migration

See an American town that’s about to be completely lost to climate change.

The Jean Charles band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw lived in the same place for more than 200 years. But now it’s almost entirely washed away.

By the middle of the 20th century, there were nearly 400 people living on the island. At that point, the land was 11 miles long and five miles wide — providing this Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe with 55 square miles of lush, open land on which to hunt, farm, and thrive.

But all that’s left today is a half square mile of marshland — two miles long and a quarter-mile wide — with two dozen families struggling to survive. The island’s remaining residents still speak their own colloquial French-Cajun dialect and work as fishermen, oystermen, and fur trappers to survive. But ecological damage has made that work hard to come by too.

 

The American Scholar: Local Fare

Here is a piece in The American Scholar from a New Orleans writer on the argument over what constitutes local when it coms to restaurant fare. I do think his “gated community” comment seems misplaced and overwrought, since the French Quarter remains the most dynamic and constantly evolving neighborhoods in town. However, his suggestion that we need to maintain some perspective is apt:

…But when you take the long view, that alarm may be misplaced. After all, much of the city’s most beloved fare today resulted from an invasion followed by hybridization. New Orleans loves to talk about food, and after considerable argument, many newcomer dishes are eventually given a seat at the table. Restaurants that serve “red gravy,” like Pascal Manale’s and Mandina’s, are artifacts of a Sicilian influx in the latter half of the 19th century. What’s today considered classic Cajun (itself imported from western Louisiana) emerged when African fare favored by slaves met Acadian French. Even the city’s vaunted Creole dishes emerged out of a cultural meeting ground once populated by French, Spanish, Caribbean islanders, Africans and their descendants, and Native Americans.

Clearly, what we mean by local is elastic and that elasticity is a big part of what confuses the eaters who don’t read the blogs or follow producers by name on social media or talk regularly with them at markets. That confusions seems magnified as an active value in the restaurant field, so describing what is indigenous/native versus what is inspired by the cultural mores of the place seems to need better words to describe the steps in the chain. Maybe market organizations can write some grants to create a “brand” that can be shared by those restaurants that truly support local producers and harvesters and help to define what it means to be serving local fare versus locally sourced.
The American Scholar: Local Fare – Wayne Curtis.

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artwork to illuminate

With farmers market organizing, dozens of issues need to be considered. Human needs are first and foremost. Since 2001 undocumented students in the United States have been organizing, advocating, fighting, coming out of the shadows and sharing their testimonies in order to legalize their status. Migration Now! is a portfolio of handmade prints addressing migrant issues from Justseeds and Culture Strike.

http://migrationnow.com/migr

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