"If I can't crab, what am I going to do? I'm 70 years old. This is the only way I know how to make a living." (link)
Raise your hand if you've ever heard a décima. If not, let this play in the background while you're reading...
Our conversations about the Gulf Coast deal a lot with environmental impact, with the science behind the disaster, and with the way it effects humans on political, economic, and biological axes. One are that doesn't get explored quite as much is the notion of cultural ecology, or the way that a particular society shapes itself around its physical environment. When an environment is threatened, so may be the culture integrated within it.
As a case study, we're going to use the Isleños of Louisiana, a small community that's not very well known outside the area, but who've been directly impacted by our country's two biggest catastrophes of the last decade.