My first blog. It has been a real adventure, this last year. My family recently moved back to the USA from overseas. I lived in Germany for 3 years, went to Scotland on vacation and met my future husband in a bar. Classy. I wooed him with single malt whisky and the promise to do my 'country' accent. He got me with his strong arms, slightly reddish sideburns and easy smile. after 7 years of living as an American in Scotland it was time to switch roles. We were moving to St Louis, where we hoped to settle. Sadly the economy is rougher there than other parts of the country and luckily my husband found a great job in New Orleans, which I was ambivalent about. New Orleans is known around the world, anyone I told overseas that I was from Louisiana immediately asked about New Orleans, or knew someone who had gone there, or liked the Dixieland music (mostly Germans were into this). For me it held fond memories of partying in the French Quarter, eating lots of good food and generally getting into trouble. I was 16 when I moved to the outskirts of the city. It also had memories of racial discord and downright hatred. During the time David Duke was running for Senator, I felt a distinct, palpable edge to the area, and was pretty uncomfortable any place with too many white people in it. I had an incident in a bar, where a dummy drew a swastica on the picture I was drawing on the bar's blackboard. The upside was the bar staff (all white) chased the guy out with a baseball bat. Going to LSU games was often a trial as I had to listen to shouts of 'run n***er run' and other racial slurs. It was pretty standard. Now my husband is telling me we are moving down there. Well, I hoped that things had changed, looked forward to some good food and great music. The people are fun and friendly too so I knew that would be fine.

Now that we are here, I can say many things have changed and many have not. Some of the potholes seem to be in the same place they were 10 years ago. There are a lot more hispanic people and taqueria trucks (yum). The place is an absolute wreck in many parts, but others are as pristine as they were 10 or more years ago. Racial disparity and difficulties still abound, and people generally segregate themselves. One beacon of light was at the Bayou Boogaloo, held on Bayou St John. Now I had seen a few mixed race couples, like my husband and I, in the French Quarter but usually attributed it to tourists. I have never seen as many mixed couples and children in New Orleans as I did at the Bayou Boogaloo. No one could explain it, was there an invite sent out, that I didn't receive, telling us mixed up families to come out to it? I felt for once, totally comfortable, not aware of people staring at me and my kids, because there were so many others like us.

When I'm with my 2 fair skinned children what has happened quite often, usually from other African American women is that I'm asked if I am the nanny or babysitter. The first time I didn't get what she said until she'd passed by. When I realized it I turned around to shout 'no, I'm their mom'! Luckily my 4 year old didn't hear as she would be full of difficult to answer questions. Usually it's a more subtle 'are they yours'? One lady said 'well they could definitely PASS, no doubt about that'. That was the strangest comment of all, what century is this?

Around the time that we moved down, and I'm sure Louisiana had something to do with it, my daughter started noticing that we are different colors. She describes people as 'my color' or 'your color mommy'. She said 'that lady is brown like you'. This was a little sad for me because I hoped the innocence of not noticing skin color would last, but this is reality and I was ready for it. I've got the books; That's My Mom, Black White Just Right, ABCs of Black History, The Story of Ruby Bridges (for later). When she said she wanted to be brown like me I hugged her and told her what beautiful light brown skin she has, along with her little brother. To say her skin is light brown is stretching it a bit, she is very fair, but is getting some sun here in Louisiana.

I don't know if we will settle here permanently, the school situation is awful - again, most schools are segregated by race, which race do you think have the better schools? It's such a long, long history of segregation and repression, I just don't see it changing in my lifetime. There are beacons of hope here and there but maybe I'm not looking in the right spots. I'm still pretty new and it's important to find a mix of friends for myself and my children, but it's hard meeting other African American women similar to me (I don't mean with mixed race kids) I just don't meet many in the playgroups, bouncy houses, zoos etc that I attend. Maybe I should start a meetup group for African American stay at home moms, or that might be too specific.