Changing Tides Pt. 1: How the Spill is Re-Shaping Local Communities

Standing in a field not far from the bayou, our group stared out at acres of land affected by the oil spill. We were in a neighborhood outside of New Orleans called Versailles; a community of eight to ten thousand located twenty minutes east of downtown.  Only a square-mile in size, the community is tight-knit.  While this neighborhood is physically removed from the oil creeping onto beaches along the coastline the effects of the spill have managed to seep into the local community. The crabgrass in the field was still green and there were no pools of viscous petrol or wallowing tarred birds – the symbols the media associates with this disaster.  “Normally there would be soccer games or other community activities going on out here” said Hoang Hoang motioning out to the fields and parking lots which stand empty.  

Hoang is an active member of the Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association of New Orleans (VAYLA-NO), a local youth group that focuses on social and environmental justice through youth empowerment.  Since the BP disaster, community activities have decreased according to Hoang, “We are now too busy working on other things” he said, “and the money and attention have turned from the normal things we do.” His sentiments echoed those of John from the Lower 9th Ward, who has witnessed the funding and interest in local bayou restoration wither in the past months.

Hoang and the other members of VAYLA-NO have indeed been busy since the spill.  Versailles is a predominantly Vietnamese community and many of its members are involved in the fishing industry.  Many of the men work in the shrimping business on their own boats and the business sector rests upon restaurants that rely on accessible and desirable seafood.  When fishing grounds were closed down by the federal government a few weeks after the oil began spewing in late April these jobs and this economy came to a halt. The families that relied on them began the confusing process of filing claims with BP to get reparations. 

One of the greatest difficulties these families faced was a language barrier imposed by the reparations process. At the beginning of the process forms were released only in English, disadvantaging first and second generation families from Vietnam who may not have a strong grasp of the language. The youth at VAYLA-NO have been working in conjunction with two other community non-profits, VIET and CDC, to help translate these claim forms for their parents and other community members.  From the beginning there have been problems with getting these forms translated not only into enough languages but also enough dialects for the intricacies of the legal documents to be fully understood by the claimants.   The member of the Department of Homeland Security who spoke with our group acknowledged this as a problem and said that it is an ongoing process.  For families in need of immediate financial support to get by, the government response has been too slow and communities like Versailles have relied on local groups like VAYLA-NO to ensure the security of their way of life.