(THEME)
VOICE ONE:
New Orleans, Louisiana, is a city famous for its music, food andhistory. It is also famous for the wild celebration that comes justbefore Lent, the Christian season leading to the holiday of Easter.I’m Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember. Mardi Gras and New Orleans — today on theVOA Special English program, THIS IS AMERICA.
(MUSIC: “WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN”)
VOICE ONE:
New Orleans has just celebrated Mardi Gras. This huge party takesplace each March or February. The name “Mardis Gras” is French. Itmeans “Fat Tuesday.” That is the official day of the celebration.But people start almost two weeks early.
Visitors to Mardi Gras enjoy as much food and fun as they canbefore the Lenten season. That is when Christians traditionally aresupposed to avoid pleasure.
Hundreds of thousands of people attend Mardi Gras. They eat,drink and dance. They celebrate art, drama, building design andhistory. They celebrate the music of New Orleans, the birthplace ofjazz.
VOICE TWO:
Huge crowds line the streets during Mardi Gras. Many socialgroups hold parades. Some of the huge moving floats carry up totwo-hundred-fifty people.
Floats by designer Blaine Kern express the spirit of Mardi Gras.He has created and produced most of the two- and three-level floatsin Mardi Gras parades since nineteen-forty-seven.
Mister Kern created almost seven-hundred Mardi Gras floats thisyear in New Orleans. Some of the most famous show the family of KingKong, the huge gorilla of movie fame.
VOICE ONE:
Mister Kern is seventy-two years old. At age nineteen, he createda wall painting at a hospital. It showed the history of medicine.One of the hospital’s doctors was organizing a Mardi Gras parade atthe time. The doctor saw Mister Kern’s work and hired him to produceeleven floats for his parade. Mister Kern received three-thousanddollars for the work.
Today a Blaine Kern float can cost thirty-thousand dollars. Hiscompany creates floats for parades and amusement parks around theworld. But he says, “Mardi Gras is my life.”
(MUSIC BRIDGE)
VOICE TWO:
There are days of parades and parties during Mardi Gras. Riderson the parade floats wear colorful clothes. Bird feathers top hatsthat stand a meter tall. Beautiful, sometimes strange, masks coverthe faces of people on the floats. These people throw cups andnecklaces to the crowds of people who watch the parades.Traditionally, those who catch these objects treasure them.
During Mardi Gras, police are in the crowds in case things gettoo wild. Some people drink too much at parties or in the streets.Some push to get a closer look at parades.
But those who take part in the celebrations every year say thereis very little fighting. One visitor to New Orleans describes mostof the people at Mardi Gras as “harmless and very happy.”
(MUSIC BRIDGE)
VOICE ONE:
New Orleans history is just as filled with adventure as the MardiGras. Several tribes of American Indians lived in what is now NewOrleans before Europeans arrived. The city was established inseventeen-eighteen. The Louisiana Territory was a French colonythen. The city was named for the Duke of Orleans, the ruler ofFrance at that time.
The city lies along the Mississippi River. The river flows pastuntil it empties into the Gulf of Mexico, one-hundred-sixtykilometers away.
VOICE TWO:
The first area settled in NewOrleans was the Vieux Carre’. This is now commonly called the FrenchQuarter. After the city was established, roads and simple houseswere built quickly. Government buildings and a church were addedaround the Place D’Armes, now called Jackson Square.
Ships brought people from Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. Theywere store owners, wealthy businessmen, exiles, criminals — andslaves. The people found low wetlands, clouds of biting mosquitoesand hard living conditions.
VOICE ONE:
Survival was a struggle. Settlers had to deal with floods,disease and food shortages. But they stayed. And they developed asociety that was almost a copy of French culture.
In seventeen-sixty-two, the people of New Orleans discovered thatthey no longer lived in a French colony. The French king had givenLouisiana to his cousin, the king of Spain.
Wealthy Spaniards continued the cultural life begun by theFrench. French and Spanish families became linked through marriage.The sons and daughters of these unions are called Creoles.
VOICE TWO:
A fire in seventeen-eighty-eight and another fire six years laterleft New Orleans in ashes. But the city was rebuilt. Much of it wasrebuilt in the Spanish way. Earthen bricks were covered with amixture of lime, sand and water. The new homes had flower gardenssurrounded by walls. They had iron balconies on the upper level.
In eighteen-hundred, France secretly regained control of theLouisiana Territory. Then, three years later, France sold Louisianato the United States. Most people living in New Orleans were nothappy. They considered Americans to be people without culture.
VOICE ONE:
Americans were not welcome in the Vieux Carre’. So they builttheir own New Orleans north of it. They put large, beautiful homesin what is now the Garden District.
Over time the older groups began to need the money and businessskills of the Americans. The Americans wanted the warmth and life ofthe old city. Both groups were forced to join in a continuing battleagainst windstorms, floods and diseases such as yellow fever. Soonthey developed a spirit of unity.
VOICE TWO:
By eighteen-forty, New Orleans was the fourth largest city inAmerica. For a time, it was the richest city in the country. It wascalled the “Paris of America.” Rich cotton and sugarcane farmersbuilt huge homes along the Mississippi River outside New Orleans.They also kept smaller homes in the city. They stayed there whileattending the opera, the theater and festivals.
The celebration of Mardi Gras became an important social event.Through the years it got bigger and better.
VOICE ONE:
High-spirited living ended with the American Civil War in theeighteen-sixties. Louisiana and the other slave-holding states ofthe South lost the war. New Orleans suffered as federal troops fromthe North controlled the city.
But, by nineteen-hundred, New Orleans was growing again. Peoplefrom Ireland, Germany and Italy had arrived. They added theirculture, food and traditions to the already exciting mix.
Engineers made the Mississippi River deeper so bigger ships couldreach the city. New Orleans became a busy port. Engineers alsopumped water out of wetlands where yellow-fever mosquitoes lived.This helped end the threat of the deadly disease.
(MUSIC BRIDGE)
VOICE TWO:
Today about a half-million people live in New Orleans. As of thetwo-thousand population count, New Orleans was thirty-first amongAmerican cities. But the city had lost two-point-five percent of itspopulation in ten years.
As in many other cities, people in New Orleans face problems.There are not enough jobs. There is not enough money for schools androads. There is too much crime. But there has been improvement.Crime rates were a lot higher ten years ago. The city also hasgroups at work to deal with racial divisions. Two out of threepeople are black. Most of the others are white.
Citizens have fought hard to save the beauty of the past. TheFrench Quarter is the oldest part of the city. It remains the heartof New Orleans.
VOICE ONE:
The central business area has modern office buildings. It alsohas one of the biggest indoor sports centers in the world. Almostone-hundred-thousand people can watch events inside the LouisianaSuperdome. And the city has a new museum to honor D-Day — theAllied invasion of Normandy Beach in France during World War Two.
New Orleans is a modern international port. Yet some areas canmake you feel like you are in the eighteen-hundreds. Oldpaddle-wheel steamboats still travel up and down the MississippiRiver.
In town, old electric streetcars take visitors along SaintCharles Street. They go by the large homes of early Americansettlers. Nearby are the modern buildings of two universities:Tulane and Loyola.
VOICE TWO:
Throughout the year, not just during Mardi Gras, the sounds ofNew Orleans music spill into the streets. On Bourbon Street, themusic and the crowds seem like a huge celebration that never ends.The most traditional old-time jazz is played at Preservation Hall inthe French Quarter. As they say in New Orleans, it is the kind ofjazz that gets your blood moving.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
This program was written by Jerilyn Watson and Marilyn RiceChristiano. It was produced by Paul Thompson. I’m Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another reportabout life in America on the VOA Special English program, THIS ISAMERICA.