Creating transregional collective nostalgia: the organising role of Catholic parishes among Louisiana migrants in Great Migration-era Los Angeles

ABSTRACT

Scholarship on the African American Great Migration insufficiently examines the interactional, emotional, religious, ethno-regional, and generational diversity of migrant experiences. This study applies insights from the transnational migration literature to illuminate complexities of Black internal migration and incorporation during this era. Using data from 47 in-depth interviews with first- and second-generation Louisianans who arrived in Los Angeles between 1931 and 1973, the article elucidates the distinctive organising role that local Catholic religious institutions played in creating and reinforcing transregional collective nostalgia and a sense of ‘being from’ Louisiana during resettlement. First, within the Black migrant concentration in Los Angeles, Louisiana migrants created an enclave in which Catholic parishes were used to geographically organise the city. Second, parishes organised social life and reinforced the migrant community by stimulating co-migrant contact, Louisiana-centred interaction, and support for adaptation. Finally, migrants shaped how parishes functioned by incorporating elements of Louisiana-based practices into Los Angeles routines, thereby preserving continuity between two places in both practical and nostalgic terms.

KEYWORDS:

• Internal great migration
• African Americans/Black Americans
• religious enclaves
• transregional collective nostalgia
• Louisiana Creoles

Acknowledgement

I extend my sincere gratitude to the migrants who shared their stories; to Arpi Miller for her keen eye and enthusiastic support; to Nancy Wang Yuen for her thoughtful comments; to the editor and anonymous reviewers for their insightful recommendations; and to Rebecca Emigh and Vilma Ortiz for the time they devoted to reading early drafts of this material.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The American South includes Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. (Mackun and Wilson 2011).

2 The interchangeable terms Creole, Louisiana Creole, and Black Creole, refer to people from Louisiana claiming African, French, Spanish, and Native American ancestry (Dormon 1996; Jolivétte 2007). Due to the one-drop rule's predominance in the U.S., Creoles experienced structural inequalities similar to those suffered by the wider Black American community (Davis 1991). However, this population's ancestral mixture also led to significant phenotypical variation, and in many cases, racially ambiguous appearance and Catholicism were used to reinforce racial hierarchies privileging Whiteness (Davis 1991; Domínguez 1986; Gaudin 2005).

3 One first-generation migrant was a White Italian American.

4 One first-generation Black respondent claimed no Creole connection.

Additional information

Funding

Funding was provided by the University of California, Los Angeles Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies; the University of California, Los Angeles Gold Shield Alumnae Oral History Graduate Research Grant; and the Institute of American Cultures at University of California, Los Angeles. Additional support was provided by San José State University.