The local Vietnamese-American community continues to profoundly influence New Orleans culture. Narratives of war, migration, and resettlement form the origin story of this community. The Viet Chronicle project focuses on the senior members of the Vietnamese community in Eastern New Orleans. The interviews, done primarily in Vietnamese, record life stories of many of the community’s founders, from childhood through war, migration, resettlement in New Orleans, and the rebuilding of their community following Hurricane Katrina.
The modern African American civil rights movement brought about immense cultural change in New Orleans. The fight for racial justice included voter registration drives as well as efforts to end segregation and curtail discrimination in schools, on public transportation, and in businesses. Local chapters of CORE, the NAACP, and NAACP youth council led the movement. This oral history project, funded in part by a National Park Service grant, records testimony from individuals who were active in the fight for racial equality in New Orleans between 1954 and 1976.
The Vieux Carré, or French Quarter, has been the center of the cultural and social life of New Orleans since the city’s inception. Generations of artists, writers, restaurateurs, bartenders, bankers, exotic dancers, Catholic priests, fortune-tellers, tourists, and others have haunted these 78 squares of brick and mortar for three centuries. Vieux Carré Memoir is an oral history project created by The Historic New Orleans Collection to record and archive the voices of those who have influenced life in the French Quarter during our time. With a variety of perspectives, Vieux Carré Memoir gives researchers and museum visitors an understanding of the changing nature of the neighborhood during the second half of the 20th century.
