African Americans in Louisiana Research Papers
A unique area of the United States that has many anthropological and cultural factors affecting its existance is Louisiana. You can have a research paper on any aspect of Louisiana custom written. Below you will see an outline of one way to do any Anthropological study of African Americans in Louisiana.
The purpose of this project is to trace the history of various racial/ethnic groups living in Louisiana by using various resources such as public archives, official records, newspapers, books, etc. A perfect group to choose for this is African Americans in Louisiana.
- Choose any one ethnic/racial group residing in Louisiana that you want to research on. Try to choose a group that is least researched. Be very specific about which group you have chosen (see the statement written above). If you are a student who does not live in Louisiana, please choose an ethnic/racial group in the state where you reside. The rest of the instructions remain the same for you. Follow the same steps.
- Write a sentence or two describing how YOU THINK this particular population first came to Louisiana (or the state where you reside). This question needs to be answered without doing any research because this is like writing a hypothesis- something that needs to be proved (or rejected) based on your research findings.
- In what geographical areas, nationally and in Louisiana, can you find the highest percent of this group? Write down the national and Louisiana (or your state of residence) figures. The reader needs to know the precise source of this information to give you credit.
- Collect data using various resources. Remember that this project is based on "unobtrusive" resources for data collection. So- interviews or interpersonal interactions are not included in this project. You need to "locate" information through archives, official documents, libraries, newspapers, journals, etc. When you write your paper, identify the source of your information within parenthesis. When reading your document, I should not have to ask repeatedly, "what is the source of your information?"
- Each source used by you should have a complete citation: author, publisher, name of the source/book/journal, year of publication, volume and issue number if you used a journal article, and where did you find the source. All valid websites provide you with complete information about themselves. If others cannot locate your citation then it is not a valid citation.
The topic selected for the present research is the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the African American community. This topic was selected because it is not only timely but also important to demonstrating how racial and socioeconomic disparities continue to plague many areas of the United States.
The topic is sociologically important because it addresses important issues in sociology like racism and social and economic inequality. There has been an identifiable social response to the topic of Katrina’s impact on the African American community, especially in terms of how the hurricane’s destruction worked to uncover evidence of racism and social and economic inequality and, according to some experts, to perpetuate these issues. Investigating the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the African American community through sociological research methods would include surveying and/or formally interviewing members of this community on if and how they were assisted following the hurricane. This method of research would likely have to be supported by local, county and state records on how individuals and groups living in the wake of Katrina’s landfall were provided assistance. This topic is best understood by sociological research rather than other disciplines in the social sciences because it underscores the fact that not only do major changes in society affect diverse groups like African Americans but that this group and other minority groups like it are also significantly affected by many unchanging characteristics of society, including but not necessarily confined to racism and socioeconomic inequality.
A review of the literature reveals that the impact of Katrina on the African American community has been largely two-fold. First, it has worked to expose the fact that serious social and economic disparities have existed between White and African American communities in much of the region hit by Katrina. Second, it has contributed to what some experts call one of the largest African American migrations in U.S. history. In terms of exposing disparities, the research points to city’s like New Orleans as the reflection of how issues of class and race continue to exist in American society. The results of interviews with African American women living in the regions hardest hit by Katrina speaks to a consensus by African Americans that both the immediate and long term response to its devastation has been racially motivated. According to one respondent, the people hit hardest were poor black Americans but if they had been prominent white Americans, they would have been treated just the opposite.
It is important to note that many of the facts surrounding the evidence of racism and class inequities were slanted by the media, very often against African Americans and not potentially biased government and social service agencies. According to Cullen, this was especially true of media bias against “poor black people”, who were regularly described as uncivilized and violent under the stressful conditions they were placed under. Further investigation showed that the rumors of murder and rape among African Americans forced to endure the grim conditions following the hurricane were almost entirely unfounded.