Katrina and Migration: Evacuation and Return by AfricanAmericans and Vietnamese Americans in an Eastern NewOrleans Suburb

摘要

H urricane Katrina constitutes the most costly natural as well as technology-induced disaster, in terms of bothhuman suffering and financial loss in the history of the United States. Even years later, it continues to profoundly impact the livelihoods and the mental and physical health of those who have experienced evacuationand return and those who have begun lives anew elsewhere. Our study focuses on these geographical processesassociated with the Katrina disaster experiences of African Americans and Vietnamese Americans comprisinga n overwhelming majority (93.4 percent) of residents in a racially mixed pre-Katrina eastern New Orleansneighborhood. We examine the spatial morphology of routes, volumes, and frequencies of evacuees; their returnrates and experiences; and rationales and motivations to return or stay. The conceptual framework is basedthe disaster migration, place attachment, and social network literature. Both quantitative and qualitativev idence indicates that the evacuation and return experiences of each minority group substantially differed,es pecially among African American women, and this was strongly influenced by existing social networks.