Environment
Standing Up for the Vietnamese Community of New Orleans
Minh Nguyen campaigned for environmental justice in his community after Katrina. In the years since, he and his group VAYLA have expanded their mission.
Hurricane Katrina drove Minh Nguyen out of New Orleans, but the fight for environmental justice brought him home.
In the wake of the August 2005 storm, Loyola University New Orleans cancelled all classes, and Nguyen left for Los Angeles to continue his studies there. The student activist returned to Loyola the following January to complete his degree, and stayed near school, unable to bear the destruction wreaked on Village de l'Est, also known as Versailles, the heart of the city's Vietnamese community in eastern New Orleans.