An Insight into New Orleans’ Mental Health Facilities By Nisha Kasturi In February of 2021, 26-year old K.M. (we’ll use their initials to protect identity) voluntarily checked themselves into Ochsner Health’s psychiatric facility following a personal trauma and subsequent mental health breakdown. “I needed it to be in someone else’s hands”, K.M. told me. “I… Read More “Sorry, It’s Not My Call:”

By Tobias Dohlin There’s a lot that people think about when they think of New Orleans. Primarily, food and drink come to mind but perhaps nothing is more important to the image and culture of the city than music and art. Despite its prominence, in no city is street performance more persecuted than in New… Read More The Real Pirates

By Isaiah Underwood New Orleans Jazz, right, well not quite. Grammy recipient, teacher to many, and don of the Trumpet Mafia, Ashlin Parker sat on a curb with me on a Sunday afternoon to explain. “It’s impossible for four letters to encompass all the varied approaches and all this music just to put it under… Read More BAM: Jazz Ain’t What You Think It Is.

By Sarah Rain Marlar In May of 2022, Susan Hutson became the Sheriff of Orleans Justice Center (OJC), a jail that has historically operated under abusive and unconstitutional conditions. In fact, these conditions were exposed to the public in 2013 when a 2009 video surfaced exposing illegal activities within the jail. That same year, the… Read More Repairing a Jail in Crisis

By Wynona Bernasconi There is a societal pressure to blindly trust what the scientists say. Turning to traditional practices of medicine from any culture could be either met with hostility, disdain, confusion, and sometimes even with a laugh.  However, why is it that practices that now are commonly referred to as “alternative medicine” have existed… Read More An Herb A Day Keeps The Doctor Away: Exploring Traditional Medicine in New Orleans

By Martha Sanchez Briana Mohan sat alone at home, worried about her sick son, again.  A mysterious illness had put him in the hospital. His sick days kept piling up.  “None of this is sustainable,” Mohan said.  It is not the same life or death virus that closed nearly everything three years ago. It is… Read More Grasping Towards Normal: A Mother’s Pandemic

By Gena Jones Nowadays, one click can take you to a dangerous place. Rising crime rates nationwide and the expansive reach of social media has resulted in a potentially traumatic digital experience for users. Many social media platforms have become hotbeds for hate speech, misinformation, and, most notably, unregulated violent criminal content. “I was just… Read More Clicks and Crimes

By Gemma Koeberl The sanitation infrastructure of New Orleans is fraught with dysfunction; there is a massive amount of trash and recycling in New Orleans that nobody seems to know quite how to handle. When operations run smoothly, sanitation efforts are barely adequate at best. Following major events–such as hurricanes and Mardi Gras–the city must… Read More New Orleans Keeps it Trashy

By Thomas M. Bitterwolf Music and the city of New Orleans are synonymous; the two maintain a symbiotic relationship, as New Orleans couldn’t survive without music, and music couldn’t survive without New Orleans. Jazz bands, brass bands, marching bands, and concert bands, New Orleans is the city of famous music. The city is responsible for… Read More The Brass Band from The Northshore Winning over the Hearts of New Orleans

By Sam Ward The New Orleans charter school system, which was created following hurricane Katrina as a solution to the constant problems with the previous system, has seen relative success in raising test scores and graduation rates. Although the city’s schools got the results-oriented restructuring critics hoped for, many within the new system have concerns… Read More Treating a Never-Ending Epidemic