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.

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)

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. 

When was the Last Time You Watched the Sunset?

When Was The Last Time You
Watched The Sunset?

Sitting on the porch listening to the waves crash, as Edna did in The Awakening by Kate Chopin, I genuinely couldn’t answer that question. Doing so would require slowing down just enough to catch the beauty in life before getting pulled away by the busyness of it. It would require staying in one place for an extended period of time. And your return on that invested time would be the simple joy of those few seconds when the sun meets the water. You have to train your brain to take the much needed time to do as you please and relax. It is definitely easier said than done, especially as a student-athlete post-finals. But resting is something that Edna is quite great at and taught me by example.

She didn’t need to be productive or even have a reason to become “overtaken” by sleep. So I naturally followed her lead and interpreted her actions as the permission I needed, yet rarely granted myself, to rest. I vividly remember taking the types of naps on the beach, that when you wake up, you forget where you are for a moment. My experience was similar to one of my favorite Edna moments with Robert. Edna asks, “How many years have I slept? The whole island seems changed … And when did our people from Grand Isle disappear from the Earth? (Chopin 32)”. Although she jokes with Robert in this instance, Edna tends to use rest as a form of resistance and the location in which she makes her boldest stances are at Grand Isle.

As a Redondo Beach native, I was always curious why I left the beach after watching the waves crash with such an innate sense of peace and power. My thoughts would drift and my problems would shift each visit, but I knew I would leave the beach with some type of clarity on the matter. Swinging on the porch bench reading Chopin, these feelings came up more often than not. But for the life of me, I could never put my finger on why these feelings of centeredness, yet strong conviction washed over me after my beach visits. It wasn’t until our seminar discussing the word liminal did I begin to understand my conundrum. My working definition of liminal post-seminar is the space between one thing ending and another beginning: symbolizing the edge of spiritual power and possibility.

Resting in the same setting as Edna, I quite literally tried my best to put my feet in her shoes as I walked along the sand of Grand Isle. I wonder if she reached the edge of this liminal space and felt the same sense of power and possibility. Consequently, I also wonder once she reached this awakened state of mind, how difficult it was to forcibly shift away from the peace and power Grand Isle offered her. At Grand Isle we learn that she combats the “habit” of “unthinkingly” going “through the daily treadmill of the life which has been portioned out to us”. We see this when she comes back from the beach to use rest as resistance. Her husband finds her in the hammock late at night and requests that she go inside the cottage, but she refuses.

“I simply felt like going out, and I went out”

— Kate Chopin

Edna desires this same agency when she expresses, “I simply felt like going out, and I went out”. However, it does not translate well past Grand Isle. She continues to defy her husband and has little time for pleasantries and conversation with him. But even after buying her pigeon house, “having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual”, she still feels like a “lost soul” at other’s mercy. This is because societal norms weigh heavier outside of Grand Isle versus under the public eye where people work as if they were a “machine”. The same type of autonomy Edna enjoyed on the beach is regarded as childlike behavior amongst her friends in the city. For Edna to have things her own way, she would “have to trample upon the lives, the hearts, and the prejudices of others”. I even noticed that she rests less in the city and ultimately stops resisting at all. I think the constant restlessness she faced contributed to her suicide at the beach as well as continuously being at the mercy of the men in her life. She laughs in response to Robert, her true love, when he speaks of whether Leonce would allow him to become hers. She feels as though only she has the power and control to determine who she belongs to, which will be highly unlikely in her lifetime. All things considered, this is why I believe she turned to the mercy of Grand Isle, the only place that offered her peace and power. If she must be at the mercy of something, it might as well be “the mercy of the sun, the breeze that beat upon her, and the waves that invited her”.

Thinking about my time at Grand Isle, I’m most appreciative of the rest Edna showed me which I cherished all over Grand Isle. I found rest on the beaches and the reclining chairs. I found it cutting up watermelon and sharing the slices amongst newfound friends on the porch swing. I found it in the relaxed multiple course meal we had at the Starfish restaurant. But most importantly, I found it listening to the waves crash while watching the sunset. And I hope we can all slow down just enough to catch more glimpses of this kind of beauty. So the next time someone asks, “When was the last time you watched the sunset?”… you’ll know.

Queue “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles