Louisiana One - Text
Subject is a 28 year old African-American male recorded by Rinda Frye on 4/21/2000. Born and raised in New Orleans, he spent 4 years in NYC as a child and has lived in Louisville, KY while completing an MFA in acting. He identifies himself as Creole, but while his father is Creole, his mother is Puerto Rican and he was bilingual as a small child, learning Spanish before English. While much of his speech sounds like educated Southern Black, African-American listeners will probably detect some Spanish rhythms. He tells some very interesting stories about New Orleans and Creole life. Edited by Paul Meier 10.13.00. Recording Louisiana1 contains The Rainbow Passage and the subject's description of his participation in Mardi Gras, and Louisiana1b is his analysis of ethnic issues in New Orleans. Running time 00:03:17 and 00:02:06
TRANSCRIPTION
Well, I grew up in New Orleans. (Um) New Orleans is famous for food, women, wine and Mardi Gras. (Um) During Mardi Gras, that’s the season that everything really starts to going, and that’s where everybody in New Orleans comes out.
(Um) My favorite story is (uh) one-- the first year I was-- rode in the parades on Mardi Gras Day. (Um) It starts off you get up at four o’clock in the morning. You have to get in costume. You have to get on the float. And (uh) the parade doesn’t start until nine o’clock in the morning, but you’ve been up since four o’clock, at the parade site, gettin’ in all these costumes. And this one Mardi Gras, the first year, (uh) my parents had spent-- oh, about four hundred dollars on beads and stuff for me to throw. And before the parade even started, I had given away about half of my beads, to-- to people just walkin’ up and down the site. I wasn’, maybe, 14 years old at the time. And, my parents just got angry, because I-- I didn’t have much left to throw. By the-- halfway through the parade, I was diggin’ in their bags and other peoples’ bags. But i-- it was really fun. That was my first experience in (um)-- That was a parade called Zulu, which is a all African-American parade. It’s the only African parade in Mardi Gras. That was (um) my first adventures in Mardi Gras. It was wild. They had people lined up, showing (uh) body parts to me for beads and stuff. I-- My parents were upset, but I enjoyed it, and that’s how I grew up.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY JACQUELINE BAKER, ASSOCIATE EDITOR FOR TRANSCRIPTIONS, January 16, 2008