New Orleans is known for being a melting pot of cultures from all across the world. The group that this particular project focused on was the immigrants from Latin America.
Unlike a lot of cities and states where the Latinx demographic is dominated by a single group or two, New Orleans’s Latinx population is ENORMOUSLY diverse. The city is even nicknamed by some communities, ‘The Gateway to the Americas’ for being an entrance point for immigrants and goods from Central and South America.
Initially, Latin Americans began immigrating to New Orleans mainly for work, seeking out opportunities that were unavailable in their homelands. After Katrina in 2005, thousands of Latino workers immigrated to New Orleans to assist in the rebuilding process. The Gulf Coast Latin American Association calculated that roughly 30,000 people arrived in the week after the storm. The city’s Latinx population was already at 50,000 (from a 2000 census). It was such a gargantuan number because several laborers were bringing their families with them, versus previous years where it was normally single men or married men who sent their earnings home to their families. While newly immigrated laborers worked hard at restoration of the city after Katrina, there popped up ‘burrito wagons’ to keep them well-fed. It wasn’t reserved strictly for workers, either. Any passersby who were enticed could grab a bite. There was a decree passed by the city’s parish that banned street food vending, but it was unsuccessful (thank goodness). Today, there are over ninety Latin restaurants in New Orleans.
Latin Americans arrived in the US when Jim Crow was still in place. In spite of being a mixture of races (namely European, African, and Indigenous, with differing ratios for regions and families), they were largely deemed to be ‘white,’ though keep in mind that this could be subjective due to the wide range of melanin in Latinx skin. American society struggled with what precisely defined ‘white’ when it came to Latin Americans. New Orleans was, for the most part, fairly relaxed when it came to treatment of Latinx immigrants. Intermarriage was not contested and immigrant children were allowed to attend private schools.
Latin Americans also had an enormous impact on the development of New Orleans rhythm and blues genre. A school of blues pianists witnessed a group of Cuban street musicians and decided to incorporate their sound into blues music, thus creating rhythm and blues.
Latin Americans have contributed to the United States as a whole, but New Orleans remains one of the starring entry points for these immigrants and their gateway into a new life.
Sources:
Nicaraguan/Honduran initial immigration: https://jsri.loyno.edu/latino-immigration-new-orleans?q=latino-immigration-new-orleans
https://jsri.loyno.edu/sites/loyno.edu.jsri/files/LatinoImmigrationinNewOrleans-Spring2010jsq.pdf
Hurricane Katrina influx and demographics: https://stonecenter.tulane.edu/articles/detail/292/A-Latin-Americanists-Guide-to-New-Orleans
https://www.vianolavie.org/2017/08/14/honduran-community/
Music history, Jim Crow era, and second/third wave immigration: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24396378?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2158&context=td
Food: https://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Articles_Essays/latinos.htm