Bricks in the Making of Race and Place: Excavating aLieu de Souvenirin New Orleans

Abstract

This essay facilitates a multi-dimensional immersion into the life and rhythms of New Orleans, an entrée to the past that equips us to better understand the present and, from there, critically and creatively to envision our possible futures together. We explore the Faubourg Tremé by traversing layers of its lieux de souvenir - places of remembering, a concept inspired by but distinct from Pierre Nora’s lieux de mémoire - across three time periods. Each lieu de souvenir we visit from 1720 to the present will highlight material and symbolic foundations in Tremé that help us to understand key aspects of New Orleans’s past and present. The object that will guide our travel and meditation through each layer is the lowly but highly serviceable brick. At a purely material level, bricks are the literal building blocks of the city. Roads were paved with them and homes and other buildings were constructed with bricks as well. And at a symbolic level, bricks carry multiple rich and complex significations: Who makes them? How does their manufacturing shape the lives of the laborers who create them? Who buys them, and who profits from their sale? Tracing the brick and its uses throughout each lieu de souvenir sheds light on key social relationships, inequalities, and cultural practices that form the foundation of New Orleans’s past and present.