The flooding of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina on August 30 revealed several fissures in local, state, and national strategies for emergency preparedness and disaster relief. Geographically, the hardest hit areas were those inhabited by socioeconomically marginalized communities; these also were the areas that had restricted access to communications about evacuation, the extent of the flooding, and evacuation procedures. The Katrina disaster serves as a wake-up call and reveals how racial inequality and economic disparities are still a societal reality. There is an urgent need to analyze the spatial, socioeconomic, and psychological consequences of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath on the most vulnerable segments of our society: those who are economically marginalized, racially marked, spatially segregated, and/or linguistically isolated.
The interdisciplinary team consists of geographers, Asian- and African-Americanists, Vietnamese language specialists, a nursing scientist, sociologist, and historian with complementary analytical and language skills. The study area is located in the easternmost sections of New Orleans residential subdivisions that have an almost equal distribution of Vietnamese Americans and African Americans.
The research will address: (1) The pre-Katrina socio-spatial configuration of the Vietnamese American and African American communities in the study area, and what damage Katrina caused to these communities. (2) Whether previous experiences of involuntary geographic displacement of evacuees, especially among Vietnamese Americans, as well as gender, cultural, linguistic, legal status, geographic, and socioeconomic differences affect their perceptions of risk and uncertainty, access to emergency relief services. Also, it will examine which similarities and differences exist between the two communities in how each community negotiates evacuation and access to emergency relief services, relocation assistance and rebuilding funds through existing racial/ethnic and/or faith-based community networks, as well as their adaptation to temporary or permanent resettlement of their community and business rebuilding efforts in New Orleans. (3) The similarities and differences in physical and psychological vulnerability between the two groups of interests after the disaster and what are the critical factors contributing to their physical and psychological outcomes.
This study will evaluate the mental and organizational decision-making process by the two study groups in the face of uncertainty and produce policy recommendations to better serve the needs of such communities during the recovery period and better prepare for similar disasters in future.
