Children of Katrina PDF
Preview Children of Katrina
THE KATRINA BOOK SHELF Kai Erikson, Series Editor In 2005 Hurricane Katrina crashed into the Gulf Coast and precipitated the flooding of New Orleans. It was a towering catastrophe by any standard. Some 1,800 persons were killed outright. More than a million were forced to relocate, many for the remainder of their lives. A city of five hundred thousand was nearly emptied of life. The storm stripped away the surface of our social structure and showed us what lies beneath—a grim picture of race, class, and gender in these United States. It is crucial to get this story straight so that we may learn from it and be ready for that stark inevitability, the next time. When seen through a social science lens, Katrina informs us of the real human costs of a disaster and helps prepare us for the events that we know are lurking just over the horizon. The Katrina Bookshelf is the result of a national effort to bring experts together in a collaborative program of research on the human costs of the disaster. The program was supported by the Ford, Gates, MacArthur, Rockefeller, and Russell Sage Foundations and sponsored by the Social Science Research Council. This is the most comprehensive social science coverage of a disaster to be found anywhere in the literature. It is also a deeply human story. CHILDREN OF KATRINA ALICE FOTHERGILL AND LORI PEEK University of Texas Press AUSTIN Copyright © 2015 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved First edition, 2015 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713–7819 http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/rp-form LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Fothergill, Alice, author. Children of Katrina / Alice Fothergill and Lori Peek. — First edition. pages cm — (The Katrina bookshelf) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4773-0389-4 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4773-0546-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Hurricane Katrina, 2005—Social aspects. 2. Child disaster victims—Louisiana—New Orleans—Social conditions. 3. Child disaster victims—Louisiana—New Orleans— Psychological aspects. I. Peek, Lori A., author. II. Title. III. Series: Katrina bookshelf. HV6362005.N4 F67 2015 363.34'922092530976335—dc23 2015009040 doi:10.7560/303894 ISBN 978-1-4773-0390-0 (library e-book) ISBN 978-1-4773-0391-7 (individual e-book) For Joe, Maggie, and Jeff –A. F. For Mom and Dad –L. P. This book is dedicated in memory of William A. Anderson (1937–2013), a friend, mentor, leader, and champion for research on children and disasters. There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want, and that they can grow up in peace. KOFI ANNAN CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES FOREWORD by David M. Abramson and Irwin Redlener ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1. The Youngest Survivors 2. Children, Youth, and Disaster I. DECLINING TRAJECTORY 3. Daniel: Cumulative Vulnerability and Continuing Crises 4. Mekana: Disaster as Catalyst II. FINDING-EQUILIBRIUM TRAJECTORY 5. Isabel and Zachary: Resource Depth and Long-Term Stability 6. Cierra: Mobilizing Resources III. FLUCTUATING TRAJECTORY 7. Jerron: Misaligned Spheres 8. Clinton: Rapid Movement Conclusion Appendix A. Who Counts as a Child? Appendix B. Studying Children and Youth in Disaster: A Note on Methods Appendix C. Recommendations for Improved Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Efforts for Children and Youth NOTES ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND SERIES EDITOR INDEX FIGURES AND TABLES FIGURES Figure 1.1. Children in the study sample Figure 1.2. Field research locations Figure 1.3. Drawing of “what Katrina looked like,” by Joseph, 10 years old Figure 2.1. Spheres of children’s lives Figure 2.2. Cumulative vulnerability before, during, and after disaster Figure 2.3. Model of mobilizing resources for children and youth Figure 2.4. Post-disaster trajectories among the focal children Figure I.1. Declining trajectories—Daniel and Mekana Figure 3.1. Daniel’s multiple post-disaster moves by location Figure 3.2. Daniel’s time in school and out of school after Katrina Figure 4.1. Mekana’s multiple post-disaster moves by location Figure II.1. Finding-equilibrium trajectories—Isabel, Zachary, and Cierra Figure 5.1. My Moms, by Tiffany, seven years old Figure 5.2. Drawing of “what Katrina did to New Orleans,” by Zachary, 11 years old Figure III.1. Fluctuating trajectories—Jerron and Clinton Figure 7.1. Mom, by Jerron, 11 years old Figure 7.2. Drawing of tattered pre-K certificate, by Jerron, 11 years old Figure 8.1. Drawing of “what Katrina looked like,” by Clinton, eight years old Figure 9.1. Three post-Katrina trajectories Figure 9.2. Children’s capacities: helping others and helping themselves Figure B.1. Methods of data collection Figure B.2. Drawing of “what Katrina looked like,” by Isabel, 11 years old Figure B.3. Drawing of “something difficult that happened because of Katrina,” by Chance, seven years old Figure B.4. Drawing of “something good that came out of Katrina,” by Tiffany, six years old Figure B.5. Flash cards used as interview prompts Figure B.6. Research time line TABLES Table 1.1. Select characteristics of the seven focal children Table B.1. Observation sites and types of observations FOREWORD When the late psychologist Norman Garmezy, a pioneer of the field of resilience, first began studying positive adaptation in children in the early 1970s, he sought out stories of children who had thrived despite being exposed to highly stressful environments, particularly those associated with poverty. “Who will fall to the ravaging effects of mental disorder,” he declared to his colleagues at a 1970 conference, “or who will, despite stress and adversity, remain inviolate to psychopathology remains a problem of mystery and challenge.”1 Garmezy had already spent two decades studying war veterans, schizophrenics, and the children of schizophrenics. In each, he sought to illuminate the predictive path, those factors in people’s lives that foreshadowed either positive or negative outcomes, that divided the successful from the unsuccessful, and the adaptive from the psychopathological. At the start of his two-decades-long children’s study, Garmezy visited public schools throughout Minnesota, asking the same question of the school principals, nurses, and social workers with whom he met: were there any children in the school whose background worried them when they first learned of them, but who now elicited pride when they walked the school halls because they had succeeded despite steep odds? Illustrations of resilience were often distilled in snapshots of a child’s life. He learned of one nine-year-old boy who was being raised by a single mother, herself an alcoholic. The two of them often had little food in the house. Each day the boy would bring to school a “bread sandwich,” two pieces of bread with nothing in between, in order to blend in with the other children bringing their lunches from home. He didn’t want the other children to pity him, Garmezy learned, nor to know of his mother’s failings. As Garmezy and his colleagues evolved their theories of resilience and adaptation they accumulated many such stories. Some were drawn from children who experienced
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