A Village Called Versailles

A Village Called Versailles. 67 minutes. 2009. S. Leo Chiang, producer/director. New Day Films. 190 Route I7M, P.O. Box 1084, Harriman, NY 10926. [phone]. Purchase $275.00; rental $85.00.

A Village Called Versailles brings together discussions of natural disasters, environmental justice, immigrant communities, and community organizing to tell the tale of a Vietnamese community in New Orleans East before and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The film begins by surveying the history of this community, one of the largest Vietnamese communities outside of Vietnam itself. This community has its roots in two Catholic towns in North Vietnam; the residents of both towns were displaced as refugees first to South Vietnam, then to boats and refugee camps, before finally being resettled in New Orleans by Catholic relief workers. The community struggled to build a life for itself in New Orleans despite interethnic conflicts with both whites and Blacks, but eventually developed a stable set of institutions including fishing and agricultural production and a wellattended Catholic parish centered in an apartment development called Versailles.

Three decades after resettlement, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Most of us remember the images of flooded neighborhoods, people stranded on roofs, crowds seeking shelter, and of the shelters themselves. It was clear to many that the hardest hit neighborhoods - like the Ninth Ward - were disproportionately Black and poor. But from the perspective of the Vietnamese population of New Orleans East, at least the Ninth Ward story was being told. Their community had been devastated as well, and yet no one was talking about it. Furthermore, many of the Vietnamese New Orleanians had now been displaced from their homes, and had now lost everything, for the third time in their lives. Furthermore, many of the elderly Vietnamese community members still had limited English proficiency, and few Vietnamese translators were available in the FEMA reception sites outside of New Orleans.

The story of Versailles after Katrina takes up the bulk of the film, and there are two main threads to this story. First there is the role that religion plays in the community. The Catholic Church was and is a mainstay of the community, holding mass in Vietnamese and led by two dynamic Vietnamese pastors. They...