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After Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, Latino workers arrived to help rebuild the city. Many of them have stayed and are buying homes of their own. Correspondent Julia Kumari Drapkin reports on the changing face of New Orleans five years after Katrina.

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MARCO WERMAN: Another story of epic flooding is on people’s minds this week. It’s been five years since Hurricane Katrina left much of New Orleans under water. More than 400,000 people were forced from their homes. About a quarter of them haven’t been able to return. But there have been some newcomers. Thousands from Mexico and Central America who came as temporary workers to rebuild the city. As Julia Kumari-Drapkin reports, a growing number of them now call New Orleans home.

JULIA KUMARI-DRAPKIN:  A silver pick up slows in front of the Home Depot in the Mid-City neighborhood of New Orleans. The drivers are looking for help fixing up a day care center. 20 men begin negotiating with the drivers in Spanish.

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KUMARI-DRAPKIN: Soon, one man climbs in the back of the truck, and they drive off. It’s a familiar scene in many American cities. But day labor sites only started appearing in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

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KUMARI-DRAPKIN: Among those waiting for work today is Alfonso Varia. He came from El Salvador five years ago. Varia says his first glimpse of New Orleans was back home on the news.

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KUMARI-DRAPKIN: He says the devastation was sad to see, but he knew it meant an employment opportunity.

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KUMARI-DRAPKIN: And it was. But even though jobs are scarcer these days, he’s still here.

ELIZABETH FUSSELL:  And so we do observe, typically, a diversification of the population after a hurricane.

KUMARI-DRAPKIN: Sociologist Elizabeth Fussell studies the influx of new Latino workers to New Orleans. She says before Katrina you didn’t see many of them here.

FUSSELL: Basically they weren’t coming here because the economy wasn’t doing the things that attract Latino immigrants.

KUMARI-DRAPKIN: Things like agriculture, meat packing, or construction. And local residents dominated the tourism and service industries. But after Katrina, 80% of the city’s housing stock was flooded. Suddenly New Orleans was doing the kind of thing that attracts Latino immigrants. Rebuilding. Immigrant workers started arriving in the weeks after the storm. And they called themselves…

FUSSELL: Hurricane chasers.

KUMARI-DRAPKIN: They put blue tarps on the rooftops and started cleaning up. They slept in the parks, under bridges, and even in the homes they were hired to clean. But with many of the city’s black residents still displaced, competition for work and demographic change can be sensitive issues. The year after Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin heightened tensions when he pronounced that New Orleans had a specific racial flavor.

RAY NAGIN: This city will be chocolate at the end of the day.

KUMARI-DRAPKIN: Five years on New Orleans is still majority black, but more Latinos are choosing to stay in the city they came to rebuild. The numbers are still small. According to census data, New Orleans is 6.6% Hispanic. Up from 4.4% in 2000. But it’s a change that’s more noticeable on the streets. Make-shift taco trucks have given way to Mexican grocery stores and restaurants. Like this one that caters to new Mexicans living in Mid-City. Where you can actually get real Mexican food. Across the street, the barber who owns Dario’s House of Style, says he’s grateful for the help of his new Latino neighbors.

MAURICE DARIO:  Mexicans, Latinos, they’re a lot of the ones that helped rebuild this city, you know what I’m saying, after the storm, I welcome in every way. At the same time, if the natives should get first preference for a lot of things that goes on.

KUMARI-DRAPKIN: Things like jobs. But Maurice Dario says the new residents have done their part in boosting business. Including his.

DARIO: I’ve ended up cutting quite a few, so all that helps me too you know. Cause I cut hair, I don’t discriminate on that.

KUMARI-DRAPKIN: Some of the city’s new immigrants are contributing to the economy in another way. This is a home buying class taught in Spanish.

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KUMARI-DRAPKIN: Doris Lopez came to New Orleans from Honduras, via North Carolina, looking for Katrina work four years ago. She likes the culture in New Orleans.

DORIS LOPEZ: Mardi gras, jazz.

KUMARI-DRAPKIN: But the reason she’s staying is the reason she came. Work. She ultimately found a good job in a chemical factory. Like many of the Katrina immigrants, she was undocumented, but she’s ready to be a permanent resident.

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KUMARI-DRAPKIN: She says everybody dreams of having a house. And now after helping in the rebuilding of homes, she’s buying one herself. For The World, I’m Julia Kumari-Drapkin in New Orleans.

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