We were the first melting pot city in America. It's striking that those great waves of immigration from Mexico passed us by.

261

Both the perpetrators and the victims have been washed out.

243

Living in an area that catches every storm that boils out of the Gulf will breed a certain toughness in a people. That may be the parish's best hope for rebuilding.

180

We've solved our crime problem in a brutally Darwinian way.

178

I can't see the political storms aligning to allow that, ... I wish them well, but the view from the man on the street is, 'Why rebuild something if it's just going to flood again? Why not let it return to nature?'

157

I don't know how many African Americans are left in the city, but it's not that many. There is not enough labor to rebuild the city, and filling the vacuum are the Hispanics.

122