The Importance of Minorities

Overview of Minorities

In such a diverse city, there is bound to be a large number of different groups of people that make it up. In New Orleans, the minority's actually founded a lot of the city and thereby created businesses and brought revenue to the city that helped it become the success that it is today. This specific city is well known all over the country as being home to a multitude of minority people. Different minorities include but are not limited to Cajun and Creole, African American, and Asian Americans.

Cajun and Creole

The Cajun and Creole minorities are both extremely strong cultures in New Orleans. The Cajun community is comprised of people who have basically been married into the minority from places such as Italy, Germany, and Cuba. The term Creole refers to one who was born into a colony and whose ancestry can be traced to Spanish or French roots. For more information please see the tabs at the left. 

Importance

One of the important aspects to having a successful community is money. All of the different minorities have in some way helped shape the culture of New Orleans by starting, owning, or heavily contributing to successful businesses. All through history there have been instances where many different groups of people have had to live peacefully in close proximity to each other. This could have been done by doing what each minority did best to contribute to the overall health of the community. In newly settled places and even in established but expanding towns, it is often left to the family to build to achieve success, thus we have all these different minority groups creating homes and businesses to create a life and contribute to the culture of New Orleans. Living in a place that is culturally diverse has the potential to offer benefits such as sources of belonging, recognition of identity, cultural awareness, and acceptance of others differences.

Segregation

New Orleans is very similar to other cities when it comes to segregation of different people. 

"In New Orleans, a 2010 survey found that African Americans are statistically significantly less likely than whites to report that their neighborhoods have enough restaurants, grocery stores, and places where children could play outside." This is just one example of the segregation that the communities of New Orleans experience. 

"Health Disparities in New Orleans." New Orleans Health Department, 2016. 2 Jan. 2017. <http://www.nola.gov/nola/media/Health-Department/Publications/Health-Disparities-in-New-Orleans-Community-Health-Data-Profile-final.pdf>

"What's So Important About Diversity?" University of California, Santa Barbara. N.p., 2016. Web. 2 Jan. 2017. <http://kiosk.sa.ucsb.edu/Citizenship/DiversityImportance.aspx>.