New Orleans is a Great Place for a Taste of Vietnam

"When you visit Maypop on O’Keefe Street, a popular “American South meets Southeast Asia” eatery in New Orleans, you’ll see a huge 3-dimensional accordion-like mural on the wall. It’s also reminiscent of a giant Vietnamese folded fan. If you’re on one side of the restaurant, you’re looking at a map of The Mississippi Delta. If you walk to the other side, your view is a map of The Mekong Delta in the southern part of Vietnam.

After a dozen visits to New Orleans spanning from the late 1990s through its tricentennial, it’s noticeable to me that New Orleans’ three hundred-plus years of history now prominently includes that of Vietnamese refugees and their descendants who’ve added to the culture of the Crescent City. Restaurants offering Vietnamese food abound in nearly every neighborhood. A culture is more than its food, however. A culture comprises its people, their creations, and the legacies that members hope to leave. There are Little Saigons all over America. New Orleans is lucky enough to have more than one hub of Vietnamese diaspora culture.

The New Orleans metropolitan area has sizable Vietnamese-American populations in New Orleans East and in the West Bank, just on the other side of the Mississippi River. Many Vietnamese people arrived there in the latter 1970s and early 1980s. They stayed in the region because of the similarities to their homeland. The Mississippi Delta can double as the Mekong Delta. In both places you’ll find rampant humidity, comparable vegetation, and gorgeous waterways. Around 14,000 people of Vietnamese ethnicity live in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes, all with opinions on where to find quintessential Vietnamese culture in their neck of the woods."

DB