Personal Narrative: New Orleans

Imagine just coming back from evacuation to your house looking great on the outside but when you walk in it is a horror. When hurricane Katrina was on her way here, my family and I evacuated to Chattanooga, Tennessee, which only took about a good eight hours, but with traffic it took about twelve. Once we were cleared to go home we came back, which thankfully only took about ten hours. I will be writing about how after Katrina my family and I had to stay in one house for about a week and a half.

I was fortunate enough to participate on a mission trip to New Orleans, just a year after Hurricane Katrina occurred. It was a horrific sight, all those people in such grief, and fear in their eyes. A desire was instilled in my heart to help those affected by such tragedies. I will never forget one of the nights there, my church group visited a small church that had just finished being rebuilt. They had lost everything in the storm, some even lost family members. I noticed an elderly woman sitting alone in the back pew, I walked up to her and asked if I could pray about anything for her. But she told me to sit down and listen. “I lost everything in this horrific storm, my house, car and all of my family. But I have my church back and that is enough for me. I thank God for allowing me to be alive, I am one of the lucky ones.

Hot and humid weather, hurricanes, Mississippi river, jazz, delicious food, famous vacation place, and relatively high proportion of black people. These are all that I’d heard about New Orleans before I came to this city. A month has passed since I arrived to New Orleans, and I experienced more than I’d knew. But still, although I was aware of the fact that what I had experienced until now are not everything about New Orleans, I was surprised when I learned about the new aspects of New Orleans through the service work, class, and the lecture of guest speaker.

With Dave still missing and the creature running around our camp we decided to stay up, like before the creature came to our camp this time when we went outside to see it did not run it just stood there holding something in its huge hairy hand, it was Dave , we saw that he was dead and we all ran to our car, but the creature was too fast and strong. On our way to the car one of my friends were thrown up in the air, I was too scared to go back and see if he was ok. Up ahead there was a cliff the remaining three jump or die from this creature, we jumped in mid air the creature caught my friend who jumped to the left of me. When we landed we ended up breaking our leg, but we saw the car so we didn't even feel the pain, we got in the car and drove off to the hospital and told the police what had happened, to our surprise they didn’t believe

August 18, 1984, what a gorgeous night to be floating down the bayou of New Orleans. I recently payed my dues for the brand-new boat I purchased three months ago. Working at Sally’s Diner picking up plates of wasted food and wiping the faces of ice cream-loving children is a spine breaking and feet swelling kind of living. Admittedly, I love being the ‘sweet old lady’ everybody gives warm kisses to on the cheek and waves hello and goodbye as the doorbell jingles, but I shouldn’t be waiting tables eight hours a day at age 67.

Ever since I was able to write, I documented my everyday encounters. My journal expanded alongside my writing skills. However it was until college that my true passion for storytelling unfolded. My freshman year, I declared my major in journalism. I craved getting out of the college bubble and actually going into the community. Listening to stories about people within the community excited me, and I thrived off being able to rely this new information back to the public, especially people within the college bubble. This past year I was able to publish some stories about volleyball and softball games in Ole Miss’s newspaper, The Daily Mississippian. Currently I am a member of the Native American Journalist Association, working on a project about

I always adored the way people of New Orleans admire their city and I never thought I would get the chance to experience it for myself. My family hadn’t taken a trip in a few years, and we really needed a break. My dad and I were brainstorming places to visit and I had always thought it would be amazing to see everything New Orleans has to offer. My dad was a little on the fence about it though, he thought there wouldn’t be much to do as a family since the city is widely known for Bourbon Street which is filled with bars, and Mardi Gras. Once I showed him all the family friendly activities the city has he finally agreed.

My brother, my mom, his friend, and I was going to a Vacation for the weekend, driving to San Diego. We've admire and took picture of the sun setting the ocean with the rippling flow and could hear the noise of the ocean fresh breezes, when we got the hotel we was all tired, but we had to get registered a room to go to sleep in. The next day my mom , my brother, and his friend went somewhere without me, selling puppy's to two people. When I waked up and notice that they was gone, I called my mom and said," Mom where are you guys, and long has it been since you guys left," she said, " three hours, and selling the puppy's right now, but it will take a while when come back, so get ready to go get something to eat, ok," ok," I said. when I was

There once was a young women named Andromeda. She resided in the land she had grown up in alone and without family. She was a fair hunter and loved exploring. Her favorite place to wander was along the cliffs that lined the ocean. She would sit and watch as boats came and went and families ran along the beach down below enjoying their days. One day while Andromeda was sitting on her favorite rock on the edge of the highest cliff she seen movement way out in the deep part of the ocean. It did not move like normal objects out in the water. It had a way of just gliding in and out of the waves and even going under every once in awhile. It was huge though, larger than any creature she had seen out in the ocean. She sat there, curious as the object got closer and closer. Soon, as she noticed that it was indeed a rather large creature she heard screams from below and the families scatter and take off. As they began to run the creature rose out of the ocean, long and lanky with a massive mouth and sharp teeth. Andromeda leaped to her feet and as she stood up noticed a section of the rocks she had been sitting on wiggle. With the running of people below the monster had picked up speed and now was

From what I can remember my life began in Houston. I was born in Charleston, West Virginia, but moved to Houston before I turned two. I have an older brother and an older sister. I grew up in the Clear Lake area, and stayed there until I finished high school. My family is Catholic, so my parents raised me to be a person that follows the rules and tries to adhere to a moral code. While living in Houston there were relatively strict rules when I was younger that have since faded away. For example, they used to limit drinking pop by only the family drink it on Fridays and Saturdays, and we were only allowed to drink three cans each day. Although they had pretty clear ideas on how we should act, there was not much open communication about politics.

In the video “Remembering Hurricane Katrina 10 Years Later: Voices from the Storm”, the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina are discussed. Hurricane Katrina led to the deaths of many people and even more people was displaced. While the damage was initially caused by the storm, even more damage was caused by the government failing to act. People were told to evacuate, but those without the means to evacuate such as the very old, very young, and the poor were unable to mobilize the resources to get out of the city. In the video, you can see women holding children who talk about how little help they have received from the government. In another portion of the video, you can see food and water being locked away from the people who need it most. Many people were very frustrated with the government’s

Living in New Orleans for over 6 years the effects of health disparities lied at the heart of my community.

The history of the Vietnamese population in the United States is one of hardship, second chances, and an overwhelming sense of history and community. In the case of New Orleans, both in their journey to the American South and in the face of Hurricane Katrina, Vietnamese immigrants have been unquestionably resilient and improbably successful. After the storm, much of the national attention on the city was focused on the relationship between black and white. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese who had settled here were quietly returning and rebuilding. Although a relatively new immigrant community, the Vietnamese population has embodied the diversity and toughness that defines New Orleans while undertaking what one could consider the quintessential pursuit

Ten years ago on the Saturday before Hurricane Katrina, I was a five year who had just started a new school and was looking forward to my Saturday morning cartoons. When I woke up on that Saturday morning; however, I quickly found out that watching Saturday morning cartoons was not going to be on the agenda for the day. My parents were running around frantically trying to board our house and get everything from outside picked up. I later found out that we would be packing the car and my dad, mom, six month old baby sister and I would be traveling to Houston, Texas. Before leaving New Orleans for what we thought would be a weekend getaway, my mom searched and searched for a hotel room for us to go stay in. She finally made a reservation in Houston via

"Quarter Million? Doubt it. Though this room looks nice, I'd say this is a typical loft in New Orleans. Far less than that I'd imagine. But I hope you realize we can't stay here the whole night. This is the home to a single chick and she's most likely out partying tonight and she'll be home before the sun comes up."