Evacuee Glimpses Hope As Mardi Gras Chugs On

By LINDSAY PETERSON lpeterson@tampatrib.com

Published: Feb 27, 2006

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is part of a series following four families uprooted by Hurricane Katrina.

TAMPA - Listening to the daily reports of his devastated hometown, Mauricio Sierra spent his first months in Tampa feeling like a stranger.

But when the Mardi Gras parades began last week, he sat in his apartment near the University of South Florida feeling good. He was 650 miles from home. His fraternity brothers from New Orleans were calling, beckoning him to their traditional blowout along the route of the Sunday night Bacchus parade. No problem.

It took him awhile, but he's finally comfortable in Tampa. It's because he knows he will eventually be home. "I'm not worried about missing Mardi Gras. There will be more Mardi Gras," the 22-year-old said.

Sierra wound up at the University of South Florida in early September, one of about 100 students USF took in after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.

He plugged along through the fall semester, managing to focus on his course work, but at the mercy of mood swings. He appreciated the chance to be in school but ached with homesickness and worried about the future of the only place he had ever known.

His first visit to New Orleans at Thanksgiving left him stunned. The house where he had rented a room in Lakeview was filled with mud and mold.

He came back to Tampa in a funk, feeling guilty he wasn't helping his hometown rebuild. He spent Christmas with relatives here, the reason he fled to Tampa in the first place, but headed home for New Year's - and saw a different place.

New Orleans had reached down and found spirit in its traditions. Lights glowed where before it was dark. In his old neighborhood, the dead yellow grass gave way to sprouts of green. Much of the town was still frozen in destruction. Sierra was aghast by the Lower 9th Ward. "Just complete, total devastation," he said.

But he saw more hope for the city than before. And somehow, as he began to worry less about New Orleans, he opened up to Tampa. He began to see its charms: the old Latin neighborhoods, the growing Asian population, the ease with which the diverse groups coexist.

In New Orleans, "you get racially profiled so easily," he said. "You get categorized for everything you do." In Tampa, he can wear baggy jeans and not worry about being tagged as a thug. It's a nice contrast to his hometown, he said.

It's not enough to dim his loyalty: "I still really, really want to go home." But he'll go back a different person than the one who fled Hurricane Katrina six months ago after spending a week trapped in a downtown office building. Since the hurricane, he said, "I've really looked at how much people need help. It makes me sad, really sad. So many people just don't care about the poor."

Before Katrina, he was on a path: graduation from the University of New Orleans, then law school.

He still aims to graduate with a degree in political science in December, but from USF, where he says he has learned more about the consequences of poverty and inequality than ever before. He still aspires to attend law school, maybe at Loyola University or Tulane University. But now he knows why he wants to be a lawyer.

"My plan is completely off track, but that's OK. I've learned something," he said. "I want to get in a position to help people."

Reporter Lindsay Peterson can be reached at (813) 259-7834. Keyword: On the Road, for more stories and photos about Hurricane Katrina and families in the Tampa Bay area.