The Immigrant Children of Katrina

Immigration and Children

“…Ac-cording to the data provided by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), almost half of the 3 million Iraqis that were forced to migrate due to the armed conflict in Iraq were children [7]. It was reported that there were around 370,000 children among those who were evacuated from Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina, which caused the death of many people and severe devastation in the United States in August, 2005 [8]. The Office of the UNHCR reported that more than a million children have had to leave their country because of the armed conflict in South Sudan [9].…”

Disaster and poverty : the differential impacts of disaster on the poor in the Gulf Coast region.

“…Immigrants are also predisposed to physical symptoms of distress, and non-western immigrants are more likely to express feelings of distress in a somatic rather than in a psychological way (Berg et al, 2008). However, white and black racial culpability seldom makes any room for other ethnic minorities, who are not properly identified in any event (Reyes, 2010 Americans far more than African Americans was language (W. Li et al, 2008). Despite language difficulties, strong family, social, and economic ties among the Vietnamese Americans within and outside the affected areas had fostered resilience (Norris, VanLandingham, & Lung, 2009;Wei, Airriess, Chen, Leong, & Keith, 2010).…”

“…Hurricane Katrina displaced the largest number of public school children ever affected by any disaster where approximately 370,000 children were scattered throughout the 48 U.S. states (Redlener, 2008;Reyes, 2010). It damaged the schools in New Orleans which resulted in thousands of students missing out on getting an education (K. R. Collins, Savage, & Wainwright, 2008;Tuzzolo & Hewitt, 2006).…”

“…Despite language difficulties, strong family, social, and economic ties among the Vietnamese Americans within and outside the affected areas had fostered resilience (Norris, VanLandingham, & Lung, 2009;Wei, Airriess, Chen, Leong, & Keith, 2010). Reyes (2010) documented the intersections of local, state, and federal policy regarding schools and recovery relief showing that access to disaster relief and recovery were structured in the context of immigration status often placing citizen children in at-risk conditions. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, some children in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region from Latino communities had become the victims of anti-immigrant sentiment that shadowed lives of the undocumented population (Reyes, 2010).…”

“…Reyes (2010) documented the intersections of local, state, and federal policy regarding schools and recovery relief showing that access to disaster relief and recovery were structured in the context of immigration status often placing citizen children in at-risk conditions. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, some children in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region from Latino communities had become the victims of anti-immigrant sentiment that shadowed lives of the undocumented population (Reyes, 2010). Disaster recovery was further constrained by broader structural issues, such as poverty, lack of transportation, as well as marginalized status as immigrants (Messias, Barrington, & Lacy, 2012;Stringfield, 2010).…”