Being thousands of miles away from the states I’m not in touch with the local or national news… so I forgot it was Dr. Martin Luther King Junior’s birthday, which in turn triggered memories of New Orleans.
Last January, I went with students from San Jose State University and met other college students from New Orleans, New York, Oregon, etc—all wanting to contribute their time and effort to help residents who have been forgotten after Hurricane Katrina swept their homes and their lives away.
Because of last year’s experience at St. Bernard Parish, every passing MLK Day will forever remind me of New Orleans.
One thing I do regret from that whole trip is not being able to produce a piece. I donated prints to the Gulf Coast Civics Works Project and got photos printed in the San Jose Mercury News, but I didn’t get to create a piece. I had so many photos, video clips and audio but I never got to put it together. Something was holding me back… time constraints because I jumped right into the Oakland Tribune when I got back from the trip? Laziness? I don’t know… I think I go through this internal debate after working on a personal project, telling myself that it has to be perfect, so I start it, but I keep on putting it off…not wanting to finish it because I know it won’t fulfill my own expectations… But its really unfair because the stories and photos don’t get to be shared with the rest of the world, and are trapped in my hard drive and is only found when nostalgia forces me to open up that folder and go down memory lane, only to spark emotions that I felt during that week in New Orleans.
A year has passed and I feel horrible that I havn’t created a piece… So, even though I know this is FAR from done, here is a snippet of what I started but never finished… i owe it to all the folks of Louisiana Winter 2007..(L-Dub!)Keep in mind, the quality is HORRIBLE as I am figuring out how to compress files, edit, and all that jazz...
Happy Birthday Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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