Grassroots Gumbo

New Orleans

Reverend Luke Nguyen is hastily stuffing a white cleric's collar around his neck as our car edges closer to his latest nemesis. "They don't like it when I come here," he says, pointing to the looming gates of the Chef Menteur Landfill--a sprawling waste site buried in mountains of hurricane debris. Father Luke has been battling the dangerous, unlined dump from the day it opened near his Village de l'Est neighborhood in New Orleans East in February, and he's braced for another standoff.

The security guard takes one look at the feisty priest and quickly retreats. Father Luke shrugs; city officials have been backing down ever since he began leading thousands of Vietnamese residents back to rebuild east New Orleans--the last area to dry after Katrina's floods--a month after the storm.

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