“We just want to be whole again.”

It wasn’t till I overheard the tail-end of a conversation on the plane that my trip down to the bayou, and all its complexity that I would soon face, started to set in as a reality. “Yeah, Nawlins will never be the same again.” As a woman in her sixties recounted her Katrina experiences to the passenger next to her, I listened mildly disturbed; what was most unsettling was my disbelief that the city continues to remain in utter shambles even two years later. In retrospect, I don’t know why I so naively assumed things would be chugging along the way they were pre-Katrina. New Orleans and its submerged city walls went off my immediate radar as soon as the media coverage waned, and I resumed my daily business as the remnants of Katrina’s wrath seemed to float away into the distance. I suppose it goes without saying that I am now slowly coming to feel the relentless grip Katrina continues to hold over the hearts and minds of New Orleanians.


I work in an architecture/planning firm called Concordia. The company oversees many different projects revolving around the development of the city, and works with several other organizations in the rebuilding efforts. What makes Concordia unique from most urban planning companies, however, is its firm dedication to working with the community. Citizens’ input is a central component of Concordia’s mission, and this is evident in the multiple community meetings the company orchestrates and extracts data from. The amount of responsibility Concordia takes on is almost overwhelming for a company of its size. There are approximately 10~15 workers, but there are at least 30 projects that are currently on the dock. So far, Cart (my partner in crime) and I have been focused on getting a better understanding of the economic and political landscape following Katrina. The scope is far broader than I had imagined, with multiple players, wishes, needs, agendas, motives—all mangled together in a complex web of uncertainty and frustration. At times reverting the ruins to what they were and what they used to embody seems impossible, but at the heart of it all, the simple desire “to be whole again” (as expressed by a community representative at a city council meeting Cart and I attended a few days ago) is what drives the community despite the adversity and hopelessness.


I don’t know if I will ever fully understand the impact Katrina has had on this city, being the oblivious outsider that I am. But for the two months that I am down here, I hope to leave with a better understanding of the struggles and determination the people have thus far shown, and contribute to the reconstruction of the wholeness they so long for.

-Theresa Cho