Brooke - I am New Orleans

I was born in the land of deep fried seafood platters, spicy jambalaya, gumbo, red beans with rice, and praline bacon; where the spices have burned away the harsh R’s and TH’s in the authentic Cajun tongue. I live in a geographical danger zone that could easily flood in the months from June to November. But, I also live on a parade route where, from late February to early March, a person’s main concern is catching a coconut in a Zulu parade. We don’t bury our dead; we dance with them, and then, let them slumber forever in small white houses shrouded in oak trees and Spanish moss. I live in a city where it is unlikely to find a fourth grader who can spell jealous, but where every literate person can whip out T-C-H-O-U-P-I-T-O-U-L-A-S flawlessly. In New Orleans we are a combination of the weird, the impractical, and the miraculous. We are our own culture; our own variation of Tony Cacher’s seasoning.

In certain instances, being a New Orleanian means something similar to dragging around a weird relative that seems okay at home, but who is bizarre out of context. As I get further and further away from my beloved 504 area code, I not only get a spike in telephone bills, but fellow Americans look at me with skepticism when I tell them of my origins. I can tell they are thinking “Oh yeah crazy Uncle New Orleans…The one that mixes up words and calls counties, parishes. He’s the one that doesn’t know how to run a public school system and who takes an extra holiday during March because he likes to pretend he is French. Doesn’t he live underwater with a bunch of murderers and alligators? Lucky for him, Miss Issippi next door has a reputation that outranks him for scandals.”

I do not care. I am my weird Uncle New Orleans. He isn’t some ball and chain I take with me. New Orleans has shaped me into a person who believes in culture as a huge system of telepathy rather than a categorization in a history textbook. Because I am from New Orleans, “WHO DAT” makes my pulse jump and talking about 2005 makes me grind my teeth, because this way of life requires a built in set of reflexes. Because I am from New Orleans, I can be whoever I want to be and still subconsciously be a part of a huge family that will adopt all people regardless of shape, size, age, or color, (unless of course they are a fan of the Atlanta Falcons). Because I am from New Orleans, I am not ashamed of my individual, weird family members or personal quirks. I have learned that being different is better than normalcy any day, and I embrace it.

- Brooke, age 16