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SMU Alumna Captures “Life After Katrina”
Alumna Katherine Browne’s heartbreaking documentary about a large family fractured by Hurricane Katrina is airing on public television stations across the country, including KERA-TV in Dallas on Aug. 28 – the eve of the second anniversary of the killer storm.
SMU was the magnet that first drew Browne to Dallas, where she earned an undergraduate degree in English in 1976 and a Ph.D. in anthropology in 1993. But she found herself returning time and again from October 2005 to March 2007 as she and filmmaker Ginny Martin taped their video documentary about a storm-displaced extended family trying to re-establish their lives temporarily in Dallas and later back in St. Bernard Parish. The story is told primarily through the voices of the family matriarchs, including Connie Tipado, the Dallas nurse who found temporary housing for them all in her adopted city.
Browne, now a professor of anthropology at Colorado State University, hopes viewers will learn from the film that the continuing distress experienced by people forced out of the New Orleans area is a unique cultural phenomenon.
“They are so very connected to the bayou," Browne said. “It’s not just about wanting to be back and seeing the faces, but of being part of the environment. The attachment to place is fierce.”
“People were optimistic that things could be returned to something comfortable and feeling normal,” Browne said. “Hope was alive…until they got back (to St. Bernard Parish) and started realizing that nothing was happening, and nothing continued to happen.
“There were so many things beyond their control,” Browne said. “People were starting to take sleeping pills. It was kind of alarming to me. This mental health specialist explained that no matter how much of a network you have in place to keep ties connected – picking it up and transplanting it somewhere else just doesn’t work. It can die.”
The film was made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Colorado State University and Women in Film Foundation.
Check your local PBS listings for air dates and times and visit the “Still Waiting” official site for more information.
This documentary certainly hits home with us. Displaced from New Orleans, we are now in Nashville as of 2 years ago. It still feels like we just arrived. I don't get lost driving too much anymore.
There was a whole life, and I feel as though I was thrown out of it. All friends and family are gone. Friends take a very long time to make, when children, school, insurance matters occupy most of my time. No family is here to rely on - they are a 6 hour drive away.
So much of my past is completely gone. Fifteen years of school yearbooks, mementos of college & graduate years - all gone. I can never think about it for long. The tears will come; I'll feel bad about the life lost. I just try to remember that I still have my family. My husband has a job; my work is gone.
Recovery sounds simple, but it is not. I knew before the hurricane that I had a wonderful life, and was thankful for it. I miss so many countless things that I loved: the lake nearby, a great source of inspiration & beauty when I drove by; our pediatrician, who was like a dad and a friend to me; our school, which was free, and fabulous (very unusual!); daily interactions with people I knew, a source of comfort and security. I could go on & on & on.
I've gotten over the "stuff" I lost - the 2 cars, furniture, so much. Just not the irreplaceable mementos of my life, and the priceless daily interactions of a life well-lived in a place dearly loved. I had so much invested in work and relationships and our school there. The investments of time working there in various places had given brought me work, brought me good fortune. I don't receive any of that now. I have to forge my own way constantly, in a place which is more cosmopolitan, and because I'm unknown, much less caring. It sometimes feels as though I'm just out of high school, starting out, but without the positive mindframe of wanting it. I'm 47 years, oh, "young", you might say. I didn't want this at all.
I'm getting teary just thinking about my life before. I am nobody here. No one knows us. People think we've assimilated in to our new life. Not really. We just fake it. Because they always ask, "Do you like Nashville?". If I tell the truth, I'm not progressive enough for them. If I gloss it over, they appear happy. I try not to talk about it now, because to others it's passe. It feels just really, really sad not to be able to be home.
Can't go on any more about it. Pray for peace and joy to be remembered by us all on this earth.