Hurricane Katrina wiped out nearly every commercial fishing boat in Southern Louisiana. Five years later, the BP oil rig Deep Water Horizon exploded 55 miles offshore, endangering the seafood that spawn in the Mississippi Delta. Losses to Louisiana’s seafood industry after that double whammy were estimated upwards of $1.3 billion (annual total retail). How do communities rebuild and recover food systems in the wake of man-made and natural disasters, especially in coastal communities like Houston and New Orleans, dependent on fishing industries? How did losses affect Vietnamese refugees who make up approximately one-third of Louisiana’s commercial fishermen? What are the emerging issues and challenges that affect immigrants who make our food system vibrant, diverse and delicious but are hit hardest after natural disasters?

This panel will discuss the impact of disaster on local food systems, especially upon the Vietnamese communities in New Orleans and Houston. Panelists include Donna Cavato, Chief Program Officer, Communities In Schools of the Gulf South, Inc. and founding director of the Edible Schoolyard New Orleans, whose creation helped revitalize the Freret neighborhood post-Katrina, Sandy Ha Nguyen, Executive Director of the nonprofit Coastal Communities Consulting, which advocates on behalf of fishermen in coastal Louisiana who have emigrated from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, Andrew Lam, journalist and writer—and former boat person after the fall of Saigon—who writes about food as a way of acculturation in East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres and former associate editor with the Pacific News Service. Moderated by Brett Anderson, contributing writer for The New York Times and former restaurant critic and features writer for The Times-Picayune from 2000 to 2019.