My latest: Still Here, a multimedia series

Eight weeks of stories from a fragile coastline. First up: Chief Devon Parfait, a climate refugee who is using his science background to lead his Louisiana tribe.

Author

Barry Yeoman
August 21, 2025

Chief Devon Parfait of the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw. Photo by John Noltner

Dear friends,

I’ve been so eager to share this Louisiana project with you. Today, we start to release it.

It’s called “Still Here,” and it’s a series of interviews with remarkable people living along the state’s fragile coastline. It’s a collaboration with my friend John Noltner, a luminous photographer and the founder of A Peace of My Mind, a non-profit that uses storytelling to bridge divides and build community.

During our nine days in South Louisiana, John and I heard a lot about disappearance. Not only are wetlands vanishing, but so is Black-owned farmland. So are the livelihoods of shrimpers and the tradition of eating Gulf of Mexico seafood. So are local grocery stores, neighborhood music clubs, affordable houses. 

And yet.

We met people who have planted their stakes in that marshy ground, saying, We’re still here. We’re not going away. This place is too precious to abandon.

Their hard work, and the work of others like them, are key to the survival of this beautiful region and a model for the rest of the country. We hope you’ll dive into their stories.

First up: Chief Devon Parfait, a climate refugee who is using his science background to lead the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw. That’s Chief Devon’s face above. You’ll want to listen as he tells his story of exile, survival, and resolution.

Like many of the interviews, I came away from this conversation with a shifted perspective. “As humans, oftentimes we can get too caught up in our short life spans that we live,” Chief Devon told us. “The way that I'm thinking about right now is generationally. What comes in the future, I believe, as the pendulum swings, will be so much better and greater than we can ever imagine.”

How can you listen?

First, you can head over to the website. There you’ll see photos and videos, including John’s portaits (see above). You’ll also see his landscapes, like this one from Dulac, where Chief Devon grew up. 

Photo by John Noltner.

You can also subscribe to A Peace of My Mind’s podcast:

For the duration of the series, I’ll send one newsletter a week. Up next: Kristian Bailey, a grower of natural dyes who talks about farming with tenderness.

Plus, what I’ve been reading (all genres):

  •  Inori Roy, plucking worms in Southern Ontario.

  • Erika Hayasaki’s account of a relationship (of sorts) between a college student and a Ninja Turtle-themed chatbot. Also, Erika’s Q&A with the article’s fact-checker.

  • This international collaboration that interviewed nine Venezuelan immigrants about their deportation to El Salvador’s CECOT prison. By Perla Trevizo, Melissa Sanchez, Mica Rosenberg, Ronna Rísquez, Adrián González, and Adriana Loureiro Fernández.

  • Ezra Klein on why American Jews no longer understand one another.

  •  Major Jackson on how soup tethers us to humanity.

  • Adam Giannelli’s acrostic poem about stuttering.

 A podcast I binged:

Charlie’s Place tells the story of Charlie Fitzgerald, whose Myrtle Beach nightclub became an unlikely site of racial integration in the 1940s. Needless to say, this violation of Jim Crow norms sparked blowback from the white supremacists who operated with protection from law enforcement. The series was reported and hosted by Rhym Guissé, and the sound design is gorgeous.

 A song I’ve been revisiting:

Marcia Ball singing “Louisiana 1927,” Randy Newman’s song about the Great Mississippi Flood. This is a live version recorded in 2004 and released four months before Hurricane Katrina. (Here’s another powerful interpretation by John Boutté, and one by Aaron Neville and India.Arie.)

See you on Aug. 28.

All best,
Barry Yeoman