The Soul of New Orleans

It's pretty much the best place on earth.  Everyone says, “hey, how you doing?” to you when you walk by.  There’s a second line for any occasion, happy, sad, good or bad.  Drinking at noon is perfectly acceptable, if not encouraged.  Randomly, the water is cut off because it's deemed undrinkable, so no one goes to work, and everyone just drinks beer instead.  It's almost never cold.  Almost.  But when it's hot, it's damn hot.  But it's okay because you're the weird one only if you're not sweating.  And no one really cares that you’re sweaty, anyway.  Laissez les bon temps rouler pretty much rules the day.  Everyone loves life, some love life a little too much.  Dressing up like a ninja turtle just because it's Tuesday is fine.  I've done it.

New Orleans has soul. Living here is to never want to leave.  But, while the city brings so much joy, she’ll break your heart if you let her.  She’ll bring you to your knees.  Homelessness, joblessness, substance abuse and a broken public school system are blanket terms that don’t even begin to describe this city’s scars.  

The United States incarcerates a greater amount of its citizens than any other country in the world.  Of all fifty states, Louisiana is the Queen of lock-up.  The city with the highest percentage of its population behind bars in this great state, now that’s New Orleans.  

And yet, you can’t help but love it here.  Despite the pain, the corruption, the gut-wrenching sadness, there is hope.  The people of New Orleans are filled with the stuff.  That’s what will keep you here; defending children, defending the poor, defending New Orleans.  

Stephanie Poucher 

January 2nd, 2014: Volunteering with the NO/AIDS Task Force

Today was my second day volunteering within the legal department of NO/AIDS Task Force. NO/AIDS is an organization, which provides a variety of essential services to people with HIV/AIDS. The services they provide includes meal delivery to clients who are unable to obtain food on their own, as well as counseling and anonymous HIV testing. I worked in the legal department of NO/AIDS, which offers a variety of legal services to people living with HIV/ AIDS. Several issues the firm encounters includes cases dealing with discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS, helping clients prepare wills and trusts, as well as providing affidavits to clients to allow them to receive public assistance. 

Today I researched and drafted a memo regarding the procedures for filing a complaint using a pseudonym in the Eastern District of Louisiana. It is important that client’s information remains private when they file claims in court. I also conducted client intakes. The majority of the clients needed assistance renewing their Affidavits, which allow them to receive public benefits. I was first trained on the intake process. I reviewed the forms the firm uses to document client information with an attorney and a paralegal.

 After I sat in as an attorney conducted a client interview, I completed the process with another legal intern. It was a great experience to help clients complete essential legal documents that will allow them to obtain public assistance.  During these interviews, clients shared their hardships and experiences. It was rewarding to feel that I was having a direct impact in their life. The population, which NO/AIDS serves, is one that has commonly been overlooked and is in so much need of assistance. The clients appreciated the aid, and the attorneys and staff were a pleasure to work with. 

Raziya Brumfield

January 2nd, 2014: The Right to Live Where You Choose!

Today I worked in the office of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center (GNOFHAC), which is a non-profit, civil rights organization fighting housing discrimination in New Orleans.  I was finishing up research on the issue of relevant evidence in claims of racial discrimination under the Fair Housing Act, but the more cases I researched, the more disheartened I became.  I wondered if the dates of these cases were correct...could they really be from as late as 2002, 2008, and 2012?  Surely I was reading about situations that were decades old.  Unfortunately, at the conclusion of my memorandum, it was clear that severe and overt fair housing violations were present all over the country.

The stories that came from the GNOFHAC attorneys and from my legal research revealed instances of tenants being denied the opportunity to rent or buy property because of their race, property evictions due to the race of the tenant or of the guests they choose to entertain, or racially-charged insults meant to harass or intimidate.  I knew that racial discrimination currently took place, but I was surprised at the amount of obvious and open displays of racial intolerance, ignorance, and hatred.

The ray of hope came as I began to think about the mission of GNOFHAC and the work that the staff does.  They not only believe in eradicating unfair housing practices in rental, sales, lending, and insurance because it is illegal but also because discrimination “perpetuates poverty, segregation, ignorance, fear and hatred”.  GNOFHAC not only works in enforcement, with clients who face discrimination, but also in the education adults and children, in order to help them understand the importance of being able to live where you choose and to understand what discrimination is and the damage that it causes.  With fair housing attorneys, counselors, and staff members at GNOFHAC and all over the country working together to end discriminatory housing practices, maybe a law student, years from now, when given a research assignment on racial discrimination and fair housing, will pleasantly discover that the relevant cases are indeed decades old.  I am empowered by thoughts of the future.

Safiya Hamit

 

January 1st, 2014: Tour of the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans

The Orphan Tattoo

The Lower Ninth Ward Still Waits To Be A Home Once Again

I am finding the history of the St. Vincent’s Guest House, our lodging for the Alternative Winter Break week, to be particularly fitting after our day in the Lower Ninth Ward.  The Guest House originally served as an Orphan Asylum starting in the 1860s, a home for children particularly necessary in yellow fever-stricken New Orleans.  The orphanage was in service until the 1970s, and then was repurposed as the Guest House in 1994.

In many ways the walking tour of the Lower Ninth Ward revealed an orphaned community, ever increasingly abandoned by a city, state, and country that move ever further away from Hurricane Katrina.  The Lower Ninth Ward cannot move from the path of Katrina, because the entire community is still so bound by it.

In the search and rescue efforts, then recovery efforts, various groups applied coded spray painted Xs to mark houses according to the Urban Search & Rescue Task Force manuals.  The “X-codes” or “Katrina Crosses” are lasting marks of the many legacies of the storm.  The cold marks noting death and destruction serve also as reminders of the government’s intervention as a critical element of the legacy that leaves the Lower Ninth Ward in a state of disaster recovery.  I was told that the Xs remain on many homes now again inhabited because the spray paint cannot be easily removed, covered, or otherwise erased.  Because of the nature of spray paint, scrubbing, painting, or sanding often fails to remove these tattoos of the storm that remain on many homes and the dilapidated structures left behind by those many who may never return.

As our tour wound through residential streets of the Lower Ninth Ward, I could not help but see the area as an aging orphan left hoping for a family placement, but ever increasingly concerned that such may never come.  The longer the wait, the less likely.  As time goes by, the anxiety of what will happen only seems to worsen.

Now over seven years removed from the wall of water that consumed his town, beyond the obvious blight and stark poverty, as the community ages beyond the storm, the waning opportunity to resurrect the Lower Ninth Ward obviously weighs on community organizer Ward “Mack” McClendon.  Mack sees and hears so many different concerns from those who come through the Lower Ninth Ward Village community center that he directs, that he can hardly hold one problem in his head before moving to another. 

Mack’s tour was as much a desperate plea for attention by the abandoned, as it was about any specific way to offer help.  One is left to wonder if the Lower Ninth Ward will ever be able to remove its orphan tattoo and again support a community that so anxiously wants to feel at home again.

Daniel Clark 

December 31st 2013: Volunteering with the St. Bernard Project

Today was a construction day for most of us. After spending all day yesterday sitting in the CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates for children) office staring at a computer screen and reading cases about child abuse, it was nice to get out of the office and into the field for hands on work. Office legal work is important, but there are some very beneficial things about working in a construction setting that apply to being a lawyer. First, there is attention to detail and patience. Painting trims, cutting plywood, sanding walls, etc. Make one mistake and you may have to restart from scratch. If you’re not paying attention and mess up a cut or paint on brick, it can cost you significant time and money. Second, not only do you build something that’s material, you’re also team building. When you’re working with a large group of people, time spent together laughing, problem solving, and completing a project allows colleagues and friends to bond and become a family. Last, construction can be very therapeutic for your soul. My favorite project was removing a tile flooring from the patio. To do this we used a crowbar and a hammer to slowly remove the tiles. The life of a law student and life in general can be frustrating and tense, but taking my aggression out on a tile with a hammer is satisfying in a way I can’t explain. Attention to detail, teamwork, and finding a way to relieve stress are importation traits to any future lawyer.

 Elizabeth Dukette

December 31st, 2013: Volunteering with St. Bernard Project

Today we worked on rebuilding a house in New Orleans East with the St. Bernard Project. It was a most rewarding experience for me because I grew up a couple blocks away.  New Orleans East is at times a neglected part of the city of New Orleans and has been struggling for a time to return to its original luster ever since Hurricane Katrina. Driving through the neighborhood many houses are still boarded and blighted property is still high. Today we helped paint and prep the interior and exterior of a house on Crowmley street being put on the market for first time homebuyers of the city.

We first met with the field officer of the St. Bernard Project, which is a nonprofit focused on disaster rebuilding, and affordable housing throughout the city. After a brief introduction and icebreaker, we got to work. We were divided into two groups. One group worked in the garage sanding down spackle on the walls of the garage while the other group paints the siding outside.

After we each finished our tasks we broke for a late lunch as an end to the day. Being back in New Orleans East brought back many great childhood memories as well as memories of riding my bike along the canal, walking to church with my grandmother, and stopping for snowballs after school. It was a bittersweet experience because it also reminded me of how much more the city has to go.

Kristine Mbadugha

Alternative Spring Break 2013: LGBT Rights in El Salvador

Blog Post By: +Brandon Roman
Student Team: +Arli Christian, Anne Schaufele, +Ernesto Rodriguez, +Brandon Roman
Faculty Advisor: +Ali Beydoun

As both a gay and a Latino male, I knew I had to participate in the Alternative Spring Break trip to support LGBT rights in El Salvador.  Having been here for nearly a week now, this trip has been a meaningful and impactful experience for me and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to participate.

Our team with Ana Montano, Director of ALDES,
in front of the United Nations in San Salvador.

Our group of four students and a faculty advisor arrived on Saturday morning and have been actively involved in our efforts to support ALDES – Assistencia Legal para la Diversidad Sexual en El Salvador (Legal Support for Sexual Diversity in El Salvador).  ALDES’s main project during our trip is a two-day conference hosted at la Universidad Centroamericana (Central American University): Felicidad y la Diversidad Sexual como Derechos Humanos.  The conference is intended to educate people on the current situation for the LGBT community in El Salvador.  In our efforts to help ALDES with this conference, we were tasked with helping them determine how to continue their advocacy going forward.

In our efforts to learn more about the situation for the LGBT community in El Salvador we arranged various meetings with government officials and community leaders to gather information.  I was somewhat surprised (and very pleased) at how willing people were to meet with us and have a frank discussion about LGBT rights in El Salvador. 


At the Institute of Human Rights at Central American University

During the week we met with two members of the United Nations Development Program in El Salvador, as well as members of USAID El Salvador and the State Department in San Salvador.  To compliment our discussions at the U.N. and the U.S. Embassy, we also met with the Director of the Office of Sexual Diversity within the Department of Social Inclusion for El Salvador to gain a perspective on what those officials within El Salvador’s government had to say about LGBT rights.  Although the meetings with those outside organizations struck somewhat of a different tone than the meeting with members of El Salvador’s government, all of these meetings seemed to have a common theme: although there is much work to do, there is hope for a positive and lasting change with regard to LGBT rights in El Salvador.  How to achieve that change is still widely debated.

We also had the unique opportunity to meet with Dr. Fortin Magaña, the Director of el Instituto de Medicina Legal (the Institute of Legal Medicine).  Dr. Magaña was only recently reinstated after having been ousted by the government for releasing statistics that contradicted with government statistics related to the number of killings taking place, the cause of death of those who were killed, etc.  During this meeting, not only did Dr. Magaña provide us with access to the Institute’s head statistician, but he also took us on a tour of their facilities, including the forensic lab, the morgue, and the office of missing persons.  

After completing this preliminary research, we have the foundation necessary to begin compiling our ideas as to how to help ALDES best move forward with its advocacy efforts.  What started off as simply researching how El Salvador’s transparency law could be used to positively impact its LGBT community has snowballed into something greater.  In fact, the takeaway from this trip for me is that, while El Salvador has made some progress in supporting the LGBT community, there is much more work that needs to be done.  Nevertheless, El Salvador seems poised and in a position to become a leader on LGBT rights in Central America.  The central question, however, and the topic of our research going forward is how international parties can help organizations like ALDES facilitate this process.