New Orleans jazzes anew
AS A New Orleans native planning to spend the rest of my life in this half-drowned but still vibrant city, I'm scared to address you . A year after Hurricane Katrina, I'm scared that you've forgotten me or are sick of me or think I'm stupid to keep living in a place that almost killed me.
Such are the conceptions New Orleanians have about other Americans these days. We're grateful for the outpouring of help and support we've received, but we also know some people think we're not worth the effort and expense to rebuild, not understanding that we are rebuilding regardless of anyone else's opinion. That's how we do things down here, and that's part of what you loved about us before. In the past year, though, it seems that ``Laissez le bon temps rouler" has turned to ``They were asking for it -- and haven't they already received enough help?"
For your part, perhaps you think New Orleans is utterly devastated and dying, or that those pictures you saw of the French Quarter mean it's back to normal. The reality is somewhere in between. You've probably heard about the billions of dollars allocated to help south Louisiana and Mississippi.
What you may not have heard is how little of that money has made it into the hands of people in the affected areas. Many homeowners are still wrestling with insurance companies; few have yet received any government compensation for the homes destroyed by the failure of the federal levee system. Huge swaths of the city still look like war zones, with no realistic plan in sight.
Yet we survive. In New Orleans, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and (especially) in the mind-bogglingly devastated St. Bernard Parish, communities relegated to the status of Third World nations have pulled together to ensure that the places, customs, cuisines, and ways of life we love will not be destroyed by incompetence or neglect, the way so much else has.
Life in New Orleans is extraordinarily difficult now. Business is bad, essential services are shaky, and the people rebuilding our levees seem to tell a different story every day. One side effect of the hardships: The people still in town are the ones unshakably committed to New Orleans, the ones willing to invest in it and fight for its future.
Our tourism industry struggles because people elsewhere don't realize that it is still possible to have a great vacation in the city .
Nevertheless, the theater and art scenes are vibrant. The cocktails are flowing as always. Chefs freed from the obligation to cater to cautious tourist palates are creating some of the best food New Orleans has seen in years. Pete Vazquez, who lost his restaurant, Marisol, uses a portable grill to prepare weekly ethnic feasts at a Ninth Ward wine bar.
And with the local school board replaced by a network of charter schools, we've got a chance to ensure that current and future generations of New Orleans children will receive a high-quality public education rather than enduring the horrors of pre-Katrina public schools. We can begin to address our crime problem by teaching kids that they matter, that there are possible lives for them other than that of the street and the gun.
You can help us get through this difficult time by acknowledging that we matter, and by reminding your representatives. Coastal Louisiana provides America with 30 percent of its annual seafood harvest, 18 percent of its oil supply, 24 percent of its natural gas, and vast amounts of imported goods that come through the Port of New Orleans.
Perhaps even more important, we are a region unique in all the world, a beautiful, bountiful country within the borders of your own United States, a magic land that gives the world jazz and Mardi Gras and unforgettable characters and food unmatched in all the world. Louisiana artists -- musicians, painters, writers, actors, raconteurs -- will be dealing with the storm in their work for years to come. We are in a period of mourning for what we lost, and art is only one of the many ways we'll mourn it. In the words of jazz trumpeter and composer Irvin Mayfield, who lost his father to Katrina, ``More so than ever, we've got to do what it is that we do." And we are. And we will.
We hope you'll join us in mourning our losses. But please don't make the mistake of mourning for New Orleans as a whole, because we're not dead, and we're not dying.
Poppy Z. Brite, a writer in New Orleans, is the author of eight novels, most recently ``Soul Kitchen." 
