink from the nectar of the flowers that their sweat gave life to. I hear Cheylon and Andrew calling us to the van. I watch the butterflies take flight over the grave, past the fake purple flowers and into the lush green underbrush. They encircle each other until I can’t see them anymore, and then I turn around to leave. 

One of the butterflies explores the air before the second one appeared

Captured by the Rhythm

If you watch me closely, you will notice that I can’t sit still. I am always rubbing my feet on the ground or bouncing to an imaginary tune in my head. This trait was pointed out to me by my Nana a few years ago. She told me that I have done it since I was a baby, and It is one of her favorite things about me. 

In the novel “Coming Through Slaughter”, I see the story of someone who can’t sit still - Buddy Bolden. He paved the way for many Jazz musicians today by creating a style of music that was unheard of before. As a Jazz performer, there is a constant rhythm that flows through the body. This rhythm flows through Buddy, into his hands and out of his instrument. He would take traditional tunes, deconstruct them and then rebuild them into what we now call jazz. In his music, there's a sense of freedom, with no set path to follow. He would digress on long tangents and get captivated by certain notes. There was no right answer or wrong answer; he simply did what felt right. 

Buddy Bolden’s legacy is seen in the brass band that follows the Divine Ladies Social Aid and Pleasure Club. I patiently wait on the corner of Claiborne and Toledano Ave for the parade to march down the street. I hear music approaching from down the street then I see The Divine Ladies dressed in blue jumpsuits and riding on a float. For the past 20 years, this Social Aid and Pleasure Club has paraded down the streets of Central City, showcasing New Orleans pride and community.

As the parade comes closer, I see hundreds of smiling faces in the procession, creating the Second Line. The music grows louder, and I catch the end of a song as the brass band passes by. I join the line after the band, ready for the next song. They play “Joy and Pain” by Maze. The sound is manipulated in a way that I would not have recognized it without the crowd singing along. I listen closely, trying to hear the baseline set by the sousaphone, but the song has a new spin on it. The other brass instruments add small solos, each interpreting the song in their own way.

During the parade, I cannot help but reflect on the pages of “Coming through Slaughter”. I read the novel while sitting outside a cafe in the French Quarter, where I could hear the Royal Street Brass Band playing in the distance. “Coming through Slaughter ''becomes the soundtrack of my experience, as the writing in the novel creates a rhythm that replicates the motion of New Orleans and the Second Line. The lines are poetic and break down the traditional rules of prose. There are pages that only fill half the sheet, leaving the rest open to interpretation. The writing is chaotic and sometimes hard to follow, but it beautifully captures the essence of jazz and the story of Buddy Bolden. 

In the Second Line, I discover a group of people with rhythm flowing from the tops of their head to the tips of their toes. It’s clear that their movements don’t stem from their brains; they are a part of their bodies. The improvisation in their movements mirrors the sounds of the instruments. As the music reaches a crescendo, the dancers kick out their legs and arms in perfect harmony.

As the brass band from the Second Line passes, I notice a man pressed against the rope barrier dancing next to the trumpet player. It is one of the most impressive things I have ever seen. He seamlessly transitions from a jump onto his knees and up to a graceful spin. From there, he effortlessly moves into a bounce step. Then he glides in a synchronous motion with the extension of the trombone. I am captivated by the freedom he expresses through his movement. I wanted to embrace this form of rhythm, just as did with the book. After the song ends, I approached him and shared that I am not from the area. I ask him to teach me what he is doing. Without missing a beat, he responded that he cannot teach me; I have to listen to the music and let my body guide me. 

This is also how jazz was described in the novel. Buddy Bolden is portrayed as someone who doesn't think; he lets the moment take over. He creates a connection between the body and the music and expresses it in any way possible. The sounds of Buddy’s cornet are loud, emotional and honest. This emotion in the music is what set Buddy apart from the rest of the musicians he would play with. The emotion and expression of jazz is reinterpreted by everyone that hears it. Every person around me is creating their own art as a response to the sounds. 

At this point in the parade, I find myself next to a local who has been dancing the whole way down the street. I have stopped analyzing her moments. Instead, I listen to the beat and let my feet follow the rhythm. I step back and forth, hop and kick, just like I have done a million times before. I feel like a kid on a playground, unbothered by shame or judgment. I dance what I feel. For a moment, my body moves faster than my body can keep up with. Again, I step back and forth, hop and kick. Then, with a sudden thwack of the horns, I’m on my heels. Another, thwack, and I lean forward on my toes. I feel my torso rushing forward. Without thinking, I float forward and spin. 

Buddy Bolden dared to try something new with his style of music. He let his mind take a break and let his fingers take over. Jazz is so captivating because it allows for the listener to form their own style and interpretation. While reading "Coming through Slaughter”, I immersed myself in the rhythm of jazz that is heard throughout the city. I experienced this first hand while dancing alongside the Divine Ladies. I continue to see the expression of Buddy Bolden in the brass bands on Royal Street, the dancers in the Second Line and every person improvising to the tune inside their heads. 

The Grass Isn't Always Greener On the Other Side

The past few days exploring Ernest Gaines’ world has been such a privilege.  We visited his home, read his manuscripts, and even hung out with the town sheriff and district attorney!  Hearing that Ernest died in 2020 and we wouldn’t be able to speak with him was crushing, but it made his words that much more powerful when reading his novel, A Lesson Before Dying. 

At first glance, I wondered what a man falsely convicted of murder on death row could teach me before dying. However, as I wrestled with Jefferson’s looming death, I thought of the author's death as well and the lessons I gathered from each. 

Although Jefferson is the victim in this novel, I feel this is Grant’s story as much as it is his.  Grant is a college-educated teacher in an underfunded parish that feels stuck in his “little town”.  He is manipulated into making a man out of Jefferson whose defense in court constantly reduced him into believing he is a “hog”.  Grant, who already has a dim outlook on life due to lack of mobility, wonders, how “am I supposed to tell someone how to die who has never lived?”.  

This notion of having “never lived” stems from his desire to leave his town in search of “greener pastures” like his parents did, consequently leaving him.  Though this sounds cliche, the lesson I took from Grant is knowing that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.  Constantly wanting to be elsewhere and thinking you’d be happier, as he does, is not the solve and negatively impacts his perception of life.  Believing that those in his community “who did not go anywhere, simply died slower” expresses his desire to leave in order to begin living his life.  This is most apparent in his interactions revolving around his profession.  At his student’s Christmas play, he “was not happy” having seen “the same little play, with the same mistakes in grammar.  The minister had offered the same prayer as always, Christmas or Sunday.  The same people wore the same old clothes … Next year it would be the same, and the year after that, the same again”.  These negative connotations of sameness with “little”, “mistakes”, and “old” take away from the beauty that exists in his community doing their best to come together in Jefferson’s honor.  Grant creates a continuous cycle of dissatisfaction with his life which isolates him from the only people he can connect with.  He already exists in a “vicious cycle” of systematic oppression and not finding value in his community will always leave him feeling like he needs to leave on account of not “doing anything ”.  Even when the children’s joy overshadows the wrongness the town has faced, Grant can’t seem to find the joy in where he is.  The minister shares an encouraging story about the “little pine tree”.  It may not have been the “tallest” or “most blessed”, but it remained “the most beautiful of all the Christmas trees…and even took on a character of its own, it was so happy to be here”.  As he preaches about the power of the little tree and correlates it to the importance of the little guy, Grant is still unmoved”.  He was still downtrodden by the nature in which his people existed and “stood alone” hoping to reach happiness elsewhere.

Furthermore, it is quite ironic how Grant gives advice to Jefferson and tells anecdotes that he does not heed in his own life.  He advises Jefferson to show love to the family he owes on death row, but any responsibility or love shown to his own family is too heavy a burden.  Grant says, “No matter how bad off we are, we still owe something. You must show [your godmother] some understanding, some kind of love.”  The thought that Jefferson, a wrongly convicted man on death row, “must” show love is interesting to me.  If anything, society “owes” him. But he somehow accepts this burden and continues on.  He proceeds to find the beauty in what his community does for him and walks to the electric chair like the man he is for his loved ones.  Meanwhile, Grant has a future and understands that his family loves and wants him “for their own”.  Even still, he dismisses the same responsibility he places on Jefferson and equates staying in town to dying slower.  Grant’s need to be elsewhere and the lack of gratefulness toward the gift of life is a stark contrast to the freedoms Jefferson is denied.  This makes the falsehood of needing to be somewhere else in order to contribute and start living even more apparent.  He is essentially convincing a black man that stayed in the same place his whole life that he is worthy, but he doesn’t believe he is living a life of worth himself unless he moves to greener pastures. 

Nevertheless, Grant is not the only one often caught envying the unknown.  As an LA native, sometimes I catch myself thinking the grass is greener on the other side.  How much happier would I be if I moved to the other side of the country?  What opportunities would await me there?  I catch myself going down this rabbit hole of thought and overlook the beauty in my own community.  With fresh, curious eyes for the small towns we visit in Louisiana, I romanticized life here: only to talk to locals doing the same for where I’m from.  I couldn’t imagine anyone not loving the culture and consistency of life here in Louisiana, but some waitresses and hotel staff I speak to live in the same undecided state as me… constantly worrying if the grass is greener on the other side. 

Oftentimes Grant finds himself in a different kind of limbo.  He’s disrespected, but can’t always fight back.  He’s educated, but is pigeon-holed into what career he can obtain.  In the job he holds, when the superintendent inspects his “crop” of students, he struggles to exist as he is.  This is because “to show too much intelligence would have been an insult to them.  To show a lack of intelligence would have been a greater insult to me.”  Due to racism, teaching is the “only thing that an educated black man can do in the South today”.  He’s only allowed one profession and even then, he can only rise so high and must watch how he acts.  He also exists in this world of uncertainty because he wants to leave in search of greener pastures, but has nowhere to go.  His relationship with Vivian exemplifies this.  They plan on making it out of the city countless times, but are always restrained due to one reason or the other.  Even when he fought with Vivian and threatened to leave, he “went to the front door and jerked it open, and there was the screen.  And through the screen I could see outside into the darkness, and I didn’t want to go out there.  There was nothing outside this house that I cared for”.  His perception of his immobilization continues to hurt his outlook on life at every turn.  But he knows the reason why he doesn’t leave is because there is “nothing outside this house that [he] cared for”.  Only if we learn community can we find a sense of being and contentment.  

I feel Grant finds this sense of being and contentment in forming a friendship with Jefferson.  Though unexpected, it offered a light in his community when he felt he was contributing to a greater good that benefitted his loved ones.  Grant’s real plight was not escaping, rather finding meaning and connection in his community which progressed in his meetings with Jefferson.  When Jefferson was thankful, Grant started “grinning like a fool” and “felt like crying with joy”.  I find that the grass is greener where you water it.  And I think meeting with Jefferson helped him more than he realized and served as a reason to stay and take pride in potentially planting roots in his community.

Lastly, visiting Ernest’s grave prompted the question: why did Ernest move back to a home that oppressed him and his family?  Learning about how his family grew up as sharecroppers working on a plantation, I just couldn’t wrap my head around why he would want to move back after having a successful career in California.  Quietly contemplating while visiting Ernest’s grave this week, I began to start to understand.  His home was where his community was and the plantation was just as much their land as the white property owners.  He creates a new perspective on pain as he did in A Lesson Before Dying.  I saw an example of this in the sugar pot in his backyard.  Enslaved people lost their lives using the sugar pot and he not only kept it, but created a pond with fish where life lives on.  He ensured that their history would be remembered.  Even in death he did this, making the decision to be buried where enslaved people were.  His headstone reads that he wished “to lie with those who have no mark”.  I also admired how he didn’t feel like he needed to leave the south in order to live out the rest of his life.  At the Ernest Gaines Center, Chaylon told us how black radicalists, his former friends, separated from him because they preached that you had to move north or west in order to create change and live a good life as an African-American.  I feel he countered this by trying to reimagine the south as a place where African-Americans can thrive and where they will be remembered.  I think he takes a note from Vivian in the novel when she counters Grant, saying the “easy way out” is to leave.  She knows wherever African-Americans go “we get hurt no matter what”.  So we minus well fight the good fight in our own communities where we are loved and empowered.  I think both Gaines and Vivian understood this and made an effort to ensure they watered their grass accordingly. 

Certified Freak

In the land of Spanish moss and wrought iron, the Garden District of New Orleans is home to some of the finest mansions money can buy. Our class walked along Prytania Street, escaping the heat of the sun beneath the canopies of live oaks, admiring the lavish homes. But beneath our amazement was an undercurrent of disgust—just who the hell could afford to live here?

A Garden District mansion on the corner of Prytania and Fourth. Aunt Emily lives on Prytania Street in the novel.

Our promenade around the Garden District introduced us to the contemporary genteel lifestyle presented in Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer. The novel follows Binx Bolling, a stockbroker living in the humdrum suburb of Gentilly, as he navigates life, love, and movies while on “the search” for greater significance. More concerned with making money and his pursuit of the “big happiness” found in film than with the day-to-day moments that make up a life, Binx struggles to stave off his ever-present malaise. He alienates himself from the people around him, including his Aunt Emily, a wealthy woman living in the Garden District and the last line of defense for an old set of white upper-class values. As part of our Bookpacking experience, we drove through Binx’s neighborhood in Gentilly and ambled along Aunt Emily’s street in the Garden District. But never did I feel closer to Binx than when I engaged in his favorite, titular activity—moviegoing.

A poster for The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).

Late Saturday night, we attended a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, complete with a full shadow cast and a complementary prop kit. Dressed up in the best costumes we could improvise out of our suitcases, we waited outside the Prytania Theater, a historic single-screen movie theater in the Garden District, amidst the stately gated manors and magnolias. The line went down the block, and the excitement of the crowd was unignorable—the theater received a noise complaint before the midnight show even began from an unhappy neighbor (possibly Aunt Emily, but I can’t be certain).

This theater is not only located on the same street as Aunt Emily’s uptown mansion in The Moviegoer, it is also one of Ignatius’s frequent haunts in A Confederacy of Dunces, where he eagerly goes to heckle each and every film. As our show began with a troupe of ambiguously-gendered strippers dancing to the opening credits, it was impossible not to imagine Ignatius sitting with us, sputtering his offense at the crossdressing and erotic theatrics he paid to see.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show offered a perfect case study in the difference between license and licentiousness. Here we were, in a famous movie theater in the middle of the wealthiest Old Money 'burb in New Orleans, watching a well-organized community theater performance; all of this is perfectly conventional. Simultaneously, perhaps the very reason Rocky Horror remains such a pop culture staple is because of its licentiousness, the bawdy, campy ways it sprints beyond the boundaries of what is “allowed” in society—especially for the time the film was made.

Released in 1975, Rocky Horror came out smack-dab in the middle of the Gay Liberation Movement, when “homosexual activity” was still illegal in most states. Its depiction of Dr. Frank N. Furter, the “transsexual” mad scientist, and his gang of weirdos singing along to a musical soundtrack and having various bisexual dalliances was, and continues to be, mind-blowing. Even in 2023, I’ve never seen anything quite like Rocky Horror in terms of its unapologetically perverse, rip-roaring representation of queerness; I can’t even begin to imagine how it felt to experience this film for the first time in 1975.

Sitting in that theater, exhilarated and vindicated, even amid my emotional experience Binx’s voice crept back into my mind. I couldn’t help but question myself: am I waiting to see myself on screen to give me permission to be myself? What an insecure way to live. How disloyal to myself, how removed from the flesh-and-blood reality of life. The Moviegoer pinpoints this “phenomenon of moviegoing” which Binx calls certification:

“Nowadays when a person lives somewhere, in a neighborhood, the place is not certified for him. More than likely he will live there sadly and the emptiness which is inside him will expand until it evacuates the entire neighborhood. But if he sees a movie which shows his very neighborhood, it becomes possible for him to live, for a time at least, as a person who is Somewhere and not Anywhere.

”

— Walker Percy

Binx refers to certification of place, but his theory applies to many of the ways in which people seek validation of their significance through film. Without seeing yourself on the big screen—whether that “self” means a character living in your neighborhood, a character in your community, or a character who looks and acts like you—you are unable to fully embrace the romantic potential of your life. Certification relies on film to be the arbiter of personal meaning; if your story is not told in the movies, your story is not a story at all, but a mundane afterthought. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy of alienation from community, from other people, from the significance of day-to-day real life.

The lead actor playing Dr. Frank N. Furter introduces the shadow cast, from the theater company “The Well Hung Speakers.”

However, Binx’s critique of “certification” is not as universal as it may seem; for marginalized people, seeing themselves represented in media is impactful far beyond the sense of distinction Binx describes. For underrepresented groups like the queer community, “certification” begins on the basic level of validating our very existence. It is more than just a matter of elevating one’s neighborhood to the status of “Somewhere,” a setting where great narratives can take place. Rather, film representation becomes a profound recognition that queerness simply exists alongside straightness, part of the diverse fabric of reality that informs the stories we tell. Queer representation must first establish existence before it can begin to combat negative representation, let alone certify that one’s life experiences are romanticizable and movie-worthy. For marginalized groups, “certification” responds to preexisting alienation rather than perpetuating it.

The power of queer art is demonstrated in Rocky Horror’s sheer longevity, as it is now considered the longest-running theatrical release in history. In any era, to see one’s own community represented without apology is emotionally impactful—let alone such an unabashedly raunchy, sexual, un-sanitized portrayal during a time like the 1970s when anti-sodomy laws still criminalized gay sex. Rocky Horror depicts queer people as full of life and magic, as transgressively powerful, as desirous and desirable and desired. And that’s even before you get to the shadow cast—a group of visibly queer performers having the time of their lives! Watching it I felt a connection to those first moviegoers in the 1970s, the intervening decades melting away. But even beyond what I imagined to be shared feelings of excitement and healing, the 21st century is still not so dissimilar from the 1970s as we’d like to think.

A map tracking the relative severity of anti-trans legislation across the United States as of May 20th, 2023. Created by independent journalist Erin Reed. At the time of the performance, we cheered for the fact that Louisiana narrowly voted down a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, thanks to Republican Senator Fred Mills breaking party lines and voting against the bill. However, as of June 1st, the bill has been resurrected in a different Senate committee—a rare move that gives this already-defeated bill a second chance.

A map tracking bans on drag performance specifically, as of May 30th, 2023. Created by independent journalist Erin Reed. These laws criminalize Rocky Horror shadow cast performances like the one we saw.

Before the show began, the director stepped on stage to inform us that the performance we were about to see would now be considered illegal in several states. Due to a wave of transphobia and anti-drag fearmongering, over the past year discriminatory laws targeting transgender people and drag performance seek to criminalize “male or female impersonators” across the country. Bigots conflate transgender identity with drag performance and consider both a “threat” to the children, and the resulting culture war catastrophe means that the longstanding tradition of the Rocky Horror shadow cast—a ticketed performance without nudity—is illegal just nextdoor to Louisiana (whereas heterosexual strip clubs remain perfectly legal). The line between license and licentiousness is never fixed, and we are witnessing a movement to redraw that line to further demonize an already deeply marginalized community.

No matter the social and emotional importance of representation, political solidarity requires more than consuming entertainment. This was the crux of the director’s message, even as we were encouraged to celebrate and revel in the performance’s queerness. It echoes The Moviegoer by expressing the limitations of seeking liberation through “certification.” Binx does not escape his malaise through the validation of the movies, and in fact his search for personal significance to rival fiction draws him further away from the most fulfilling aspects of real life. The Moviegoer tells us that daily life can’t be a constant sequence of “big moments,” of sweeping cinematic climaxes set to a swelling orchestral score. Just as Binx must invest in “the Little Way,” so too must we as an audience divert our attention back to the true human connection that underpins it all, forming the basis for the beauty and the progress of the queer community.

“It is not a bad thing to settle for the Little Way, not the big search for the big happiness but the sad little happiness of drinks and kisses, a good little car and a warm deep thigh.
”

— Walker Percy

A haphazard mirror selfie with friends, just before leaving for the show.

Nonetheless, the line between “moviegoing”—the mediated, alienated mode of experience Walker Percy describes—and “real life” is not so cut-and-dry. When we stepped foot into the Prytania Theater to watch Rocky Horror, that was real life. I enjoyed it not just because of the complex feelings of validation and certification it inspired, but in “the Little Way” too. The show was titillating and funny and entertaining, goddammit. I was sitting amongst my friends and classmates, dressed to the nines and brimming with laughter, engaged in the present moment. It reminded me of the people I love.

When the newlyweds arrived on screen, on cue, the entire audience started flinging rice across the theater. It got in my hair and my clothes and my shoes and I was still shaking it out by the time I left the Garden District and returned to my hotel room, exhausted and content.

The feeling of those little grains of rice—that is “the Little Way.” That is a simple thing worth living for.

The Eroded Economy & Education of The Bayou State

The main hall of the Louisiana State Capitol building. Politicians and tourists alike can be seen milling about beside informational tables staffed by advocacy group representatives.

As I walked around the grand halls of the Louisiana State Capitol building in Baton Rouge, I walked among Senate and House members conversing in the halls, preparing for the upcoming afternoon session. While this was an enthralling behind-the-scenes look at state political operations and conduct, walking past an advocacy booth hosted by The Concerned Women of America - a group advocating for the repeal of state abortion rights - sobered me up, allowing me to comprehend the reality of the situation. The House and Senate members I was walking among are primarily Republican politicians that make up one of the most conservative state legislatures in the country. In May, with the striking down of Roe V. Wade by the US Supreme Court, these Lousianian politicians passed legislation banning abortions at all stages of pregnancy, with very slim exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or “medically futile” pregnancies. Additionally, The Louisiana legislature - taking inspiration from their fellow Gulf Coast Republicans in the Florida Legislature - has recently passed a whole host of “Don’t Say Gay” bills banning grades 1-12 educators from teaching or talking to their students about homosexuality. While a dower realization, thinking about the politics of Louisiana led me to dive deeper into the bookpacking novel our cohort was reading at the time, Ernest J. Gaines’ “A Lesson Before Dying”. For those not familiar with the book, “A Lesson Before Dying” is the story of a Lousianian African American man named Jefferson who is wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Before his death, however, his grandmother employs the Jefferson's old public school teacher, Grant Higgins, to instill a sense of humanity in the Jefferson, who went through a humiliating and dehumanizing criminal trial process. Exiting the Capitol building, I started contemplating why it was that, according to the public school superintendent in the novel, Dr. Morgan, public schools across Louisiana were at the time suffering from state funding shortages, a problem that persists in Louisiana public education to this day. While a lack of funding could certainly be partially explained away by the behavior of the Republican legislator in Louisiana that I spoke of earlier - specifically how Republicans are less likely to raise taxes to invest into public education - I suspect the issue of a lack of public school funding in the state has much deeper roots. I believe this issue stems from longstanding issues found in Louisiana’s economy, problems that prevent the state from increasing taxes and state government spending to better support public schools. However, to prove this theory, I have to dive into a complicated yet important topic: the economics of Louisiana.

The Louisiana State House of Representatives, near empty during midday recess

Before jumping into the investigation of Louisiana's economy, it is important to note that though the story of Ernest Gaines’ “A Lesson Before Dying” took place in the late 1940s, the economy of Lousiana hasn’t changed all that much since the 1940s, as the state still depends on many of the same flawed industries to prop up its economy. So, by investigating Louisiana’s present-day economy, we can also come to understand the economic forces of 1940s Louisiana that forced Grant Higgin’s school, as well as other Louisiana public schools, to grapple with a lack of state funding.

During our stay in Grand Isle, when running along the beach at night, I could look out upon the ocean and see very clearly the lights of offshore oil rigs in the distance. Driving along the Mississippi River, oil refineries - which require vast amounts of water to drive the refining process - are a common sight. And just recently, driving into Lafayette I saw out the window the building occupied by The Petroleum Club of Louisiana. The presence of the oil and petroleum industry is inescapable in The Bayou State. Petroleum refining alone made $95 billion in revenue in Louisiana in 2022, making it the largest industry by revenue in the state. Coming in second place is Louisiana’s oil and gas drilling and extracting sector, pulling in a whopping revenue of $36.9 billion in 2022. And in third place is the Gasoline and Petroleum Bulk Station industry - a sector that stores, sells, and distributes bulk quantities of gas and petroleum to sell to large corporations, state and national governments, and global militaries - which brought in $30.5 billion in revenue. So, the top three industries by revenue in Louisiana are all connected to oil and petroleum extraction, storage, and distribution.

While this reliance on the oil and petroleum sector may not seem all that bad - as the revenue these industries pull in is real money that is capable of sustaining a massive state tax stream - this is in actuality a deadly serious issue. The number one rule of investing that investors aren’t quick to forget is to diversify your assets so that if one investment fails, you have the others still standing to support your portfolio, and this rule applies to states as well. If the petroleum and gas sector in Louisiana were ever to fail - which is certainly always a possibility considering oil and petroleum are finite natural resources that can swiftly vanish as deposits are drained - the state would find itself in economic freefall, losing the large corporate tax revenue stream that it so relies on. The government would be forced to severely curtail government spending, slash state programs, and operate on a highly restricted budget. The Louisiana State Government is likely fully aware of this fact - since they have been relying on the oil and petroleum industry to prop up their economy for decades - and are likely reluctant to increase government spending - which includes public education funding - so that in case the oil and petroleum industry does one day fall they will have to make only small, inconsequential budget cuts rather than massive, crippling cuts. In other words, The State of Louisiana is constantly hedging their bets due to their damaging reliance on the gas and petroleum industry, and average Louisiana citizens are the ones feeling the pain from these precautionary measures.

Along with helping create a political environment of avoidance of increasing state spending, Louisiana’s heavy reliance on the petroleum and oil industry also forces the state to keep corporate tax rates low to avoid backlash from big oil and petroleum companies operating in the state. There are three oil and petroleum companies that hold a near triopoly over the domestic oil and petroleum sector: Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Marathon Petroleum. This dominance of the oil and petroleum industry by a few large corporations is a serious problem for the gas industry-dependent Louisiana. If legislators ever propose to increase taxes on corporations operating within the state, these three behemoths of oil companies can simply threaten to discontinue operating in Louisiana, a move that would tank Louisiana’s oil-dependent economy and force the state to operate on a dangerously tight tax budget. While if Louisiana were dependent on a more robust, competitive industry - think tech, media, or agriculture - the discontinuing of one or a few companies’ operations in the state wouldn’t be such a problem as there would be other organizations from the same sector present to fill in the gaps left by the departing companies. However, by relying on such a consolidated industry, Louisiana has put itself in a truly horrible position. In Louisiana’s current situation, if one of the three large oil and petroleum companies ever decides to shutter operations in the state in protest of increased corporate tax rates, there would be no other large oil corporation to fill in the gap, and Louisiana’s economy would be fully and completely devastated. In Louisiana, big oil holds all the cards, and legislators are left in constant fear of corporate backlash if they ever step out of line, attempting to raise taxes and better fund state programs such as the public school system.

The empty streets of New Orleans’ French Quarter during the Coronavirus pandemic. The outbreak brought the city’s once-thriving tourism industry to a screeching halt.

While oil and petroleum production is by far the largest source of tax revenue for the state of Louisiana, there are other smaller industries worth mentioning that help support both Louisiana’s economy and the government’s tax stream. However, these economic sectors hold faults that just like with the oil and petroleum industry make them poor pillars to base a state economy on. The Louisiana tourism industry, which pulls in an annual revenue of $6.1 billion, is a sector that has rapidly expanded in Louisiana over the past decades as the state - and the city of New Orleans specifically - has fashioned itself as a prime domestic tourist destination. However, profits from tourism dramatically ebb and flow with both national and global developments. In periods of economic downturn and recession, tourism profits take a massive hit as consumers look to cut unnecessary spending, with travel generally being one of the first expenditures to be slashed. Additionally, global events that may restrict or completely shut down travel - such as the COVID-19 pandemic - can tank the tourism industry. In short, tourism is an unpredictable sector, and states such as Louisiana simply cannot rely on this industry to bring in consistent, sustaining tax revenue.

Another smaller sector in Louisiana’s economy worth briefly mentioning is the car sales industry, which in 2022 in Louisiana made $15 billion in revenue. However, this industry falls prey to the same faults as the tourism industry, as when consumers need to get tight with money - as happens during depressions, recessions, and periods of economic downturn - they are less likely to buy a new car. Instead, consumers often opt to stick with the cars they have and simply repair them if they’re having car troubles or rely more heavily on public transportation to get around, two actions that siphon money away from the car sales sector.

Louisiana has never been known as one of the more economically strong and robust states in the Union, and by examining its economy more closely it is easy to see why. The issues present in the state’s economy are in part why Louisiana spends so little on educating its students, with the state spending an average of $12,359 on each student’s K-12 education compared to New York’s $26,605 per-student expenditures. And while one can hope the state will eventually have the funds to solve this issue, the problem will likely only grow worse as currently the state's economy is actually decreasing in size. This year, Louisiana's GDP - which stands for Gross State Product and is a common indicator used to track the health of a state’s economy - actually decreased by –0.5%, putting Louisiana in 47th place nationwide for state GDP growth. After our visit to the Capitol, I returned early the next day to take a stroll around and contemplate the findings of my research, trotting up the grand stairway entrance and into the warmly lit, storied building. Now looking at the politicians strolling in for a morning legislative session, I consider them differently than I at first did, seeing them as individuals stuck between a rock and a hard place fiscally rather than inherently malicious Republicans refusing to invest in public education without any practical justification. Unfortunately, the problem of a lack of public school funding that Grant Higgins and his congregate of students faced in “A Lesson Before Dying” is an issue that Louisiana public school students are and will continue to face in the future, thanks in large part to a state economy that holds nearly insurmountable issues.

Concrete Suffocation

A sliver of sunlight tries to fill the room. The old jail is stuffed with boxes and boxes of archived jail files.

I walked into this small supply closet and was told to “get in.” I looked back at the person who said this command and it was Tami, the deputy that was guiding us through this profoundly deep and heavy experience. After I “got in,” I immediately turned my flashlight on as I was told that all of the lights had gone out in the elevator but not to worry because it would still indeed work. As soon as I squished into the miniscule space that would take us up to the old jail I began to look around. Directly in front of me was a thick iron gate that was once used to separate a convict from law enforcement when they had to use this very elevator that took them to the jails that would hold them until they had paid their debts to society. I could not stop thinking that while Earnest Gaines wrote a fictional story, A Lesson Before Dying, it was based on a true story and there was a sixteen-year-old boy that had the exact same experience I was having. Yet, this boy knew that there was no chance that he would ever see the outside world again. This was his life. 

As soon as the elevator reached the top floor, Tami swung the metal gate open and as soon as we had stepped onto the concrete floor a thud sounded strong enough to ring my ears. A metal door that concealed the elevator had been shut and Tami was on her way down to get the next batch of us. I began to tip-toe around the quarters as I felt that if I was too strong in my stride the floor might give out or I would trigger something to break. I walked into an old cell and looked at my surroundings. The ceiling was cracking and peeling from the intense heat and humidity. The toilets were metal and looked like a diseased chair. The showers were covered in mold and the cell doors were so rusted that you could practically pry them open with your hands. 

Francesca and Andrew look through old archives. The cell bars which were once painted white are now chipping and rusting through because of the unstable heat that covers Louisiana.

These cells had not been updated once in the near hundred years that they have stood here. These grounds have been walked by convicts that spanned over ten decades. The longer I stood in this concrete box, the thinner the air became. It felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me and it left me gasping for a breath. I could not imagine being locked in this cell for a whole day let alone months if not years on end. These were some of the most inhumane conditions one could think of. The light did not even pass through some of these concrete blocks leaving its inhabitants in the dark for days at a time. This was one of the cell’s that young boy, not even a boy but merely a child, was forced to spend his final days. This cell was his whole world. 

After letting the inside of the cells imprint into my mind, I was guided out into the recreational area that inmates were given for 30 minutes a day. I expected something different than what I stepped into. I expected grass, maybe some tables and chairs, possibly athletic equipment. But what I was met with was heat. Heat seeped into my skin as I stepped onto a white roof blocked in by all sides so that no one could see in, or most importantly so that no one could see out. The sun reflected off of the stark white ground and hit you in the face like a frying pan in an old movie. This was seen as a reward to the prisoners, and I couldn’t help but think that this is what hell would be like. I envisioned Jefferson from A Lesson Before Dying being dragged out of a cell, bound by chains and forced to sit in the blazing son as a reward. It is an overwhelming idea to think that a human being can be trained to think of this near hell experience as a reward. 

Kiki stands flipping through files of the archives. This is one of the largest cells in the facility that would hold up to four inmates.

My next stop was the women's cell. I heard Tami over and over again explaining that this was the only cell that had a bathtub as if it was some type of praise for the construction of this cement death wish. As I approached the cell and we all gathered around Tami, we listened to her stories and her knowledge that explained some of the elements around us. Suddenly her words started to blur, my heart sank, and I began to feel queasy. Right above me was the hook, the hook where people stood just like I am today, and awaited to be hoisted into the air, fighting for every last breath until their bodies gave into the rope around their neck and every last ounce of oxygen had been expelled. 

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get over that sight. It was the closest I could get to experiencing an ounce of what Jefferson was feeling all along. The feeling that life was not everlasting and that one day we would all meet our maker. Yet we all hope that when this time comes we are old enough to make peace with the final chapter of our story. We hope and we pray that we are not 16 when the time comes just like this young child was. He was just 16 the day that he walked to the electric chair and held his head high and went out like a man. He met his last chapter with dignity and self worth. This is something that is unfathomable to make peace with and I hope and pray every day that this will never have to happen again. 

The Whole Story

I have spent my time in this sun soaked state, glistened by my sweat and overtaken by my thoughts, and bound to my lens. Not the usual lens that everyone thinks of with two rims that hook onto your ears and make you see the world a little more clear, but the one that hangs right in front of your eye and captures snip-bits of each little moment that you are on Earth. That’s right, a camera lens. It has been 19 days in which I have been on this trip and yet all I have to show for it is a few hundred photos that fill my camera roll, marking days in my lifeline. A photo is just a single representation of what I have witnessed, what I have embraced, and what I have embarked on. Every single photo has a story, it has a history.

This image depicts a gorgeous waterway, lined thoroughly with cypress trees, glistening under the warm sun. What you wouldn’t know is that this water is a swamp and it is filled with hundreds if not thousands of alligators. Each day, large pontoon boats filled with visitors come and grace these waters. The guides stuff the alligators full of marshmallows just so these visitors can get their “perfect picture.” These swamps are lined with history, in little pockets of this straightway are rice plants which were farmed in the 19th century in order to make a profit.

This image depicts Ciena gently climbing an antique staircase that is so graceful and unique. What you wouldn’t know is that these staircases lead to the second floor of an old Pharmacy Museum in the French Quarter. At the top of these stairs were sharp tools and medical instruments that made the difference between life and death in the 19th century. You also wouldn’t have known that Ciena and the rest of the group were just caught in one of New Orleans’ torrential downpours that soaked everyone’s clothing down to the last thread.

This image depicts a group of people standing around an old cabin and exploring its surroundings. What you wouldn’t know is that this cabin is on a plantation. This plantation, called the Whitney Plantation, was home to hundreds of slaves during the early 19th century. In this very cabin over twenty slaves were housed with no running water, no access to food, and no way of escaping the Louisiana heat.

This image depicts several colorful books lining perfectly built bookshelves. What you wouldn’t know is that these books belong to a shop that has been in New Orleans for several decades. One of the most amazing aspects of this bookstore is not actually the books but the people who run it. They are filled with zest and an undying love of learning that just oozes onto their customers. And you wouldn’t even know that once upon a time, William Faulkner called this very place home.

This image depicts a young girl standing on a balcony, smiling. Well, what you wouldn’t know is that girl is me. What you wouldn’t know is that this was the night I stayed in from going out because this entire trip I have been battling severe allergies. This little “self love” photoshoot was in hopes to make myself feel better for being trapped in my room all night. It was a way for me to get some fresh air and feel like I was actually enjoying the city and the short time I have here.

While I have spent a good portion of this trip with my face behind the camera, I have realized after looking at the hundreds of photos I have taken, they do not nearly explain what I have experienced. I could have had thousands, if not millions of photos and yet they would not explain the whole story. A photo does not tell us how someone is feeling, what may have happened before the photo or even after. A photo is truly just one small spec in this never ending universe.

It makes me wonder how many times I have been shown a photo and believed I knew the whole story. How many times I have seen a photo about an event or in the news, and felt as if I knew exactly what was happening. How many reporters, photographers, or community members thought they knew what was happening.

I have realized that most of the time, I will never know the whole story. I will have to rely on others, trust others to help me find my own conclusion. But most of all, I will never assume I have the whole story. I will always respond with an intent to learn and an intent to listen. I know I may never know the whole story, and I am okay with that.