New Orleans is an alternative American history all in itself, and Exiles at Home is an essential work for decoding it. Thompson portrays vividly the predicament of a community that was neither allowed all the privileges of whites nor subjected to the cruelest indignities visited upon blacks, and, accordingly, was trusted by neither. She makes comprehensible the subtleties of caste and language in New Orleans, and provides a new way to see its historic streets.
Bruce Boyd Raeburn
In this compelling and often provocative study, Thompson situates New Orleans' nineteenth-century monde créole squarely in the mainstream of the American experience without neglecting the intricacies of the city's singular history as a racial and cultural crossroads. Thompson uses créolité as a prism to illuminate the transformation of New Orleans into an American city and to illustrate how an embattled sense of identity could inspire heroic agency in defense of basic human freedoms for those (living and dead) who refused to acquiesce or disappear.
Bruce Boyd Raeburn, Curator, Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University
Werner Sollors
Thompson's fascinating study gives us a fresh view of the transformation of New Orleans from a bilingual and multiracial city to an American anglophone place in which the color line came to be drawn more sharply. This is a rich, beautifully written cultural history that puts Creoles of color at the center of the American story.
Werner Sollors, author of Neither Black nor White yet Both
Bliss Broyard
New Orleans has often been banished from the national narrative for its exceptionality. With impressive scholarship and graceful writing, Shirley Thompson lucidly demonstrates how the city's very Creole nature makes it one of our most emblematic places. The fascinating story of its nineteenth-century residents' struggle to forge an American identity out of disparate racial and ethnic heritages reveals the perils and privileges of national belonging.
Bliss Broyard, author of One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life--A Story of Race and Secrets
Ned Sublette
New Orleans is an alternative American history all in itself, and Exiles at Home is an essential work for decoding it. Thompson portrays vividly the predicament of a community that was neither allowed all the privileges of whites nor subjected to the cruelest indignities visited upon blacks, and, accordingly, was trusted by neither. She makes comprehensible the subtleties of caste and language in New Orleans, and provides a new way to see its historic streets.
Ned Sublette, author of The World that Made New Orleans
Jane Dailey
How do people hold the middle ground when pressed from both sides? Exiles at Home tells the story of racial construction and reconstruction in New Orleans from the point of view of its Creoles of color. Thompson's nuanced and clear-eyed treatment of people who both denied racial reasoning and embraced racial solidarity is a dazzling blend of history and literary studies that deepens our understanding of racial identity and ethnicity.
Jane Dailey, University of Chicago