Creating transregional collective nostalgia: the organising role of Catholic parishes among Louisiana migrants in Great Migration-era Los Angeles

Abstract

Scholarship on the African American Great Migration insufficiently examines the interactional, emotional, religious, ethno-regional, and generational diversity of migrant experiences. This study applies insights from the transnational migration literature to illuminate complexities of Black internal migration and incorporation during this era. Using data from 47 in-depth interviews with first- and second-generation Louisianans who arrived in Los Angeles between 1931 and 1973, the article elucidates the distinctive organising role that local Catholic religious institutions played in creating and reinforcing transregional collective nostalgia and a sense of ‘being from’ Louisiana during resettlement. First, within the Black migrant concentration in Los Angeles, Louisiana migrants created an enclave in which Catholic parishes were used to geographically organise the city. Second, parishes organised social life and reinforced the migrant community by stimulating co-migrant contact, Louisiana-centred interaction, and support for adaptation. Finally, migrants shaped how parishes functioned by incorporating elements of Louisiana-based practices into Los Angeles routines, thereby preserving continuity between two places in both practical and nostalgic terms.

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