As the first anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster approaches, UMass Boston faculty and staff are conducting research that examines Katrina’s long-standing impact on the lives of people from the Gulf Coast states.
Women Surviving Alone in Katrina’s Wake Professor Jean Rhodes, Psychology University of Massachusetts Boston
Poor, single women of color experience the worst outcomes in the wake of natural disasters, research shows. Psychologist Jean Rhodes is part of a team probing the ravaging effects of Hurricane Katrina on 500 low-income parents from New Orleans—a group made largely of single, African American women. Rhodes’ investigation centers on how these parents—some in New Orleans, others still displaced—have coped with the effects of Katrina. The study, being conducted with researchers from Princeton and Harvard, is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation.
“Psychological distress, depression, substance abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorders have serious, long-lasting consequences in the lives of women and their children,” Rhodes says. “The significant challenge for these women is to re-establish social networks, employment relationships, and educational programs that can make their communities and their lives whole once again.”
Katrina One-Year Later: The Answers Are Still Unacceptable Professor Barbara Lewis, director, Wm. Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture, University of Massachusetts Boston
With three-quarters of pre-Katrina New Orleans residents still unable to return to the devastated city, Professor Lewis asks the questions: would that be tolerated in Boston, Los Angeles, or New York? Would the rest of the nation see that as acceptable? The director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture answers emphatically: no.
“Is the devastated condition of New Orleans today directly related to issues of race and class? I would say absolutely yes,” Lewis says. “We are again looking at two Americas here—one that is taken care of and one that is neglected. What I want is to get to new ground while being clear about the impact of the past. There are still lessons from Katrina that we need to explore.” A UMass Boston symposium, to be held on September 25 and 26, will look at Boston’s response to Katrina and the lessons from the 1927 flood of the Mississippi Delta.
Refugee Realities and Rebuilding: Vietnamese Communities of the Gulf Coast Professor Peter Kiang, director, Asian American Studies Program University of Massachusetts Boston
Professor Kiang led a group of Asian American Studies students to the Gulf Coast two months after Katrina struck to use their bilingual/bicultural research skills in New Orleans, Biloxi, and Bayou La Batre where they gathered stories and images from the Vietnamese residents—a community largely unrecognized by the mainstream relief efforts. The students captured in words and pictures the devastation wrought on this rarely seen part of the Gulf Coast's social fabric.
“Our students met with people who run small businesses, subsist as shrimpers, and have accumulated very little wealth. Critics railed the use of the word ‘refugee’ to describe those displaced by Katrina, but there were refugee populations in the region forcibly displaced as they had been 25 years earlier in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. The resilience and survival skills of these Gulf Coast Vietnamese refugee communities have enabled rebuilding to go forward in ways that we are trying to learn from now.”
