Ep 20. All About Sustaining Louisiana Folk Traditions and Knowledge Amidst Climate Migration
Have you heard of climate migration? Whether or not you have, it is having a major impact on traditional cultures. Maida Owens, a cultural anthropologist and Folklife Program Director specializing in Louisiana traditional cultures, in this incredibly important conversation, speaks to us about how the Louisiana Folklore Society is supporting local efforts to sustain traditional […]
The post Ep 20. All About Sustaining Louisiana Folk Traditions and Knowledge Amidst Climate Migration appeared first on Fabric of Folklore.
Follow us:
Fabric of Folklore website
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:39:12
Unknown
Welcome focal Enos. Welcome to Fabric of Folklore. I am your hostess, Vanessa y Rogers, and this is the show where we unravel the mysteries of folklore. And on this show, we really love Story stories are captivating. They captivate our heart and our minds, and they really help us to connect to one another. But in this show, we are really attempting to understand the stories behind the stories.
00:00:39:12 – 00:01:01:00
Unknown
We want to dig deeper. And because the stories behind the stories help us to understand the threads that connect us, we wouldn’t understand their significance in their history and their generational impact on one another. And when we understand those threads and we’re able to pull them together, we’re able to see that we are more alike than we are different.
00:01:01:03 – 00:01:25:27
Unknown
So if that sounds like a show that is interesting to you, please subscribe. And if you are a listener of our show and you are enjoying our show, reading and review and giving us are the stars are is so helpful for a new podcast. So please make sure you’re doing that. If you enjoyed the content and we have a fantastic guest for you today.
00:01:25:29 – 00:02:05:10
Unknown
Her name is Mara Owens and she’s a cultural anthropologist specializing in Louisiana traditional cultures and works as a Folklife Program director with the Louisiana Folklore Society on the Bayou Cultural Collaborative to help coastal Louisiana sustain their traditional cultures by offering workshops and supporting local efforts. In her role with the Division of Arts, she has identified traditional folk artists as a vital asset to the state and works with Louisa, Hannah’s folk musicians, storytellers and craftsmen to share their knowledge.
00:02:05:10 – 00:02:35:16
Unknown
So thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. Glad to be so. I always like to start out with a just kind of an intro to your background. So are you from Louisiana originally? Yeah, I was born in New Orleans, raised in Baton Rouge, been here almost all of my life. And so how did you get into folklore, into cultural anthropology?
00:02:35:19 – 00:03:06:14
Unknown
What brought you there? Well, I started early. I in high school, I took college class and signed up for Intro to Cultural Anthropology, and I was hooked from there. I got my degrees. And then in my job, you know, I work as a folklorist, but my my degree is in cultural anthropology. And can you kind of walk us through how folklore and cultural anthropology are similar, but also are different?
00:03:06:15 – 00:04:03:17
Unknown
Like what makes them different from one another? Yeah, there’s a lot of overlap. But cultural anthropologist can get into all kinds of work that are not related to expressive culture. And then the folklore is kind of a multidisciplinary field and multidisciplinary discipline because in folklore you have people coming from literature studies, so they might have degrees in English, people primarily focused on music with some musicologists, whereas in anthropology under that umbrella, you might have people who were working with HUD or, you know, on housing and all kinds of other human systems that don’t directly involved expressive culture.
00:04:03:19 – 00:04:43:10
Unknown
And expressive culture would be. Can you explain explain what that means? Yeah, the stories, the music, the lifeways, the traditions. I use a very, very broad definition of folklore, and that’s why the department is my office is called the Folklife Program. So it’s you know, it’s not it’s I make funds, a healer, a trade tour or, you know, hunting or living off the land type of traditions that are that still are in under the umbrella of folklore.
00:04:43:10 – 00:05:16:25
Unknown
But not not all folklorists include some of the things that that I work with. So would you say that folklore is has a wider scope than cultural anthropology? No, I think they’re they’re both very wide scopes. They’re just different. They’re an overlap, but they’re, you know, because cultural anthropology can get into a whole, you know, much more with linguistics and, you know, human systems that are not related to the expressive culture.
00:05:17:01 – 00:05:50:06
Unknown
There’s still culture, just not the expressive culture, right? Well, awesome folklorist to talk a lot about traditions, whereas anthropologists, that’s just not of there the things that they might talk about. Oh, okay, that makes sense. So when I was describing your work, it seems to me that there are a lot of different groups that are working on this project that you are currently working on.
00:05:50:12 – 00:06:24:05
Unknown
So I counted three the Louisiana Folklife Society, the Louisiana Folklore Society, and the Bayou Cultural Culture Collective. All right. Yeah. Well, the Louisiana Folklife Society, I think you’re referring to the Louisiana Folklife Program, which is my government. I’m a I’m in a governmental agency. And so that’s the name of the Louisiana Folklore Society is a modeled on a learned society, a fiber 1c3 nonprofit.
00:06:24:08 – 00:07:03:04
Unknown
Okay. And then the Bayou Culture Collaborative isn’t actually a legal entity. It’s an initiative of the Louisiana Folklore Society. Okay, okay. But it seems like there are a lot of hands in this project any minute. And I think that’s part of why we’re successful, that we are that this is a lot of people coming together who are concerned about what’s called the human dimension and environmental planning that, you know, in Louisiana, for the most part until recently.
00:07:03:04 – 00:07:34:29
Unknown
And the tide is definitely changing here. Most of the money and the time and every focus went into the science of the coast. Okay. And so, you know, where should a river diversion be? You know, where are the main groves needed to be planted so that it slows down a storm surge? But the human dimension is not only the culture, but mental health, land use patterns.
00:07:34:29 – 00:08:16:25
Unknown
So there’s a lot to the human dimension. You know, our our primary focus is on some of the cultural issues and personally is I’m I’m intrigued with the climate migration that is that has already been happening and is simply accelerating right now. And I definitely want to get back to that climate migration. But I I’m curious where the change of mindset came from, from just purely the scientific and environmental element to when they started to consider the human element.
00:08:16:27 – 00:09:11:14
Unknown
Well, you have to consider who they’re right. Okay. The state agency that’s CPRA that Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority is the state agency and they are charged with restoring the coast. So they have taken a very physical approach to it. We’re going to restore the physical coast. And while their long term plans did include addressing some of the human dimension of people issues farther down the line, they CPRA is starting to think about the human dimension, but there are lots and lots of nonprofits and different types of constituency groups that are very involved in so many different aspects.
00:09:11:14 – 00:09:49:24
Unknown
This is a huge umbrella. Again, and different people take different focuses. But how we got started, let me tell you our origin story. Yes, let’s hear it. In 2017, a man named Jonathan for a who lives in Homa and he directs the South Louisiana Wetlands Discovery Center. So they are a science education or organization. But Jonathan is from that area and terrible parish being having the highest rate of loss of any parish.
00:09:49:24 – 00:10:20:24
Unknown
And I think it’s right up there worldwide and the amount of land loss that’s been happening there. Hmm. He is has a Cajun background. Yeah, he his family’s been there for generations. And so he started realizing that what’s going to happen to us in this whole process, because when the land is literally being washed out from under your feet, eventually you’re going to need to move.
00:10:20:27 – 00:10:48:06
Unknown
And so where people move and and you know what hap he started asking the question of what happens to the culture and all of our traditions. And Louisiana loves to talk about how important our culture is, our music, our food, you know, and but but how much is actually done to support that? You know, the typical you know, people tend to think, oh, that’ll just take care of itself.
00:10:48:09 – 00:11:26:27
Unknown
Well, it will, but things may change a lot more than people realize. For example, you know how many people are wishing their grandparents and parents had spoken French to them? So now. Right. Is quite endangered here. But so Jonathan invited the Louisiana Folklore Society to come have their annual meeting at home. And we had a we very intentionally had discussions about how could the Louisiana Folklore Society address this.
00:11:27:00 – 00:12:01:22
Unknown
So but he really challenged us and we heard and so what ended up evolving in the next year was the bayou Culture Collaborative. Okay. So it is simply an initiative of the Louisiana Folklore Society. And at first, you know, we started this with no money, no resources. So I being in a state agency with with a budget, I realized I was in a position to even start to addressing this.
00:12:01:24 – 00:12:37:19
Unknown
And so I redirected some funds that I have and decided to experiment with ways to support the culture. And I identified two major needs. One is to support the culture directly and to make sure that important traditions are passed on. And so it ended up with the passing it on, worked well. What evolved into the passing it on to workshops.
00:12:37:22 – 00:13:08:03
Unknown
But then the second one was I realized that the arts and culture network in the state were really not part of this conversation and there was no means for people to communicate, you know, to talk about it. And then I realized, well, there’s so uninvolved that they really need to have workshops or opportunities to learn about what’s actually happening.
00:13:08:03 – 00:13:43:18
Unknown
Because even though Louisiana is on the forefront of climate change, especially with sea level rise and land loss, that doesn’t mean everybody wakes up every day thinking about this. Right? And, you know, even people who have heard something, they go back to their law, you know, even those who are relatively aware, you know, if your employment, your family get, you know, depending on what your situation in life is, most people don’t have the luxury of being able to vote a lot of time to this.
00:13:43:20 – 00:14:32:03
Unknown
Right. And thinking about it, they just go on with their lives. And so that, of course, is happening all over south Louisiana. So what I wanted to do was to make sure that cultural leaders, especially and artist were had a means. What could find out more, although some of them are already very aware and already very active. So anyway, I started what I call a sense of place and loss workshops and one was in-person and the idea was to bring together a scientist of people from the arts and culture, communities and policymakers for dialogs.
00:14:32:03 – 00:15:09:08
Unknown
And so this was intended to be an in-person series. Well, the second one was scheduled the week of the lockdown. So of course, that was definitely canceled. And so I thought, well, what can I do? And so I started having Zoom meetings and Zoom workshops where we we invited speakers and and it was like an hour and a half workshop where we presented ideas.
00:15:09:08 – 00:15:46:08
Unknown
And the main audience at that time was the Arts Network. And then we had a second one in 2020 on this 21, just for artists focusing on the role of the artists. And so then the next stage was the Louisiana folk was the site Society decided they wanted to be more active. And so we acquired arts funding to do and humanities families.
00:15:46:09 – 00:16:23:07
Unknown
Louisiana Government for the humanities too. And we started producing monthly online gatherings. And so that has continued since January 20, 20, 2022. And they, they feature a speaker. But we try to be more than simply a speaker series. You know, we have time for dialogs. We and we were shocked that we thought it would take about six months for this to get some steam rolling.
00:16:23:10 – 00:17:08:26
Unknown
But 150 people. So I’m registered for the first one and nine cycle. So in hindsight we realize we showed up at just the right time because it’s an and we learned that a lot of the took a long time and concerned about the human dimension issues and not just to support the physical restoration of the coast because because early on a lot of them a lot of the initiatives looked at traditional ecological knowledge as something that would help the engineers and the scientists figure out how best to do something.
00:17:08:29 – 00:17:36:23
Unknown
And and so it was well, in many ways it was an extractive process, Yeah, with knowledge in order to figure out what the what needs to be done. But we wanted to push it further. We wanted to hear the voices of people and we did it. Very success for we get 40 to 60 every month, something like that.
00:17:36:23 – 00:18:08:17
Unknown
And once in a while a topic will come up that gets even more. We just and one of the interesting milestones is just a couple of weeks ago was the state of the coast meeting. And that generally has then, you know, scientists talking to scientists or engineers talking to engineers. And this year they were overwhelmed with the number of people proposing human dimension related topics.
00:18:08:17 – 00:18:26:04
Unknown
And there were so many that I couldn’t go to all of them because they were at the same time. So how fascinating. I wish it had been recorded so that I could go back and watch all of them. But yeah, I was going to ask because I feel like people outside of Louisiana might be interested in this as well.
00:18:26:06 – 00:19:14:14
Unknown
And so are are there plans to have these sessions recorded this monthly or monthly? All of them are, and all of them are on YouTube. Oh, fantastic. Okay. Well, we’ll definitely link that up to our website so people can have access to that. But the what were you saying was not recorded on the stable coast? Okay. That because that’s that’s the the council too is store coastal Louisiana CRC now produces that and they are you know they partner with CPRA the state agency in order to do this so that what they and they mentioned it in the intros and that we were we were really I’m so pleased to have this whole new track in
00:19:14:16 – 00:19:47:10
Unknown
state of the coast. You know the focus is more on the people and processes everything from mental health to, you know, land use. So for people who are not familiar with Louisiana and what’s happening with the coast, can you give a brief paint the picture for us? Yeah, it all started really in this last century where after the 1927 flood, which was devastating, everything from Baton Rouge to Lafayette South was under eight feet of water.
00:19:47:10 – 00:20:18:07
Unknown
So that’s a significant flood. And the Corps of Engineers started to build levees and try to control the river. Well, that started the process of the coast eroding because, you know, a river delta is built by land, by, you know, new soil being deposited the most of South Louisiana River. What river? We’re talking about the Mississippi River. Okay.
00:20:18:09 – 00:20:57:02
Unknown
And so all of that soil was being deposited way out in the Gulf instead of building land, nurturing the marshes and such. The other thing that started happening was the oil and gas industry started cutting canals through the marsh in order to get to their to their wells. Well, what that did was provide a means for saltwater intrusion to get up into the marsh and start killing the marsh and so now we’re talking about backfilling those canals.
00:20:57:04 – 00:21:26:16
Unknown
But, you know, so much damage has already been done. And the third major factor is sea level rise that that it’s of course, it’s already risen some. And then and then a fourth would be the fact that subsidence where the ground you know without the water holding the marsh together it starts getting packed down. So that ends up being, you know, the land compacting.
00:21:26:16 – 00:21:50:05
Unknown
In other words, in fact, what it is that we talked about, a fifth one and as well all over talk about that anymore because I thought that was fascinating. And the whole continental shift shelf is is is breaking base. You know, it’s basically so South Louisiana is part of the continental shelf. But they said that that’s really not as big of a factor.
00:21:50:08 – 00:22:17:19
Unknown
And in most of the time you need to keep things really simple. So having that many factors involved complicates things. So what does that physically mean for Louisiana? What is happening? Are people having to move away from the coastal lands? Are they well, what are they? What is it physically? Meaning? Well, actually, there’s an excellent video I can share with you that shows exactly what’s happened in southeast Louisiana with the land loss going.
00:22:17:26 – 00:22:54:17
Unknown
I think it’s covers 100 years and one minute and you go, wow, yeah, you can really see it if you want to insert that. Yeah, we’ll link that up to. But but basically you know the river delta is is not is changing so much and primarily in South Philly, southeast Louisiana, southwest Louisiana also has issues. But what’s so dramatic is southeast Louisiana, especially terrible rouge parishes.
00:22:54:19 – 00:23:31:14
Unknown
But you know so what’s happening now is small communities are actively collapsing like the land themselves. The land is no, the community not. I’m going to the human dimension. We’re talking about the communities. And and so as people, you know, people lose their backyards. You know, in Louisiana, it’s the opposite with most most areas where the closer you are to the water that the higher the land.
00:23:31:16 – 00:23:53:11
Unknown
And as you go away from the river or the bayou, that’s where you get marshy or swampy and that’s because of the way the river river delta is created, the, you know, the soil, the most of the soil. When when you have a flood, the soil deposit, it’s, you know, immediately. So you end up having a natural levee.
00:23:53:13 – 00:24:17:29
Unknown
But now we’ve built you know, we’ve built additional levees on top of the natural levees. But in Louisiana itself, I remember I’ve been to New Orleans a couple of times, and I remember them saying that it’s one of the only cities that’s below sea level. Yeah, well, they built and there’s there parts of New Orleans that are actually below sea level.
00:24:17:29 – 00:24:48:19
Unknown
And if we didn’t have the levees, the floodwalls, the pumps, New Orleans would probably already be under underwater in parts. And when you say parishes, are those like our counties? Yes. Okay. We’re the only we’re the only state that has parishes that important. So let’s talk about the climate migration. What is what does that term mean? I’ve I’ve never actually heard that that phrase before.
00:24:48:27 – 00:25:42:14
Unknown
Yeah. Climate migration refers to people who are moving because of environmental changes and due to climate change. And that’s where you were talking about the community collapsing. Yeah. That that there’s the physical collapse of the community where, you know, there’s less and less land. And so that ends up affecting individual households. And then very importantly as businesses and when services start closing and even things like schools, you know, you people end up making hard decisions to leave a community that their, you know, their family may go back generations.
00:25:42:17 – 00:26:13:08
Unknown
And so the question is, where do they go? And in Louisiana, the typical pattern is to move up the bayou. The next highest ground. But what that does is mean that many families have to move multiple times because in ten years, 20 years, the land erosion is that much more the more, you know, more and more businesses and services are farther away.
00:26:13:10 – 00:26:42:23
Unknown
And right now, Terrebonne Parish is in the process of closing quite a few schools. And so kids are having to be bussed into home up to schools. And so, you know, if your kid misses the bus, that’s that’s a 40 minute drive to drop them off and then return home. And hopefully they don’t miss the bus, you know, in the afternoon.
00:26:42:26 – 00:27:16:07
Unknown
But so it ends up impacting lifestyle quite a bit. So these migrations, how is it affecting the cultural traditions? Well, any kind of disruption is on my screen for some reason. Let me look back and I hope you all can I can see you still. Okay. I’m yeah, I didn’t move my mouse enough. Oh, you know, so culture changes.
00:27:16:07 – 00:27:55:06
Unknown
That’s that’s nothing new. And that’s not going to, you know, you don’t want to freak freeze dry your your culture, you know, it’s culture. Adapt. It changes, it evolves. But in disruption, the change can be quite dramatic. And so if you’re leaving your your network, your social network and your community, you’re more likely to lose a lot of your heritage and in your in your new home.
00:27:55:08 – 00:28:24:19
Unknown
Now, there are you can do things about that and there are a lot of people who do and they find new. They find expats elsewhere. And immigrants have been doing that. There’s a lot to be learned from immigrants. They’ve been doing this, you know, always all the immigrant organizations. That culture is very important, whether it’s a culture, school or culture camps or whether it’s church based or, you know, however it is.
00:28:24:19 – 00:28:58:01
Unknown
But in their new home, they need to get together. But but they may not be from the same bayou, the same community. And so some things are going to change. But there’s still ways you can make sure that, you know, it’s passed on either formally or informally. So back to the community is, you know, five families moved to this community and, you know, some others move farther up, some of them jump up all the way to Homa.
00:28:58:04 – 00:29:21:07
Unknown
You know, some of them go all the way. They you know, they go to Baton Rouge or New Orleans. You know, those are our an hour and a half away. So, yes, you can maintain contact, but it’s not the same as living on the same street. And down the street from your grandmother and, you know, and maintaining all those ties.
00:29:21:09 – 00:29:58:06
Unknown
Mm hmm. What I’m interested in doing is helping people become aware of the issues and strategies to help people. And I’m especially interested in trying to influence policymakers. For example, could the state and I don’t necessarily have a I don’t have answers, but my questions are what could we be doing now? How could we help people move together?
00:29:58:08 – 00:30:28:27
Unknown
Not forced migration, you know, but if they do elect to take the buyout or they do just simply need to move, helping them identify what’s called receiver communities. And one of the major problems with, you know, receiving communities having adequate housing stock to take, you know, numbers of newcomers. So this this requires some serious planning. This is not something that’s easy to do.
00:30:29:00 – 00:30:52:10
Unknown
But I think there are things we can do to help communities move together and not lose this culture that we love to talk about all the time. How important? Yeah, there’s no absolutely. So I did have a question about the ecological knowledge that the coastal restoration is really trying to tap into. Can you talk a little bit about that?
00:30:52:10 – 00:31:31:12
Unknown
What what that looks like? You know, traditional ecological knowledge is all that knowledge of living off the land. It’s it’s knowing when to plant tomatoes. It’s where, you know, where the when the shrimp are running, you know, the medicinal herbs. It’s also foraging, going out and finding traditional plants for medicines and tonics and such. So it’s it’s that deep, deep knowing about the ecological system.
00:31:31:14 – 00:32:08:01
Unknown
Hmm. But it’s from experience. It’s not necessarily from books. And and and so, yes, we need both of these. And I just recently learned about Devon Pathways work where he talks about that too. Why knowledge. You need to look through both as one Western science and indigenous traditional knowledge. Now he’s he’s indigenous so he’s very focused for that.
00:32:08:01 – 00:32:42:11
Unknown
But but but anybody that’s living off the land and really knows that like out west, the ranchers who really know how you know the subtleties of working with with the land farmers all over, unless I guess they’re the corporate ones that, you know, tend to be monoculture agriculture and and not really pay attention to the land. So it’s not just indigenous, but I really like that idea that he says you have to look out of both eyes.
00:32:42:13 – 00:33:08:08
Unknown
Yeah, I like that idea to know. So can you talk a little bit about the strategies that have been suggested or strategies that you’ve been thinking about? And besides, you were mentioning having a place for them all to, to move together so that if they, if they’re, if they so wish. Can you talk about any of the other strategies.
00:33:08:11 – 00:33:47:14
Unknown
Yeah. Well again yeah, we what we’re trying to do is build a community of people who are concerned and not necessarily give them answers, but to help provide a room for people to explore the answers. And that’s really there. There are some things that are happening. For example, one of the biggest issues is the fact that marginalized people will continue to be marginalized unless the planner take that into consideration.
00:33:47:16 – 00:34:49:26
Unknown
And there’s some really interesting research on that where they all of the coastal parish counties in the country that are going to experience sea level rise and displacement, there’s a disproportionate number of African-Americans, specifically not just people of color, but African-Americans who will be displaced so they will be disproportionately affected if this if colorblind planning continues. So one of the things is to take this you know, to take this into consideration and reserve some of the higher ground for people of color or different types of marginalized, because the reason they’re flooding first is they were pushed on to less desirable land.
00:34:49:28 – 00:35:54:14
Unknown
Hmm. So that will just keep happening unless you do something different. So the the primary strategy that I’ve heard of so far is land banks, land banks, banks. And that’s where some of the high land, some of the desirable land is reserved not for the developers. Now, it’s incredibly complicated. And it’s, for example, right now in Little Haiti, in Miami area, they’re talking about this, that their their community is being gentrified so quickly and so they’re pushing back and saying, let’s figure out a way to save this community without having to leave because and also Little Haiti, the higher ground there used to be less desirable because people wanted to be on the beaches.
00:35:54:17 – 00:36:22:03
Unknown
So they ended up in little Haiti. But now people are worried about being on the beaches and they want higher ground, so they’re displacing them. But what they’re trying to do is create a land bank. It’s very complicated because, you know, who bought who buys out the landowners? Every inch of land is owned by somebody or the government.
00:36:22:05 – 00:37:08:21
Unknown
And so, you know, how does this happen? It’s very complicated. Yes, I know. You know, I’m in Texas and we have some of the same issues. Not quite as not quite as extreme. Oh, your Gulf Coast is just some it’s heavy. Yeah. And I know that it’s complicated as well, because there’s a certain amount of land that is always public, But that erosion and is causing the public land to creep on to private land and then it’s causing a lot of problems with legal issues because of how our state defines what is public beach land and what is privatized.
00:37:08:21 – 00:37:49:01
Unknown
And yeah, for sure. Can you talk about what colorblind planning looks like and how the what it looked like before and how it’s trying to be combated? I’m I’m unfamiliar with that terminology. Colorblind planning. Well, that’s just not taking color into consideration in your planning. And so, you know, the developers get the best land, the land gets gentrified.
00:37:49:04 – 00:38:33:19
Unknown
And when you say gentrified in, that really means that the people who are living there, it becomes too expensive to live there and then they need to move. Is that really the the just the crux of the the problem? Yeah, I mean, it’s a complex topic, but it’s like you’re reading in the papers nowadays about how Washington, D.C. has pushed out so many of the African American communities because people, you know, the neighborhood shifted and says, well, the poor African-American, I wouldn’t want to imply that all African-Americans.
00:38:33:21 – 00:39:04:14
Unknown
All right. Would have to be pushed out because they can’t afford it. But the other part is property taxes in the area start going up. So much new taxation districts. And so they can’t even if they’re in a multigenerational house, that there is no mortgage for it, the area can still get too expensive or they take the money and run, which is a you know, that’s a for the individual.
00:39:04:14 – 00:39:30:29
Unknown
I’m not going to tell any one individual what they should do. And I respect that. If somebody decides that they do need to sell out and take the money and run, because I’ve faced that myself, you know, at what point do I need to leave? Mm. I’m maybe in the next ten years it might get more and more difficult here.
00:39:30:29 – 00:39:56:15
Unknown
But there’s so many different predictions. It’s, it’s hard stuff. It’s really hard. Yeah, absolutely. It’s hard to make the decision between individual and community, what you know, how to balance, how to balance that. You want to stay with your community, but sometimes you have to make a decision for yourself and and community is really hard to find on that.
00:39:56:18 – 00:40:27:28
Unknown
And a lot of anthropologists don’t want to use that term anymore. Folklorists use it all the time. But it’s so hard to define. Is it is it people living in a geographic area? Is it a network? And a really good example of that is what has happened in one of the communities in south Louisiana that was on an island that was gradually flooding and define community?
00:40:27:28 – 00:40:59:22
Unknown
Is it a tribe? Is that they assumed that everybody on the island was part of the tribe and that was not the case at all. And who gets to speak for the community? That’s a huge issue. Who who is who has assumed being leader of the community and spokesperson versus who actually has a support, you know, who like who named you boss.
00:40:59:24 – 00:41:36:24
Unknown
Right. And speak for us. And sometimes it’s the political leaders and sometimes it’s not informal leaders that are, you know, can you give us so we’ve been talking about, you know, the concerns about what was happening. Can you really lay out some examples of what stands to be lost with all of this climate migration and this moving? What what are some traditions that we’ve already seen disappear, for instance, that relates to the passing on workshops?
00:41:36:24 – 00:42:07:22
Unknown
The you know, we’ve mainly been talking about my strategy to make more people aware of what’s going on in South Louisiana and the role that they might play in it. But the other thing is, you know what, traditions are endangered to actually die out. And there I have two strategies. One is to work directly with the traditions there and frequently I well, sometimes I contact them and inform them about this this opportunity.
00:42:07:24 – 00:42:27:26
Unknown
But now that we’ve been doing it for several years, I started getting cold calls and people saying, I’m interested in this and doing this. Is that is that a possibility? And then it’s getting to be word of mouth where they’re talking among themselves and they say, hey, you know, she’s got money to do workshop, you know, pay you to do workshops.
00:42:27:28 – 00:42:53:04
Unknown
And so what that idea is for the tradition buried to have a workshop or a workshop series. Some of them, I think we’ve had a series of six one time, but it depends on the tradition and how how deep they want to go. And so they get money in order to do that. And the quality of the learning is what I’m interested in.
00:42:53:04 – 00:43:15:12
Unknown
It’s not numbers. And some of them feel like, Oh, I don’t know if I could get 30 people not to get 30 people. It’s the deep experience that we want and quality of time that you’re spending with it and not just a lecture we want. Do we want to be so the kind of like a mini apprenticeship but not restricted to one on one.
00:43:15:17 – 00:43:45:14
Unknown
I have had one that was a mini apprenticeship with one on one, but so so you know, being in this position for so long, I’m aware of some of the traditions that are endangered and very possibly could die out. And so, you know, I contacted people that I knew did these and talked to them about do them and some of them took a few years to finally decide how and when they want to do it.
00:43:45:17 – 00:44:17:28
Unknown
And so some examples of the passing add ons that are from tradition bearers. But one of the most exciting was just a couple of weeks ago, Geraldine Robertson was the only active split or basket maker in the state, and she went to live with her family in California for ten years. And so somebody else who had done a workshop let her know that this, you know, that I might be able to support her.
00:44:18:00 – 00:44:41:27
Unknown
And so she contacted me and said, Could could. I said, Well, I didn’t even know you were back. This was fabulous. She’s 81. And it was really interesting because she said, what I want to do is five consecutive days and a week to do full day workshops and take them from going to cut the tree down to making a basket And five days.
00:44:42:00 – 00:45:03:11
Unknown
Wow, that’s amazing. Yeah. And I said, How are you going to find people that can take off work? Well, she that’s what she wanted to do. So that’s what she did. And so I paired her up with two organizations to help her. One was Baton Rouge Parish Museum is a small museum right across the river from Baton Rouge.
00:45:03:13 – 00:45:33:05
Unknown
And they immediately fell in love with this idea. And so they said, we’ll take the money and it’ll all go to Geraldine, but we’ll will provide everything else at our expense. So that’s kind of one extreme and what they had 15 people the first day they announced it, it’s like, did you find 15 people who can go to a week long series of, Oh, that’s crazy.
00:45:33:09 – 00:45:54:21
Unknown
So it was fabulous. And the other thing I did is in that instance was the landowner where she was getting trees suddenly backed out. He rent, he released it for turkey hunting. And so they could not go on the land while the turkey lease with turkey hunting place was active. So she was in a panic. Where am I going to find trees?
00:45:54:21 – 00:46:28:13
Unknown
And I said, Well, let me see if I can ask state parks if we could go on. You know, if you could go on the land and identify them. So I brokered that. And so, yes, they, they she she went out to make sure that the dreams were actually there on the state parks. And because it’s for educational use, you know this was allowed the other I’ve also done this in the past a couple of times not often on federal lands that are in Louisiana that are some pine straw basket makers.
00:46:28:16 – 00:46:57:27
Unknown
We needed a certain type of the longleaf pine that’s no longer grown commercially. You know, shortly most of the commercial pine trees are short, short leaves, and they don’t work as well. And so I brokered that kind of thing before. So this was a first time, but it happened all in one day. It was pretty amazing how quickly it all fell together.
00:46:57:29 – 00:47:27:03
Unknown
So that’s a good example of a tradition. Bear who who I knew and ended up having. But some people just call out of the blue. Sabina miller called up and she was all excited and really wanted to offer a workshop. And she was talking about all these different traditions that she could do, you know, she could be storytelling and then and painting.
00:47:27:03 – 00:48:01:00
Unknown
I said, Well, painting generally isn’t really folk art, you know, it’s more of an expression. And so but then she said, Oh, and I do these, I make wax paper flowers the way my mother did and so forth, and hold it, hold the last. The only person that I knew of that did this still died about 15 years ago.
00:48:01:03 – 00:48:30:21
Unknown
And so this woman just looks and says, Yeah, I do, I do that. And so what did it was you make great paper flowers and you did wax. And this was the precursor to plastic flowers, especially for graves. And so once plastic flowers came in, the need wasn’t there as much. And a few people continued it. You know, they’ll make a flower wreath, especially for All Saints Day and such.
00:48:30:23 – 00:49:02:08
Unknown
Mm. And so it won’t, it won’t last quite as long as a plastic one. Well outside in the weather you know, there’s not going to last very long at all. But inside with you know, they last a lot longer that the wax attracts dust over time so that it but it’s intended to be an impermanent item, you know it’s not intended to be a forever forever flower.
00:49:02:11 – 00:49:31:00
Unknown
So she’s a good example of people just coming out of the woodwork saying, I want to, you know, what about what I do? And I don’t have money for everybody, but I had a fair amount of money. So we we just recently added up that since 2019 we had given we funded $85,000 and passing it on grants. That’s amazing.
00:49:31:02 – 00:50:17:12
Unknown
Yeah. And what I told the what I said at the Stay the coast math, I said, well, I know in your world 85,000 is nothing. It’s yeah, it’s not even chump change for federal agencies, but in our world it’s huge and I’m very proud of that. So the other type of passing it on workshop that happens is when I reach out to an organization or community that has not really participated in arts grants before, and I especially wanted to reach out to some of the indigenous communities in southeast Louisiana that had never gotten an arts grant.
00:50:17:14 – 00:50:56:05
Unknown
So Basically what I do is talk with them about a tradition that is particularly meaningful to them. So I don’t tell them, you know, Oh no, I want you to do Cypress Basket making or, you know, something that I’m aware of. So we go through this process of I share all the different types of things that could be and they make the decision and usually they’re the community leader that ends up deciding what to do and then come up with all kinds of things frequently.
00:50:56:05 – 00:51:30:21
Unknown
It’s food. What is there? Some people are very concerned about the children not knowing how to cook, much less knowing how to cook the traditional dishes. And so groups from the Filipino Women Women Society of Louisiana, you know, focused on foodways, the grand Bayou Indian tribe in Plaquemines Parish almost washed away. But they do still have a community center.
00:51:30:21 – 00:52:04:29
Unknown
And so over Thanksgiving holiday, one year, they they cook like demonstrated seven different dishes during the day and then had a feast at night. Oh, wow. That sounds fantastic. Yes. So it just depends, you know, what’s important. And another group, the bread, Grandpa, you know, what are the the do like bread brand of the Biloxi tuna, a Choctaw tribe.
00:52:05:02 – 00:52:36:15
Unknown
They wanted to the kids to know how to do make regalia and costume, you know that dance. And she said, well, they don’t know how to sew. So you first have to teach them how to sew or they can get into adding the, you know, decorating the regalia. And so that that was what was needed. And so that’s what we funded again.
00:52:36:22 – 00:53:06:27
Unknown
And sometimes it’s for the children and sometimes it’s for the adults. Sometimes it’s a whole community. Some of the Acadian brown cotton weaving is one of the most endangered traditions in the States. So we’ve done a couple of with different people, you know, passing, really learning the deep learning of of of knowing how to grow brown cotton, spin it.
00:53:06:27 – 00:53:32:18
Unknown
We that so yeah that’s one of our other success stories but it’s been everything from boatbuilding to duck carving to foodways not much of music though we have we’ve had very very little request for interesting because you know this one of the things that Louisiana is so well known for is its blues and jazz, and it’s it’s music.
00:53:32:24 – 00:54:08:22
Unknown
Well, in some ways, does it need public support at this point? You know, on this scale? You know, like we have arts organizations that are doing concerts and, you know, Louisiana Folk Group has a music camp where you can come and have an immersive experience for fiddling and accordion, and you have that at a culture track. And, you know, so all, you know, so there are other things that are happening, but those are the organizations that are have already been participating in the hard work and getting grants.
00:54:08:24 – 00:54:36:09
Unknown
So the music camps and it’s so fun. Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. We’re known as a fun state, but but so part of my strategies was in this was to reach out to people who had never participated like that. So. Yeah. And can you tell me what is one of the most popular of your pass it on workshops?
00:54:36:11 – 00:55:03:12
Unknown
Well, that’s hard to say because popular kind of implies numbers and that’s not what I’m looking for. Like what? I’m talking with people frequently. They say, Well, I want to demonstrate this at a festival, at a tent, at a festival. I do it. I said, Well, no, that’s having the same conversation, 15 minute conversation a hundred times. Mm.
00:55:03:15 – 00:55:55:14
Unknown
And so what, you know, we went back to smaller, deeper converse sessions, smaller groups, deeper conversations is how knowledge is really passed on. So I’m not it’s not about awareness, it’s about them actually learning some level of skill. Now that dramatically changes what can be accomplished in even a day long workshop varies. But they are an introduction to woodworking or restoring a pyro or, you know, cook, cooking a dish, seeing it cooked, watching it being cooked, versus, you know, watching your your mother in law make it 100 times over your last lifetime.
00:55:55:16 – 00:56:30:09
Unknown
So, sure, it’s it’s not the best of all possible worlds. I wish I had $1,000,000 every year and I could only spend it on, you know, how to spend on this. But that’s not the world that I live in. So I guess my my question would be, how would that trait continue? Or the the the knowledge continues. So let’s say I go to a class a day long class and then I learn the skill, but then I’m not getting together necessarily with those people like continue doing this.
00:56:30:09 – 00:57:11:08
Unknown
So I have the skill. I maybe keep the basket on my myself, but how does it continue? Well, the ones that are more community based, they’re part of a community. These are generous. Often they’re not advertised broadly. You know, it’s more this is for this community. Now some of them do welcome non people who are not from the community because you never know what seed is going to sprout, you know, and I managing an apprenticeship program for a few decades, I got to the point of feeling like I can’t.
00:57:11:11 – 00:58:00:25
Unknown
There’s nothing I can do to ensure that every apprenticeship has longevity, right? But what I can do is help people plant seeds. And you just know which ones are going to sprout. That frequently. What happens is they can’t necessarily The Apprentice may not be able to continue it tomorrow, but after they retire or when they change, you know, there’s the children get older or something changes in their life that they can return to this tradition if and I think important is if they if this tradition really has deep meaning for them in their community.
00:58:00:27 – 00:58:35:19
Unknown
So you know that if you if it’s just going to a basket making class that you took five years ago, you may not return. But when when it’s a tradition that is symbolic of your community and has deep meaning, you know, they’re you’re more likely to continue it. Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And maybe if maybe if it’s not you, maybe your child sees the basket that you made a while ago and wants to continue that tradition.
00:58:35:21 – 00:58:59:10
Unknown
And maybe it’s not you, but maybe it’s you can pass on that knowledge. Yeah, but the deeper the networks you know, and then the, the people who have, you know, the tradition bearers that have approached me frequently, they already have a network. Frequently they have people who have been asking to learn this for years, but they didn’t have a means to do it.
00:58:59:10 – 00:59:38:22
Unknown
Yeah. And so, you know, that’s another another way that, for example, a Gray Hawk Perkins is a united home, a nation tradition bearer who he does all the above. But one of the things that he he does is, is primitive woodworking skills. And so he wanted to teach people how to make what’s called a shaving horse. And that’s the contraption that holds the piece of wood while you work.
00:59:38:24 – 01:00:16:20
Unknown
Oh, okay. Yeah. And so it’s like, well, that’s all very good, but who how are you going to find people to do this? And he says, Oh, no, I know all I know. The woodworkers have been doing this for years. Yeah. And so this just provided a means for him to, but it also helped him set up for future ones because what, what he chose to do with some of the funds was to make several shaving horses, you know, for use in classes.
01:00:16:23 – 01:00:39:18
Unknown
And so at first he wanted to give them all away. And I said, Well, consider this that if you keep them, they won’t just end up in somebody’s storage room, but you will have the having them they were being used significantly more and he thought yeah, okay. Okay. So such generous hearts. They just want to give everything away.
01:00:39:22 – 01:01:06:05
Unknown
Yeah. Because in my business, this is not a business for them, right? Some people are making money from their tradition, but frequently they aren’t. And so you also have another workshop that you do climate migration and welcoming new newcomers. What does that look like? Yeah, that’s a much more structured workshop. The full version is 3 hours, but I’ve done shortened versions of four different settings.
01:01:06:08 – 01:01:34:23
Unknown
That is where for a defined group and usually it’s a some kind of peer group or it’s part of a conference I started with. The first one I did was Louisiana Main Street managers, all the people in the state who manage the main Street programs and then a national Main Street got involved. And after I did that, they wanted me to do it at Main Street.
01:01:34:23 – 01:02:16:14
Unknown
Now the national conference and then I mean, there are 56 people in the country who have the type of job that I have, and we gather every two years at the National Assembly as state arts agencies. And so for the pre conference, I was my workshop was included in their professional development program. And so we ended up inviting a lot more to attend than just the people who have my type of job because all the state arts agencies around the country are they vary dramatically in resources and staff and expertise and such.
01:02:16:16 – 01:02:53:15
Unknown
So a lot of people we had we had more than probably 60 or 70 people in the room that day. And so then somebody there wanted me to present to the Appalachian that work at Appalachian Funders Network. And so because there they realize that they are going to be a major receiving community. And and so they’re worried about people overwhelming outsiders, overwhelming their traditional culture.
01:02:53:17 – 01:03:29:18
Unknown
So, you know, there’s angst on both sides. Earlier, we were talking about, you know, what could be called ascending or collapsing communities. But the receiving communities have all kinds of issues, too. And that totally fascinated me because, you know, you have you live to migrate. You leave one place and you go somewhere else. And so what can be done is to support the people who want to leave, but and the people who want to move but also the people, the long term residents of where you move to, you know, they have concerns.
01:03:29:23 – 01:04:10:24
Unknown
And so in this workshop, one of the major areas of welcoming newcomers is talking about how arts programing can help the newcomers get to know the long term residents and vice versa, and create co-create space and the emphasis on the code there. Everything needs to be planned. It’s basically all the typical arts projects that you know of, but including the community members in the planning and selecting wonderful book Bridging Divides that talks about all this.
01:04:10:24 – 01:04:53:12
Unknown
And I, you know, I have a resource list that everything in my workshops I have links for and everything is online and free. But they talk about, you know, storytelling, food, ways of quilting and other types of fiber work and traditionally not ecological knowledge being the the traditions that can most effectively bring people together and have, you know, that like violin lessons or fiddle lessons is not the time.
01:04:53:12 – 01:05:22:00
Unknown
You know, that requires a certain expertise. So these traditions are it’s easier, it’s an easier entree, it’s easier sell in the community, but you still need to work with with the community to figure out. But artists exchange quilters that from the newcomers and quilters from the long term residents and help them get to know each other. Then they do a public exhibit of whatever it is they produce.
01:05:22:00 – 01:06:08:01
Unknown
That’s just 1000 of community gardens, but all kinds of ways to help the newcomers be accepted by the long term residents and vice verse. What is generally the concern of the receiving community? What are what are they being things to happen? Gentrification is well at point in in climate. Migration is what’s called means migration. The people who have the means to leave do and they tend to be middle class and educated for leaving behind and leaving behind communities left with the elderly and and more poverty.
01:06:08:03 – 01:06:34:13
Unknown
So when you when the middle class and educated leave, where do they go? Well, they may be coming with more resources than the community is. They overwhelm it. So there’s just gentrification stories all over the all over the country. And so climate is simply going to add to that dynamic of new people coming in and overwhelming long term communities.
01:06:34:15 – 01:07:08:18
Unknown
MM Absolutely. And well, is there anything we haven’t covered? This has just been such a fascinating conversation. Well, I as you can talk and talk forever. Yeah, I mean, but I mean there’s a lot here and this is, you know. Well I can I guess and at the beginning I want to try to say in the, at the beginning of my workshops as to frame it that major changes are happening in the next ten years.
01:07:08:21 – 01:07:34:03
Unknown
What are we seeing right now with changes and and but also the economy they talk about the third industrial industrial revolution coming. You know, there’s going to be so much changes in employment and the way we work and I’m not talking about remote, you know, that that was just a blip in what’s been known to be coming for quite a while.
01:07:34:06 – 01:08:10:09
Unknown
And then all the environmental changes, the increased hazards. And so where there is no safe place, you know, that has perfect weather right now, you know, for a lot of people. So what you know, people have will end up having to make decisions for themselves, you know, do I do I stay here and weather storms or, you know, like I’m always scared about the the hurricanes, although I’m not living right there on the coast.
01:08:10:12 – 01:08:42:25
Unknown
What what I find confounding is the extreme precipitation. You know, how do you plan for a microburst. Mm hmm. In 2016, Louisiana had two major extreme precipitation events. They’re not named storms because they’re not a storm. They just come out of nowhere and you don’t see them coming. Hardly. And one community just north of Baton Rouge had 36 inches of rain in 36 hours.
01:08:42:27 – 01:09:04:28
Unknown
So like that. And somebody said, oh, that’s biblical. Yeah. Yeah. And so and then it causes lot of damage. They have flash flooding and whatnot. Yeah. You know, people had five feet of water, plenty of places that had never flooded. And this so this is nowhere near the coast. You know, Baton Rouge is not near the coast, although they have sea level rise.
01:09:04:28 – 01:09:48:28
Unknown
Predictions continue just south of Baton Rouge will be the coast. Oh, wow. Yeah, that is definitely concerning. Might be 100 years, but that’s so that’s how most of Louisiana’s population is south of I-10. You know, Baton Rouge to Lafayette, south of New Orleans. Mm. And so they would be having to to completely relocate. Well, now they’re, you know, the some people say let’s get innovative, let’s create, you know, towns of houseboats because people used to live on houseboats here all the time and now they’re more recreational.
01:09:49:00 – 01:10:18:12
Unknown
But can people afford a houseboat that has all the amenities that people have come to expect? And can they weather hurricane weather? Well, the thing about houseboat, you can move it. You can move it inland. Okay. That’s the whole point of a houseboat rather than a floating house. There are also proposals of floating houses. But anyway, we may get innovative them and some of those may work pretty well.
01:10:18:14 – 01:10:49:08
Unknown
But the bottom line is there’s going to be massive disruption in the coming years, right? We’re just we just happened to be on the forefront, but we’re coming to a neighborhood near you. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. This is this is so fascinating. And I, I feel like I’ve I’ve learned so much. And, you know, I’m a neighbor of Louisiana, so we we’ve visited Louisiana several times.
01:10:49:08 – 01:11:17:18
Unknown
And it’s just you’re right. Your culture is just is just beautiful. And there’s so many unique elements of Louisiana that we definitely want to keep alive. So I think that the work that you’re doing is just fantastic. Well, Texas is the number one destination for Louisianans leaving the state. So we’re coming to you. I know we had we had that hurricane.
01:11:17:21 – 01:11:41:09
Unknown
I think Katrina after Katrina, we got a lot of Louisianans who well, at the like the migration modelers that it’s it’s documented. That’s where we go. You know, that’s the number one destination. Where in Texas do they do they generally do they stay east in the eastern shore? I don’t know. I don’t know. But people move for jobs and family.
01:11:41:09 – 01:12:13:10
Unknown
Those are the other than before all the climate issues, the primary reasons people move or jobs and family. So unless they they may have Texas relatives that have gone move there before. So they’re going to there. But you know, Texas has jobs. Well, I’m looking forward to those newcomer receiving communities and how they’re going to co-create spaces for the Texas culture and Louisiana cultures, because that’s going to be a very interesting mix.
01:12:13:13 – 01:12:31:24
Unknown
So thank you so much and thank you for Gleaners. What did you know about the culture of Louisiana prior to this this podcast? You have you ever heard the term climate migration? Have you seen it in your communities? Have you had to move or do you know people who’ve had to move? Did anything surprise you? We want to hear from you.
01:12:31:24 – 01:13:00:21
Unknown
We have a Facebook community page where this is where we can have these conversations. I really want our Facebook fabric of folklore, Facebook page, group page to be a place where people can have these conversations and keep the conversation going after the podcast has already aired and all of the links that we have talked about in the show will be listed at the fabric of folklore Tor.com website.
01:13:00:28 – 01:13:29:23
Unknown
And so we have everything. We’ll put up everything over there. And we’re also on we have a Facebook page, we’re on Instagram or now on Twitter, and this is a YouTube show, but also you can just listen on whatever podcasting, streaming service that you use, whether that’s Apple or Spotify. Google, where we’re on of those platforms. And please comment like share, give us a review that is so helpful for these for our podcast to be found by other people.
01:13:29:28 – 01:13:51:05
Unknown
Give us stars and if you give us a review, I will name you out on our podcast to thank you. So once again, thank you so much for joining to unravel the mysteries of folklore. My name is Vanessa Rogers and you’ve been joining us on Fabric of Folklore. Goodbye.