Environmental Racism in Coastal Louisiana & Native American Removal in the 21st Century

Presenter(s)

Jade Pita

Faculty Research Mentor

Michael Sanders

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Zoom Q&A Link

Acknowledgments

Professor Robin McDowell

Abstract or Description

The sociological scope of this research paper will explore the experiences of the Pointe-aux-Chenes, a Native American tribe, after the landfall of Hurricane Ida, a Category 4 storm, in August 2021. Located on the Bayou Point-aux-Chenes, this community was absolutely devastated by the storm. Out of 80 residences, only 12 of the tribe’s homes remain habitable. Unrecognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, this ransacked community does not receive relief from federal aid programs such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Due to coastal biomass reduction, the paper will discuss the tribe’s growing vulnerability to the impacts of tropical storms. With intensifying environmental degradation, the paper will analyze the government’s contribution to the coast’s land loss crisis through its support of two harmful industries: oil drilling and commercial fishing tourism. Through loosened environmental protections and deregulated tourism development, the paper makes claims surrounding the government’s active role in marginalizing the Pointe-aux-Chenes community. The administrative exploitation of this tribal community through natural processes qualifies this as a case of environmental racism, where communities experience discrimination through their environment. The natural deterioration of the area has brought about inhospitable conditions, prompting residential relocation. Due to this dislocation, the systematic negligence of the Pointe-aux-Chenes land is arguably a continuation of the Native American removal experienced by the community’s ancestors under President Andrew Jackson’s uprooting policies of the 1830s. Overall, this paper will explore the intersections between racial and administrative power dynamics in relation to environmental processes through a case study of the Pointe-aux-Chenes community post Hurricane Ida.

Comments

Michael Sanders3 years ago

Thank you, Jade. This is powerful and important work. I am reminded of Japanese forced relocation and incarceration after Executive Order 9066 in the 1940s, in particular because such an instance of structural racism ultimately led to reparations for the Japanese American population via the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 and its Amendment in 1992. While many dissimilarities are obviously important here, I think that, legally, pushing for some potential overlap may prove productive. As nations like Canada have recently approved similar measures for the payment of reparations to indigenous children who were part of the genocidal Canadian residential school program for indigenous peoples (a program with deep ties to the Native American boarding school system in the United States, for which Congress offered merely a formal apology in S.J.Res.14 (2009)), I wonder to what extent you think the Pointe-aux-Chenes--whose "double dismissal" by FEMA and BIA reminds me of the catch-22 double denial expected of the Japanese American No-No Boys--have a serious case to be made for reparations from the federal government, and how they might go about seeking that, or at least some, measure of legal justice.

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