The Immigrant Children of Katrina

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina displaced the largest number of public school children ever affected by any disaster. Approximately 370,000 children, including 15,000 Latino/Hispanic children from Louisiana, were scattered throughout the 48 U.S. states (Landrieu, 2010; Louisiana Department of Education, 2004). Although much of the media attention, policy, and research have focused on the effects of race—primarily Black/White—in New Orleans disaster relief, Latino immigrant children were the silenced, invisible victims of the evacuation, policy, relief, and recovery services. The largely unreported immigrant evacuation from Louisiana was along a silent underground railroad of sorts, using a network of relatives and countrymen whenever they could (Plocek, 2006). The findings of this article illustrate the theoretical implications and consequences of identifying immigrant children as racially White. This study documents the intersections of local, state, and federal policy regarding schools and recovery relief showing that access to disaster relief and recovery were framed in context of immigration status often placing citizen children in at-risk conditions. Children have become the victims of anti-immigrant sentiment rising from the much symbolic and actual harassment that constitute the daily, shadow lives of the undocumented population.