Marciella Guzmán was a politically conservative 21-year-old when she joined the U.S. Navy as an information system technician in 1998. By the time she left in 2002, she said she had become liberal.

Guzmán, now a counter-recruitment activist in Los Angeles, said that she lost respect for the military: "I didn't trust that we had enough training or manpower to go into Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time."

Despite rare glimpses of growing popular opposition to the war, such as Cindy Sheehan or Medea Benjamin with "Bring Troops Home Now" signs on national television, the mainstream media still does not provide a consistent space for a critique of American foreign policy.

And while soldiers continue to desert the military, and 72 percent think that the United States should exit Iraq within the next year, the Bush administration and Congress cannot seem to come up with a concrete strategy for addressing the growing chaos and deaths in Iraq.

Impatient with the current status quo, students, war veterans, anti-war activists and soldiers and their parents across the country are thinking of new ways to get their message to the government and general public.

Realizing that mass national protests did not sway the Bush administration from staying the course in Iraq, many young organizers focused their strategy on local counter-recruitment campaigns. And their work seems to be making an impact.

The Air National Guard missed its recruiting target by 14 percent last year, and the Army missed its goal by 8 percent, its largest recruitment failure since 1979. Military recruitment costs have risen, totaling $3 billion of taxpayers' money each year, and will only get higher if the Iraq war continues and the ability to recruit young men and women to enlist decreases. Right now, the Army's new recruitment tactics increasingly include allowing young men and women with criminal records to enlist, recruiting members of hate groups, easing restrictions on recruiting high school dropouts and raising the maximum recruitment age from 35 to 42.

Spreading the real story of military life

In 1998, Guzmán needed money to go to college and thought the military would be a good way of getting that money. But when she stepped into boot camp, she realized she'd been sold on lies. Paperwork battles ensued until she finally received the higher wages and rank she was initially promised.

Her first command was stationed at Diego García, a tiny island in the Indian Ocean. "The U.S. military personnel basically lease the island from the British, and the only people who are allowed there are military personnel and the workers there -- Filipinos who are brought to the island," said Guzmán. "It was very difficult to see how the American soldiers treated these people. The workers had poor benefits, they were underpaid, and the military didn't respect them. That reminded me of my family here. I'm Mexican-American, and it reminded me of the struggles my parents went through in this country. And so my ideology started to change."

Guzmán's perspective finally shifted for good after she left the military in 2002 and went to the VA to receive treatment for the back problems she acquired during her service. She had to fight to get even the most basic treatment.

Now Guzmán spends what little time she has between work and school to educate high school students about the realities of military service.

She just came out a month ago with the sexual assault she also suffered during her service. A fellow servicewoman had shared her experience with sexual assault, which helped Guzmán come to terms with her own experience. It has been four years since Guzmán was last in the military and she still has not told her family about the incident.

"I want [young people] to question why it was allowed, and that it's still happening in the military, especially for women," said Guzmán. "And what they're going to get into [if they join the military]. I give them the option: 'If you still want to go to the military, I will go with you to the recruitment office to make sure that they don't lie to you.' It takes so long to educate young people about the myths of the military."

And that's where recent counter-recruitment strategies like the Not Your Soldier initiative and STORY Collaborative come in.

"I do anti-war workshops all the time, and so often I have very intense conversations with youth about the war in Iraq and everyone is like, 'It's all about oil, it's all about money, it's all about power,'" said Steve Theberge, youth and counter-recruitment program coordinator for the New York-based War Resisters League. "I think young people often feel that there's not much they can do about it. There's not a sense of empowerment or that energy or ability to make change. Not Your Soldier is about taking that political analysis that a lot of young folks have and translating that into possible action."

The War Resisters League, along with The National Youth & Student Peace Coalition, the National Network Opposed to Militarization of Youth, the American Friends Service Committee, and the League of Independent Voters have joined forces with the Ruckus Society to produce the Not Your Soldier initiative.

Not Your Soldier was first marketed through MySpace and through word of digital mouth like emails and text messages. "It's an educating tool that they themselves can use and pass along," said Adrienne Maree Brown, executive director of Ruckus Society, based in Oakland, Calif. (Full disclosure: Brown serves on the WireTap advisory board.) Through Not Your Soldier, youth can participate in the anti-war and counter-recruitment activities by visiting NotYourSoldier.org, watching the Flash movie "Punk Ass Crusade," the "Addicted to Oil" Flash movie, attending Not Your Soldier camps and going to concerts for revolutionary hip-hop band The Coup.

"We've recognized the need to go beyond training," said Theberge. "For a long time we've hoped that we would be able to provide training and somehow somewhere, somebody else was going to step up and organize on the local level. We have to shift our tactics. A lot has changed, and unfortunately the anti-war movement hasn't."

Not Your Soldier also connects young people on an emotional level by connecting them with men and women who have served in the war in Iraq. Theberge said, "I can throw as many stats out there as much as I want. I can talk as much as I want about the war. But I think that, for many people, hearing veterans speak is about as close as you can get." To that end, the group has put on three regional camps this summer and plan to host several more in the coming year.

"I think if you look at the anti-war movement, it's a lot of really good people, but it's not a lot of young people," Brown said. "A major belief of Ruckus is the impacted community has to be at the forefront of your work. We have to find ways for soldiers and students to be active components of their own liberation and guaranteeing their own rights."

Boots Riley, leader of the socially conscious hip-hop group The Coup, is currently on tour and talks about the Not Your Soldier initiative in the middle of every concert.

"I sometimes see people from the military coming to my shows and saying that they're fans. And not just someone who is in the Army, but someone deep in the military," Riley said. "There have also been military recruiters. And after the show they're like, 'I really agree with what you say, but being a military recruiter is just my job.' And I'm like, 'I guess.'"

Riley added that he's always found people against the war in his audience. "I'm talking about Old Smith, Montana. I'm talking about El Paso, Texas. I'm talking about Alabama. I'm talking about Ohio," said Riley. "Everywhere people were and are against the war. And these weren't just people who were coming to see a revolutionary hip-hop show."

Providing another option to enlisting

Riley can relate to the military option so many young people feel they have to take. Although he's been a progressive organizer since he was 14, when he thought he was going to be a father at age 17, he considered joining the military.

Riley's dilemma is one of the greatest challenges of the anti-war movement, according to Doyle Canning of smartMeme, a nonprofit collective of long-term organizers, strategists, trainers and communications professionals based in Burlington, Vt.

Canning said, "The U.S. military-industrial complex, for better and for worse, is selling young people on the idea of economic opportunity. And how does the progressive community offer that opportunity? And how can we actually do counter-recruitment -- like actually not just say, 'Hey, the recruiters are lying. Don't join the military'?"

In response, smartMeme has come up with a different strategy. They are working to build a network of organizations -- nonprofits, for-profits, institutions, businesses, farms and more -- that are willing to provide another option to young people who feel that they have no choice but to enlist. Canning said, "We have to ask [these young people], 'Why don't you come and become an intern at this progressive organization?'" And she said smartMeme is asking organizations, "Would you be interested in giving an opportunity to someone who is thinking about joining the military?"

Early in July, smartMeme gathered young Iraq veterans, students, counter-recruiters and peace activists, all under the age of 30, for an intimate retreat to discuss the anti-war movement at the historic Highlander Center in Tennessee. The project, the STORY Collaborative to End the War in Iraq, is online and soon will be publishing its findings. While no concrete answers came out of the Collaborative, Canning views the stories as the keys to gaining connection and momentum throughout the movement.

"The stories are at the center of our strategy," she said. "Recentering ourselves with our stories and realizing that we have such different stories, and that we have different relationships with the war in Iraq … people of Arab-American backgrounds, people who live on the border and who see the militarization of the U.S.-Mexican border, and people from the South, people from Oakland, people from all over, saying, 'Yeah, we have different experiences, and we have different stories, and we have different relationships with this war. But we were able to come together and find some common ground.'"

Echoing the Ruckus Society's beliefs, Canning is clear that the anti-war movement needs new leadership: Those most impacted by the military's recruitment and the poverty draft need to be empowered to work against the struggle that most affects them.

"When we're talking about counter-recruitment, we're talking about the U.S. military targeting low-income people and youth of color, and that's for real. And so the role of traditionally white-led peace and justice organizations is to work in solidarity with those communities in resisting U.S. militarism. And that needs to be a collaborative relationship in order to really support the leadership of young people of color in those communities," said Canning.

Canning feels the anti-war movement should take notice of another important fact: Young people listen to young people. "That's the whole lesson of MySpace," she said. "That's the whole lesson of all this huge viral marketing stuff. It's about peer-to-peer networks. It's about who we listen to are people who we can relate with, people like us. And so how do we incorporate that learning into our counter-recruitment work?"

Ruckus Society founder John Sellers is hopeful that the new direction his organization is taking to contribute to the counter-recruitment movement is going to produce results.

"Basically, in a year or two, it's very likely that [the anti-war movement] will be as dynamic as college campus activism during the anti-apartheid movement. It's definitely spreading down to high schools, which is critical because that's where most recruitment comes from -- high school-age young folks from rural and urban backgrounds." He also likened the present day to the last time this country had a vibrant anti-war movement. "During Vietnam, we had the draft. Now we have the poverty draft. But we think that, by making all of the military recruiters miss their quotas, that's going to impact how Bush and Rumsfeld and Cheney are going to view this war -- if they have less cannon fodder at their disposal."

"I like to sing, but I'm not doing that this year," said Hugo Orozco, 10, of Brooklyn, New York, a member of the bands Hellish Rellish and Magnolia. "I'm doing drums this year."

A native of Austin, Texas, Orozco first found out about rock girl camps last year when a family friend who worked at the Rock and Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, Ore., paid a visit. Orozco was all ready to rock out in Portland, but her family moved to New York. Luckily she found out about the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls in New York City. And now Orozco will be attending the camp for her second summer.

"I got a letter two weeks ago saying that I got accepted. Yay!" said Orozco.

Thanks to the work and inspiration of the Portland Rock and Roll Camp for Girls founded in the summer of 2001, one-week-long summer rock camps for girls (ages vary between 8 and 18) have been sprouting across the United States and around the world. The camps have encouraged and taught thousands of girls to sing and play guitar, drums and keyboards, as well as tutored them to perform and record music.

Girl rock camps -- which are inclusive of music genres from hip hop to country -- have now spread to the South and the Midwest in the United States. There are also rumors that there will be a girl rock camp in Hawaii soon. As for the world, Canada and Sweden now have girl rocks camps of their own.

Karla Schickele, director and one of the founders of the Willie Mae Rock Camp, was a volunteer at the Rock and Roll Camp for Girls in Portland for two summers before she thought New York City should have a rock camp for girls of its own.

"A lot of my friends are musicians who are women, and I knew there would be a ton of women who could get into something like that," said Schickele. "And obviously there are a zillion girls in New York who would be interested in rocking out for a week. It just seemed like a good idea that made sense."

Like many rock girl camp volunteers and leaders, Schickele has a 9 to 5 job and gigs with her bands Ida and K, to balance in conjunction with her volunteer work with Willie Mae. But these commitments don't stop her from wanting to expand the camp.

Approaching her second summer camp session, Schickele is hoping to draw 200 girls to the camp -- more than three times as many girls as the camp had last summer. Schickele is also looking to create a Girls Rock Institute similar to the one at the Portland Rock Camp, a yearlong after school program "so the girls can have a chance to play music and work with other girls on a year-round basis. Not just one week in the summer," said Schickele.

Rock girl camp isn't free, but all the camps offer some type of financial aid. According to Schickele, more than half of the campers at Willie Mae last summer got full or partial scholarships. In addition, some of the families that can afford to, have given a little bit extra to help offset the cost for some campers.

According to Alexa Weinstein, board member and long-time volunteer at the Portland Rock and Roll Camp for Girls, it costs their camp $700 per girl.

"We charge $300 and offer financial aid to a large number of the girls who apply, so it often costs $500 or $600 with the financial aid or donations we get. But it's really important that we do this because we want to make sure it is accessible to everybody; that no girl is turned away because she can't afford tuition," said Weinstein.

"The hardest part is fundraising," added Weinstein. "The economy is not so great, and most people don't have the extra money [to give]. It's also tough because people are starving, people are dying in Darfur, and from Hurricane Katrina ... There are really terrible, undeniably horrible things that are truly leaving people in desperate need, and I think sometimes people think why should they give money to a rock and roll camp when they could give money to an organization that is working on hunger? It's a really tough question to answer. I can't tell people what they should do with their hard-earned money."

But what she can do, and what many of the camps do, is prove that the camps really do make a difference in the lives of young girls.

"There are so many girls who don't fit in the mainstream at school ... A lot of girls feeling like they have to join and can't fit in," said Weinstein. "They might not fit in because they're queer and out in high school. They might be big girls. There are a million things that cause them not to be a part of mainstream groups at school. But here, they can work with four other girls who they've never met before and have nothing in common with and can write a song with them in a week, get up on stage and play it, and truly have an amazing experience. It really helps them to blossom, and to change, and to come out of their shells."

Kelley Anderson remembers what it was like to not have a community to call her own. Growing up in South Carolina, there were only one or two girls in her entire town that played music for a live audience. She then went away to college in Tennessee in hopes of finding a women's music scene. She didn't find one there either.

"I just thought it was my town that sucked," said Anderson. "But I ran into the same thing here [Murfreesboro], and it was disappointing. There were a lot of girls at the shows, but there weren't many girls on stage."

So in hopes of changing all that, Anderson founded the Southern Rock Camp for Girls (SGRRC) in Murfreesboro while a sophmore at Middle Tennessee State University.

In addition to following many of Portland's Rock and Roll Girl Camp's curriculum workshops such as media literacy, song writing, zine making, merchandise making and learning about sexism in the industry, Anderson also wants to make sure the girls know that there are a lot of opportunities in the music business for them besides being the lead performer.

"We want to encourage girls -- let them know -- that you really don't have to be the guitar player out in front all of the time," said Anderson. "Not everybody can do that, and you can still be a very valuable member of the band. Promoting a true music community is just as valuable and important as being a drummer in band."

Anderson is currently working with her co-directors at SGRRC to develop a youth arts organization -- Youth Development Through Art and Community -- that would sponsor different programs for girls and boys. So far, they're sponsoring SGRRC and simultaneously working on having an afterschool camp.

"One thing we're seeing is that we nurture the girls to a certain point. They form a band, they learn instruments -- they're doing all this cool stuff, and there's nowhere for them to play," said Anderson. "We want to provide a really healthy, positive environment for them to perform in. [Because of their young ages], they're completely cut off from the local music scene. It's just one of the discriminations against young people."

Now facing its third year, the North Carolina Rock and Roll Camp for Girls, led by Amelia V.B. Shull, is looking to expand the summer camp in the heart of North Carolina between Chapel Hill and Durham to more than one week per summer.

"After the first year, we had such a great response that we added a second week last year," said Shull. "So this year, we tried to find a way to keep growing, and rent or lease a building that would allow us to accommodate more girls, over more weeks. We couldn't find anything! It was frustrating!"

Maria Cincotta was there in 2001 when Portland's Rock and Roll Camp for Girls made history. She is now in New York volunteering at Willie Mae and keeping all the girl rock camps in touch through an electronic list serve she organized. She hopes the rock camps expand in size and reach as well.

"I hope that the rock camps will continue to connect and share resources, and I would be totally excited if there was ever a rock camp for girls conference in which the ladies from all of the rock camps could meet each other, share resources and ideas face-to-face, and share experiences," said Cincotta. "I hope that rock camps for girls will continue to grow as a global movement."

Rachelle van Zanten is working on it. A volunteer for the Rocker Girl Camp of Canada in Central Alberta now in its second year, van Zanten emailed me while on tour for her latest CD, "Back to Francois," in Germany.

"This is a very cool concept, and I see it catching on like wildfire," said van Zanten. " I am going to do what I can to make it happen in the Western provinces Hopefully someone will do it in the East and let those girls have a chance to attend."

This spring break, undergrad and graduate students across the country are going to be heading down to Biloxi, Miss., Mobile Ala., and New Orleans, La. Not to party hearty, or to get their groove on at clubs catering to them and their dollars, but to help make a difference in the lives affected most by the biggest natural disaster to hit the United States in recent history, thanks to the organizing efforts of the Katrina on the Ground initiative.

"A lot of people are going to want to go to New Orleans because of how the media has displayed New Orleans. But my choice is to go to Alabama and Mississippi, first, because, I have a personal connection," said Chazeman Jackson.

Jackson, 26, is a microbiology Ph.D. student at Howard University who will be spending her spring break in the Gulf region, hopefully in Mississippi, where she's originally from, and where she got her undergraduate degree.

"I'm really, really excited about this … A lot of times, people judge this generation of students as apathetic. But this is a call, and I think a lot of our age group is going to answer that call," said Jackson. "We're not a lost generation. We do care. And we don't just care, we organize ourselves and mobilize ourselves."

We caught up with one of the lead organizers of Katrina on the Ground, long-time activist, Kevin Powell, during one of his speaking engagements in Ohio. According to Powell, if Katrina on the Ground is a success this spring, the initiative will be back this summer for another round of students to take part in. Powell and fellow organizers are hoping for at least a thousand students to attend this March.

Celina R. De Leon: How did you become involved with Katrina on the Ground?

Kevin Powell: I was one of the folks who came up with the idea for it, so I've been involved since the very beginning. I organized two Katrina benefits in New York, one in September and one in December. And I went down to New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Houston, about a week after everything went down. It's been something very near and dear to my heart since the very, very beginning.

When [a group of us] were talking about what we can do, I thought about my years in college in the late '80s and my involvement in the anti-apartheid movement. And I knew we needed to go down there.

CDL: Can you explain further the four main goals of the initiative -- physical and emotional reconstruction, legal education and assistance, and financial literacy?

KP: Having been down there, I knew for a fact, that there is an obvious need for human help. There are a lot of great organizations on the ground and coalitions of all kinds, but there is still a shortage of human help … For example, help cleaning up the area. They need people to help build new houses. And certain places should actually be deemed unlivable because of how bad they were hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Another need is the fact that this is an incredibly traumatic experience. And so for us, it's about making sure students know that there's a need for sensitivity with these folks in the community -- that [students] are not just talking to them, or with them, but actually listening. I know from being in New York -- we've been doing a lot of work with the Katrina survivors who are living in hotels there, which FEMA is trying to kick folks out of now -- one of the basic things people just need to do is unload their stories. This means listening, and also collecting oral stories, because it's now a part of America's tragic history. So, in our recruitment, we also have a lot of psychology majors, etc. … This is just very important when talking about how trauma affects people and how it carries out through several years, especially when it's not handled properly.

In terms of financial literacy, a lot of the working class people -- we saw poor Blacks, but there are also poor white folks, poor Latino brothers and sisters, and Haitians who lived in the surrounding areas who were affected by [Hurricane Katrina]. Class was not orchestrated by Hurricane Katrina, but it was definitely exasperated by it. And so trying to get people to understand that we might not be dependent on the government to move forward, so what are some of the things that we need to do financially to move forward. For example, while we were at the Astrodome we noticed some people got their hands on the government checks for $2,000, and these folks were going out buying Xboxes and sneakers, and stuff like that. In this country, we're conditioned to think that once we get money, we need to spend it. So what we mean by financial literacy is we have to educate people that just because you have money doesn't mean you need to spend it.

We also need to bring back jobs to the community.

[In terms of civil rights and legal education and assistance], there's supposed to be a mayoral election in April. And you know, folks are scattered all across the country. So, who's going to vote? You're not there, but you're not there because of a natural disaster. And so what we have is people not participating in the election of the mayor and of the city council, who will be representing their state for the next four years. So here we go again, back to people paying taxes in this country and not being part of the democratic process. These are the things we're talking about …

We also need to focus on all of these issues, and see links between them, and not just focus on one -- or justifiable battles.

CDL: Are you hoping Katrina on the Ground will spur a bigger movement in this country?

KP: Yeah, I think so. I see this as a national mobilization of all these different forces that have been operating, and how can we come together and link this thing around the issue of jobs, around the issues around a woman's right to choose, the issues around the war in Iraq. How do we organize people to form linkages between all these different things?

The Left is not really going uphill, like it did a generation ago when I was in college during the apartheid movement … It died for a lot of reasons, which I can't get into right now, but it's our turn. It's as simple as that. And what I mean by it's our turn, I mean Generation X -- 30-somethings like myself -- and Generation Y -- teenagers and 20-somethings -- it's our turn, we've got to do it.

CDL: Who will students be working with once they're down in the Gulf region?

KP: Students will be working with local organizers. One of the things we wanted to recognize when we went down there is to recognize and respect local leadership. In what we're calling "The 21st Century Leadership Camp," students will be given an orientation to prepare them for what they're about to go through. Think about it, lots of students have never been to the South. Lots of people have lots of biases about the South. But what's important is that they understand the cultural, geographical terrain that they're going to enter.

And No. 2, really trying to prepare the students to work with local organizers. So a lot of the workshops that they're going to be doing in orientation will be local organizers actually leading them. And they'll just plug in and be shipped out to the different cities.

When we did our benefit in September [2005] in New York City, and everyone was focusing on the one hosted by the American Red Cross, we had over 1,000 people, and no media came out. Most of the times, activists and organizers are not covered, and then people turn around and say, "Young people aren't doing anything." And I'm like, "How can you say that when young people are doing something, and you choose not to cover it?" It's just really ridiculous.

One of the things we're clear about, we don't want younger leaders to become the media whores that the older leaders were. This is not about one person. I'm opposed to male-centered leadership … And it's got to be leadership that understands that, which is what we're going say when we get down there for orientation -- this is a movement of inclusion. We don't care if you're black, white, Latino, Asian, male or female, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, straight, gay, lesbian or bisexual -- we just want you to care about other human beings. It's as simple as that. We have to start saying what a progressive coalition is going to look like, and if you're going to be a leader, you're going to have to have the ability to bridge gaps -- the cultural divide.

CDL: Do you provide housing for the students?

KP: Students are going to be staying, just like in the '60s, in the local community with local families. It's all set up. If it goes well, which I think it will, we'll have people coming down in massive waves in the summer as well.

CDL: And what do you have to say to students, who, for whatever reason, can't take part in Katrina on the Ground? What can they do to help?

KP: They can spread the word. They can have Katrina on the Ground workshops on their campuses. Or, we're going to be doing a documentary on the whole thing. We have a number of students bringing cameras. You can make sure that you get someone on your campus to show it. And to also understand, this is the first wave, it will be happening again in the summer.

Also to really just get the word out there. And just really educate yourself around race and class in this country. Hurricane Katrina really floored a lot of folks. And gender issues, a lot of people who were affected by [Hurricane Katrina] were poor single women.

To learn more about opportunities to join the Katrina on the Ground project, visit their website at Katrinaontheground.com.

Students are asked to commit to volunteering for at least one week between March 6 and March 31, 2006. Students will arrive in Selma, Ala., at the 21st Century Youth Camp site on three successive Sundays: March 5, March 12 and March 19. A one-day orientation will occur on three successive Mondays: March 6, March 13, and March 20.

Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history displacing an estimated 1.5 million people. About 300,000 of these evacuees were grade school and college students, who are now living in temporary homes and attending new schools across the country.

JoAnn Bruster is one of these students, who used to live in Terrytown, La., a parish of New Orleans. A Social Work graduate student, she was enrolled at Southern University in New Orleans. JoAnn is now staying with her friend in Houston, Texas and is attending University of Houston, where she hopes to finish her master's degree by the end of the year.

JoAnn Bruster spoke to WireTap from her new home on October 12 about her evacuation from Louisiana and her new post-Katrina life.

Could you describe your experience with Hurricane Katrina?

We left the day before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Sunday, August 28. We were actually going to stay in a hotel in Metairie, right behind the airport, and we decided not to because we saw how bad it was getting.

When we left Metairie, there was a lot of traffic. So we got off the interstate and took the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway Bridge and then we took a back road up the 55. Once we got on 55, we went all the way to Littlerock, Ark.

I was traveling with my younger sister, my roommate Brandi Dortch, her son Brandon, who was about 8 months old, and a few people in another car from her job. She is employed with JetBlue airlines, and they have a station at the Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans.

When we went to Little Rock, Ark., her job had already had a hotel waiting for us there. They took good care of us. They paid for the hotel, they paid for the meals, and we stayed there for about three days. But then we still weren't ever sure if we were going to get back into the city. So we left there and went to Clinton, Miss. Now that's when it really started getting bad, in Clinton.

Why did you decide to go there?

We were trying to get as close to the city [New Orleans] as possible. At that time we thought they were going to let us back in and we tried to get as close as we could to avoid some of the traffic. But when we got to Clinton, we got a word that the storm had hit and that it was really bad and they weren't sure if they were going to let people back into the city. ... The levees had just broke, the houses and streets were beginning to flood. And we stayed there for two days.

We then went to Bulmont, Texas. Her job once again had another hotel and people waiting on us. By the time we got to Bulmont, we realized that we weren't going to be able to go back home. So it was like a change from a couple of days vacation to making some serious life decisions.

At that point, I had no idea what to do because my home is in New Orleans, I've been living in New Orleans all my life, and I always said that once I finished up with my education in New Orleans that I would leave the city and go live somewhere else and then come back in my later life.

I had a very good friend that lived in Bulmont. ... When I get to Bulmont she [Chereese] asked, "What do you want to do because you're not going to be able to go back home?" I said what I need to do is find a school that I can go to because I need to finish up my education. I can't do anything without my education. She said, "Well, I'm going to call you back tomorrow and let you know what I find out."

She called me the next day -- by then it was Tuesday or Friday, at that point all the days were running together. She told me, "I talked to the Dean of the University of Houston. You are registered. You need to be here Tuesday to go talk to them and sign papers."

I said, "What?!" And she replied, "JoAnn, have you been watching the news?" I said I stopped watching the news because it was making me too sad. She said that New Orleans is under water. I said, "What?! I heard that the levee broke, but I thought it was just in Metairie." She replied, "No, the water has went totally into the Ninth ward, the Ninth ward is flooded. Quite possibly your school is under water." My school did suffer a lot of damage, every building on my campus got water to the second floor.

By that next Tuesday, I brought my little sister back to Louisiana but went to St. Francisville to be with my dad and my grandmother. And I left and went to Houston.

When I got to Houston, it was still not real. It was just not real. I went to the University of Houston, met with the dean and the admissions person of the school of social work, the graduate school, and they just took me right then and there. They wanted to know how we were doing, what we needed, and that was it. They had been really, really kind. They provided book vouchers to get the books, and the school gave us IDs, and you know they had truly accepted us into their university. [According to JoAnn, the master's in social work program at the University of Houston accepted 20 students from New Orleans, now there are 6.]

I can stay at the University of Houston and I plan to stay, but it's quite possible that I might not have any money to finish up my last semester because of this storm. So we need, all of us. And when I'm talking about all of us, I mean everybody from Louisiana, all the Gulf Coast schools, we need the federal government to make a decision on what they're going to do. It's not our fault. We're definitely the ones who are going to be penalized because of this situation.

One of my classmates who had left New Orleans had just gotten her refund check. That means she had to take herself, her four kids, and go to another state, and she used that money for living expenses -- for hotels, food, shelter. That money that we budgeted for the semester, has now been used as living expenses. So now that we're at another school, we can't expect these other schools to take us in for free.

Some of my classmates that were with me at Southern University, who came to University of Houston, have left it, and went back to Southern Baton Rouge -- our main campus ... I'm not planning on doing that because I always said that when I get through my education in New Orleans, I was going to leave any ways. So I'm staying [at University of Houston].

But how can I survive here in graduate school and not have any income coming in? So unless the Federal Government steps up and help us, we're going to be in some serious trouble. Believe it or not, I've applied for so many jobs -- I mean it's just crazy how many jobs I have applied for -- and I haven't gotten any responses yet.

Was your home flooded and damaged?

There was a time when they were letting people back into the city, but only during the daytime. I went back and did get all my stuff. And it was messed up -- it looked like somebody had broken in, but didn't take anything. I'm just thinking they were looking for some food or some shelter.

The roof was damaged. There was some water damage in two of the bedrooms. One of the closets had a lot of water damage, and some of the clothes were messed up. It was minor compared to a lot of other people.

The houses surrounding my house were really messed up. I saw trees on houses. I saw one house where there was one entire side gone.

How is your family doing?

My older sister and her two kids stayed. She lives in Arlene's Parish, on the west bank of the river. When I was able to talk to her, she was in Clinton, Miss., and I was already in Houston. She said that after the storm hit, the following day they still had electricity and water. The neighbors had gotten together and whoever had gas, they were cooking for each other and sharing the food with the neighbors. It was good to hear that people were actually taking care of each other.

And then the water went out, the electricity went out, and things started getting worse. The businesses around her home, they were starting to be broken into. This is when the looting started going on. So she got scared for her and her kids and a bus came by. The bus was loading up people and she left and this bus took her to the Causeway Bridge.

I don't know if you remember seeing in the news where they actually had people under the Causeway Bridge ... just standing there. A bus had taken them there and just dropped them off there. Well, my sister, my niece, and my nephew were three of those people. They stayed there for about 24 hours and then another bus came and took them to Clinton, Miss.

When she went to Clinton, Miss. is when she could contact me. And after that, she went to Atlanta, where she is now. My niece and my nephews are in school, they're having a great time, they're making new friends. She's actually making plans to relocate there. She's going back to New Orleans on Friday and she's going to stay there through the weekend to make arrangements and move her and the kids permanently to Atlanta.

I haven't been back to the city ever since I got my stuff. I would like to go. But where would I stay, what would happen? There is so much unknown to where it might be more of a danger to go back than not to go.

How do you think the government handled Hurricane Katrina -- mainly the federal government?

[Laughs] I think the government did a very poor job. Saying we have the strongest military force, and we are supposed to be the richest country in the world, it's totally amazing to me that we have people right here in our own country that suffered so hard and for so long.

I just don't blame our Federal Government. I also blame our local and state government. I'm pretty sure when those persons got into office, someone sat down and said those levees can only stand a Category 3. I mean, what do we pay these people for? I honestly believe that from federal to local to state, they did not do a good job, and they're still not doing a good job.

Do you think our government could have done a better job with the evacuation process?

Yes. Those helicopters we pay so much taxes for could have done a whole lot, and they didn't. I'm really disappointed at all of it. I'm hoping and praying that, it's got to get better.

What do you think about President George W. Bush's reaction to Hurricane Katrina?

First of all, I'm not a huge George Bush fan. His values are totally different from mine. But as my president he had every responsibility for every person in the Gulf Coast. He had the major responsibility of making sure the citizens of this country are okay and he failed miserably. There was so much that he could have done that he didn't even try to do and then when he tried to do something it was so half-assed it didn't even matter if he did it or not. It just did not make any sense to me.

Do you think certain parts of New Orleans or the Gulf Coast were treated better than others?

I really feel like they were really treated the same: really bad, really wrong. They were totally disregarded as tax-paying citizens -- even if it wasn't for the fact that they were poor, black, white, or whatever. Just for the fact that they were tax-paying citizens, they were treated unfairly.

What do you think needs to happen now in New Orleans?

I think every person in the federal government -- from the President to the Vice-President to Congress and the Senate -- needs to go live in New Orleans so that they would know exactly what is going on there. If they don't get off their butts and fix this problem it can only get worse. For an American city to die ... it's a very bad thing. That means that anybody in the world could come to this country and just do anything.

I think they need to send more money to the Gulf Coast. I think they need to rebuild New Orleans as soon as possible. And I think they need to get these people back home and get them some type of security to let them know that they're safe. And I think it's not going to happen without the media. It is going to be a slow process in rebuilding but the media needs to help and not hinder.

Are you talking about the exaggerated reports?

I actually did see a lot of those reports. And actually I did see some people looting. I saw most people carrying food. I didn't see people carrying TVs and stuff like that. You only saw one or two carrying TVs. And they [the media] made it seem like everybody were doing it.

The people at that time were facing hunger -- they didn't know where their next meal was going to come from -- they didn't know where they were going to get their drinking water from. So in that time when nobody was there to help them, and they were looting for food and for water and for drink -- I had no problem with that.

And I heard one report that said that in the ninth ward 90 percent of the houses in the ninth ward are rental houses. So not true. I would say 95 percent of the houses in the ninth ward are owned by families for generations. And all of those homeowners are going to need help in rebuilding.

I don't think that companies, or governmental agencies, should go in and offer these people money to sell their property. I mean, if they sell their property, where else are they going to go in this country and find housing? It makes no sense to me. They have the land, all they need to do is rebuild. And I think it should be the homeowners' decision, not someone else's.

How do you feel about mainstream media's coverage of Hurricane Katrina?

I think they're reporting half-facts. For example, the homeownership in the ninth ward I mentioned earlier.

OK, say for instance, you have a lot of money. You know for a fact that New Orleans is going to be revamped and rebuilt. If I had a lot of money, I could go down there and say, you know what, I'm going to buy this property and do what I want with it. Meaning they could turn it into something that is not accessible for low-income people. Of course, New Orleans is one of the lowest income [cities] in this country so these people are going to need help. They don't need anyone offering them money for a temporary fix, it has to be a long-term fix.

What are your plans for the future?

My plan is to finish graduate school. That's my first priority. When I get out of graduate school I know for a fact that there's going to be a lot of need for social service agencies. It really seemed like a good idea to get away, and see other things, but if I don't help out my home to rebuild, who else is going to help my home rebuild. And I know for a fact that in order for me to help, I am going to need an education.

Then I'm going to go back home and help rebuild the best I can. And I'm going to fight for those things that I know for a fact that people are going to need -- food, food stamps, and possibly welfare for a while. I want to be one of those people that help.

How are you doing now? What could make your life easier now?

(Laughs) Right now, Houston, University of Houston, my friend Chereese here, her family, they have done everything to support me, to help me do all of this. And I'm really appreciative. I'm fine right now. My life is getting back to normal. I don't think it'll ever be back to quite where it was when I was living in New Orleans, but it's getting back to normal.

I love New Orleans. I miss New Orleans. And believe me, I do believe that it's going to come back stronger than ever.

I'm really looking towards our leaders to help in every way they can. Not just temporarily but long-term.

I'm making sure that I write to Congress, the White House, and my representatives from home to let them know as a registered voter that they're going to do everything they can for these people, for my people, and even for the people here in Texas.

The people in Texas have invested a lot into us. And they didn't have to do it, but I'm thankful that they did. The people in Texas need to replenish the funds that they used for us instead of their own citizens.