In their great misfortune, they are called the first climate refugees in the United States. They live in southern Louisiana on the Gulf of Mexico on a peninsula, Isle de Jean-Charles, connected to the mainland by a single asphalt road that is increasingly submerged under water. This once beautiful and prosperous place covered 8,000 hectares. Today, it has been reduced to 130 hectares.
The inhabitants are not just anyone, they are Native Americans, part of the united Houma nation and the Choctaw nation. These tribes, referenced by French settlers since the 18th century, chose to collaborate with them rather than with the Spanish or English. They learned French through this contact and still speak it today for the most part.
The powerful film, particularly moving, broadcast on france.tv, tells their story through the eyes of two teenagers, Howard and Juliette Brunet, from 2018 to the present day. The last ones living on Isle de Jean-Charles with their uncle Chris.
In the 1970s, this land was still flourishing. Here grew forests of tall trees and the Indians raised cows in fields where muskrats ran. They had horses to plow the land, which produced enough to feed them.
However, the situation began to deteriorate when oil and gas companies chose to dig canals to access oil and gas pockets. They opened real avenues that allowed saltwater from the Gulf to seep into the lands that were swallowed up. The yearly storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes did the rest.
Yet, the Houmas and Choctaws persisted in residing on the peninsula, the land of their ancestors that was shrinking before their eyes, until 2016, when the state of Louisiana received a federal grant of $48 million to relocate the Indian community 60 km north to Shriever. Those who had refused to leave finally agreed to relocate, as the Catholic priest Roch Naquin, their stay on site became untenable. And so did all the inhabitants of Isle de Jean-Charles, including more recently, Chris Brunet and his nephew and niece.
The two teenagers were taken in by their uncle following the death of their parents and formed a reliable and safe family unit with Chris. They lived in his stilt house, raised above hurricanes, equipped with an elevator because Chris no longer had the use of his legs.
Their testimonies are all heartbreaking. They recall happy days, their games, communal living. While the residents of Isle de Jean-Charles will find themselves in a new subdivision, they admit how much they will miss their ancestral land.
