Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages and respond quicker when you do need us, because together we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred V and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you, a government executive order to collect data on undocumented immigrants raises concerns among advocacy groups and a legendary Mardi Gras guide has been covering one of Louisiana's most historic traditions since 1977.

That and much more on the state we're in.

Let's get started.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Christine Thier.

Carol BLOCK is out tonight.

We begin our broadcast with news of an executive order from Governor Jeff Landry that would require state agencies to gather information on Louisiana's undocumented immigrant population and the financial impact these instances could pose to Louisiana's economy.

I sat down with Mario Lopez, the legal director of immigration services and legal advocacy, to talk about the impact of Governor Landrieu's order.

Nearly three weeks after taking office, Governor Jeff Landry issued eight executive orders, with one focused exclusively on Louisiana's undocumented population.

The order will require every state agency to gather certain information to estimate the economic losses the state incurs as a result of undocumented migrants.

Our federal government right now has basically blown the front door off of our home and said anybody can come in.

However, if you come in, you can't work.

You don't have any other particular rights.

You are going somewhere, but the taxpayers are going to absolutely fund your living in our country free of charge.

In an interview with Fox News host Neil CAVUTO, Governor Landry said Louisiana citizens bear the brunt of immigration costs, especially if they commit crimes.

If you take just in our prison system, how many illegal and undocumented aliens have crossed the border, you know, then committed a crime in Louisiana under which we have to send them through our penal system, and then we have to house them in our prison.

And that's prison space that we should be using for the citizens that break our laws anyhow.

And we want to send the federal government a bill.

We want to be able to collect that data.

The crisis at our southern border is not just a crisis for southern states.

The directive comes in the middle of a border policy dispute on Capitol Hill.

The Biden administration is currently struggling to reach a deal with both GOP and Democratic senators who've disagreed over how to handle migrant groups for nearly three years.

Though Governor Landrieu's executive order is in the initial stages, immigration advocates like Omara Lopez, the legal director of Islah, say the directive is based on a false premise.

I wouldn't say there's anything that would warrant the executive order.

Yes, immigrants commit crimes.

The data that is available is immigrants tend to commit crimes at lower rates than does the native born population.

And yes, immigrants commit crimes.

But we also have a criminal justice system through which they can be processed.

Instances of undocumented immigrant criminal activity are rarely documented at a state level.

But Texas is one state that does collect this information.

In a study conducted in 2018 by the Cato Institute, researchers found that instances of undocumented migrant arrests in Texas were drastically lower than arrests for Native Texans.

The conviction rate was 782 per 100,000 undocumented people, while the rate for Native Texans was 14,222 per 100,000 people.

It's really this moment of people not knowing what's going to come and being afraid of what should I do?

We've received a lot of questions, a lot of calls from both community members themselves, community organizations.

We're working with various community organizations to figure out how to educate the public.

So what are the biggest fears with the order that people have called and asked you questions about?

The biggest fears we've noticed is people being afraid that their individualized information is going to be collected and that then they're going to be targeted.

Undocumented migrants make up about 4% of Louisiana's general population, with most of them located in the baton Rouge and New Orleans area.

That number doesn't count the migrants currently held in Louisiana's eight immigration detention centers, which, according to the ACLU, houses a little more than 3000 people.

Advocates with Lurie or the Louisiana Organization for Refugees and Immigrants say that they're concerned the directive could inflame racial tensions and deter migrants that already live here from accessing necessities food, access, education, health care.

All of that will potentially be impacted by the fear.

But despite their fears, advocates at Laurie say they hope the order can highlight the social gap between migrants and native Louisianians.

How can we work together to to create an even a safer and a welcoming environment for refugees and immigrant?

We reached out to the Republican Party of Louisiana for comment on the executive order.

They were not available to provide a response in time for this broadcast.

Well, switching gears from hashtags to social media, here's what's trending around the state.

With the special redistricting session over and a new congressional map passed by lawmakers.

Cleo Fields has announced he's running for Louisiana's new black majority congressional seat approved by Governor Jeff Landry.

The new district includes Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Alexandria, Opelousas and Shreveport, and effectively puts Congressman Graves out of Louisiana's District six.

Now, lawmakers and Louisianians are traveling to Washington, D.C. this weekend to celebrate Mardi Gras at the nation's capital.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the annual carnival ball held by the mystic crew of Louisianians.

Drew Brees reigns as the king this year with Camille Morrison as the queen.

The 2024 Washington, D.C., Mardi Gras ball held on January 27th.

So a little bit about this tradition.

D.C. Mardi Gras is not like anything that goes on here in Louisiana.

It's very political, as you would have expected.

Lawmakers and lobbyists with interest in Louisiana politics meet together.

For some politicians, it's an opportunity to network and to fundraise.

And for others, it's just an opportunity to have fun.

Moving on to shark news.

So white sharks are pinging near the mouth of the Mississippi River.

According to Ocearch Global Shark Tracker, which detected two white sharks in recent weeks.

That's Krystal and K.G..

They visited this region, which is the US's largest drainage basin where the river empties into the Gulf of Mexico, bringing large quantities of sediment and nutrients.

All that good stuff.

So like I said earlier, Ocearch is a global nonprofit that aims to return our world's oceans to balance.

And moving on to some good news in this week's Good news, Louisiana will tell the story of a legacy embraced writing life stories that hold lessons about living fully while confronting death.

LP based Care on the blog introduces us to an End of Life Doula on a mission to chronicle legacies that might otherwise be lost to history.

Robin Palmer Blanche is a TEDTalk speaker and a former Hollywood screenwriter.

When she puts pen to paper, she opens up conversations about mortality and living life with no regrets.

She was a baby model and she was on the cover.

This picture?

Yeah, that picture was on the cover of Life magazine.

J.R. Whaley has a collection of scrapbooks.

His mother, Diane Pearson Whaley, left behind letters, pictures, cards, ephemera for more than 80 years of life.

So this, I think, is her high school and high school days at Bolton High School.

J.R. was able to thread together these keepsakes in his mother's own words before she died by hiring a legacy memories to write his mother's story.

I really wanted to have my mom's story told in her own words.

You know, these are a lot of stories that we had heard throughout the years, but never in a cumulative fashion.

And she had a wonderful story that I wanted to have conveyed to my kids.

When she and Robin got together almost immediately and started meeting and they had eight different sessions and they decided to break it down into each meeting, they would have they would discuss a decade of my mom's life.

And so they did that.

And then in August, mid August, my mom was diagnosed with glioblastoma and really went down remarkably fast after that.

So it was just a window of opportunity that we were able to take.

So Diane and Robin, a former Hollywood screenwriter, turned end of life doula, met over eight months.

Robin listened and took notes as Diane chatted about her life, the joys, the challenges and the chuckles.

My goal always was I want in three season.

I want carefully cash and camera.

We think we have all the time in the world until we don't.

You know, so this notion of we are we're totally powerless over the fact that we're going to die, but we're not powerless over how intentional we want to be and the things that we want to do to kind of live our legacy behind.

It's this message Robin took to the TED Talk stage, urging the audience not to fear death, accept it and do the work to prepare for it so that when the time comes, you can be present with your loved ones by contemplating our mortality.

It actually allows us to live so much more deeply and hopefully joyfully.

I think the lesson of a life really is how someone gets through and manages difficult parts of life.

And I wanted my kids to know that about my my mom.

Robin finds the themes in the lives of people she writes about, including the founder of the Red Shoes, Roberta Guillory.

Thoughtful journal about my life.

So I had lots of things from years past, but you forget that you don't think you're going to forget when you go in through these very powerful experiences, but you do.

And she's very skilled at drawing out of you what was important and how did you feel about this?

Robin is telling both the story of the Red Shoes, a nonprofit center for personal and spiritual growth and the arc of Roberta's life.

Because the two are inextricably linked.

Roberta founded the Red Shoes in 1999, and over the years, the community outreach organization has helped hundreds of women find their voice, purpose and passion.

I wanted other women to see how easy it is to do that.

You know what?

I would love for other women to do things like this in other towns, because I can't tell you how it enriches a woman's life to look at life and begin to think about it.

And it's just been a beautiful thing to see.

I mean, women have come to us and said, You saved my life.

People will sometimes tell me I say that I'm sort of half confessor, half therapist, you know, like I build this container for people to tell the stories so that they can then look at it kind of from a long view and come to these realizations of what their life, the breadth of their life and the depth of their life together.

So whether you write it yourself or whether you work with someone who does this professionally, you know, it's it's the gift that that is just you can't put a price on it and it's going to outlive you and your children and their children.

Writing a memoir can be part of that process of looking at life through a lens of imminent death that makes us live more present.

Putting memories and thoughts to page can unearth unfinished business before it's too late to deal with.

No conversations left unsaid.

No last wishes unexpressed.

No regrets.

Just joy and peace and a legacy chronicled that lives on.

Has this process of writing your mom's memoir?

Has it helped in your healing and grieving from the loss of your mother?

You know, it has.

It's been difficult in the near term to kind of go go through the process.

But with that being said, again, it gives context a lot to her life and helps, I think, put some even more meaning into into that.

And then you can see what the benefit and what the lessons of a life are.

But when you look backward, you see a lot in your life that you hadn't seen before, and it makes you grateful.

When people think about dying.

Their biggest fear is not, you know, is it going to hurt or what's going to happen to me afterwards.

It's the fear of being forgotten.

And so this allows you to not be forgotten, to say, you know, my life mattered and maybe it's a big life, maybe it's a small life.

But we all have a legacy.

This year marks the 325th anniversary of Mardi Gras arrival to North America, a fact highlighted in this year's Mardi Gras guide.

Essential reading for parade goers.

Arthur Hardy, a fifth generation New Orleanian, founded the Mardi Gras Guide in 1977, which lists parade descriptions and rules.

It was a novel idea in the late seventies that evolved into a keepsake and a cultural compendium of carnival season, making Arthur Hardy one of Mardi Gras most recognizable personalities.

LBB As Karen LeBlanc traveled to New Orleans to chat with the city's most prolific and passionate cultural ambassador about all things Mardi Gras.

Hey, I hear this is charming.

It's like a little Mardi Gras museum.

Either.

The walls of Arthur Hardy's Mid-City New Orleans home are filled with Mardi Gras memorabilia, posters and hand-cut ball invitations from Paris Ephemera dating back to 1858 1861.

That was the last Coleman Small before the Civil War.

Arthur has been archiving, collecting and chronicling all things New Orleans Mardi Gras for nearly 50 years.

As the publisher of the Mardi Gras Guide.

So this is where it started.

1976.

We began work and published in 1977.

We didn't have any ads and we didn't have any color.

Too bad we didn't sell.

But 1500 of the 5000 copies we printed and burned the rest of them.

2024 marks the 48th edition of the Mardi Gras Guide, A Labor of Love that became essential reading for Carnival season, anointing Arthur as a mardi Gras expert.

So tell me why you decided to found the Mardi Gras guide.

You know, there was a need for it when I was a kid growing up.

If you wanted to know about tonight's parades, you bought this morning's paper.

If you wanted to know what's going to happen next Monday, you had to wait until Monday morning.

Simple concept, but somebody smarter than me should have thought of.

But they didn't.

So my wife and I did.

Starting in 1976.

First issue was 1977.

But it was not an overnight success.

It took years.

My wife likes to say we were more stubborn and smart, but we stuck with it.

And eventually it became a very good business.

The guide list All parades that roll in metro New Orleans with Carnival Krewe and parade route details.

Arthur is also the author of books about Mardi Gras.

That season begins every year on January six, The Feast of the Epiphany.

And it's a season of merriment, but it ends on Mardi Gras, which is French for Fat Tuesday.

So the church basically said, okay, you can party on for a while.

However, midnight Fat Tuesday starts Lent Ash Wednesday.

So that's when we pay for the sins of the past.

So it's really a farewell to flesh.

It's the feast before the fast and our version came from France.

In fact, this year, the 325th anniversary of Mardi Gras coming to North America.

And then much later on, when New Orleans was founded and in the mid 1700s, there were parties and, you know, no real parades but minor celebrations.

Now we have more than 60 in the metro New Orleans.

And, of course, throughout the state of Louisiana.

So when we talk about parades, we have what's called the so-called old line.

We do.

And then we have the newcomers, Right?

What's the distinction?

There's something for everybody.

There's old style parades that if your grandfather wasn't a member, you can't get in no matter how much money you have or how important your.

And the new parades that anybody can join.

And even from a spectator standpoint, you can participate in really, there are no spectators at Mardi Gras parade.

We become participants because the thing that separates operates from those elsewhere, throws the idea of free gifts to the crowd.

And, you know, it's a it's a horrible business concept.

Why would an adult person spend thousand dollars or more dues for the privilege of getting on a float?

Then we make you wear a costume in a mask so nobody knows who you are.

You have to give away gifts to strangers.

You know who does that?

We do that.

We do it every year.

It's a wonderful gift.

Great for us.

So great for our community and great for our economy.

Are there are there any little known facts, surprising things that people could discover about Mardi Gras that they don't know?

Yeah, especially for visitors by law and by tradition, Mardi Gras may not be corporately sponsored.

You know, there's hardly an entertainment venue in the world that's not brought to you by somebody, the citizens of New Orleans or the shareholders of Mardi Gras.

All of the crews are nonprofit organizations staffed by volunteers.

Mardi Gras is like Christmas, and Halloween belongs to everyone.

The citizens make this thing happen, and it's called the Greatest Freak show on Earth.

And it's free for the spectators.

It's not free for the people who put it on.

So let's talk about the throws, because a lot of the parades have a signature thrust.

They do.

Let's hit the highlights of some of the more interesting ones.

Well, the first thing to choose throws Zulu gilded coconut, and that's been around since 1910.

And they can't be thrown because they're happy, but they're handed out music, as does a shoe each year, decorated shoe that the members will work on year round and again hand out to people.

Every organizes most organizations tries to find something unique to them, and it's become a really big business.

Yeah.

So the themes and the throws are all kind of one upping each day, which in turn drives the economy.

So let's talk about the economic contribution that Mardi Gras makes just this year, January 6th, Tulane University professor Tony Wise released an economic impact study, said Mardi Gras produces almost $900 million each year in the economy.

For every dollar the city of New Orleans spends, it gets about $2.68.

And a unique thing about Mardi Gras is we don't have to bid on it like a super Bowl or Olympics.

We don't have to pay any fees.

It's ours.

And that was what was so special about the first Mardi Gras after Katrina, when the city was still in shambles and people.

We did Mardi Gras because we wanted to you know, nobody could make us do it.

And people showed up on the streets.

And you didn't know if Fred wasn't there because he was a Dallas or if he had drowned?

You know, it was that was an emotional Mardi Gras.

People held up signs.

Thank you to float riders instead of throw me something that's the best Mardi Gras ever.

And it was a special time.

But it showed the world we're down, baby.

We're not out.

You know, we chose to celebrate rather than surrender.

Arthur Hardy is a mardi Gras personality, one of New Orleans most prolific and passionate cultural ambassadors, a carnival celebrity honored this year with his own King cake doll.

Hey, Del's bakery's one of the biggest shippers of King Cakes in the city Each year does a ceramic doll.

And this year, I'm one of two dolls.

I'm honored to be inside the king cake.

So it's not so, but it's very flattering.

So, Arthur Hardy, you have arrived.

How about that?

The day that you have your own King Cake doll in your likeness, A much appreciative of this honor.

You can watch Karen's full interview with Arthur Hardy on PBS Digital Channel or on the LPD app.

Now, speaking of Mardi Gras, it's official science that Kincaid calories do not count, which is why most Louisianians abandon their New Year's resolutions every carnival to indulge in a French delicacy passed down through generations.

But these past few years, some bakers and chefs are breaking with the tradition of sweet cinnamon king cakes and embracing something more savory.

I went to the Heavenly Donut in Baton Rouge to see exactly how bakers are using pork and cheese.

At a twist to one of Louisiana's most famous desserts.

12th Night marks the official end of Christmas and ushers us into carnival season.

But here in Louisiana, we send Papa Noel packing with a delicious tradition borrowed from the French.

A king cake.

The idea was introduced to Louisiana sometime in the late 19th century, and it became arguably one of the most notable recipes defining Louisiana's culture.

You can find the pastry at any local bakery.

It's usually the oval shaped cake draped in frosting and yellow, purple and green sprinkles.

But lately, there seems to be a trend where bakers and chefs are deviating from icing cinnamon cakes and going for something more savory.

I kind of like the twist a little bit too.

There we go.

That signature king cake shape.

Shane Castillo is the owner of the Heavenly Donut, a Baton Rouge based bakery that specializes in all things sweet.

But during Carnival, Castillo sets aside the donut glaze to satisfy his customer's cravings for king cake.

It's one of the busiest seasons of the shop, and Castiel definitely puts in the long hours to sustain it.

My day starts at about 11:00 at night, 11:00 at night for a bakery.

That's insane.

First thing I do is I start my day.

So I put my dough on, but it's mixing.

And while that's mixing, I can get there's other things.

I make my donut glaze.

Get my fryer ready.

Improver on.

And once it's finished making, I let it rise.

Then I'm making little things like apple fritters, stuff like that.

Until it rises when it rises.

First thing I do is I make down.

So we get all the donuts ready for the for the bakery.

And then after that, we can start rolling out, changing.

How many kids do you think you're making daily?

Right now, we're making between 120 and a half, 50 a day.

But in the past few years, Castillo's customers have started craving a savory king cake, one that replaces icing and sprinkles with pork and meat sauce.

Castillo has been perfecting the recipe for five years, and now he's got it down to a science.

He was more than happy to show me how to make it.

First, you start with your dough, like Castillo said earlier.

He gets an extra early just to get the dough ready for the day.

He cooks it and shapes it into an oval.

And then it's time to add the boudin and pepper jack cheese.

You want to try to spread everything evenly.

So we got one down.

All right, so now what we do.

And then we'll let this.

Right?

I'll put it in a proof from here.

Let it rise for about 10 minutes.

10 minutes?

Bread.

Okay.

And then we'll be baking.

Takes just about 18 minutes while the cake is slowly browning in the oven.

Castiel takes out the rest of his ingredients.

That's butter Cajun pepper, jelly cane, sirup and bacon.

Lots of bacon.

So why savory king?

King said It's just a regular stereotypical sweets pancake that everybody.

So there was a place called Twins, and they just decided that it was a meat market and they wanted to get in on the KKK.

So they started it and went viral.

My wife called me up and said, Have you seen the boutique technique?

I said, Yes.

She said, I think you need to do it, but it's Baton Rouge.

The original Savory King cake was developed by Robert Carriker in 2015 and baked by the Gilbert Twins in Lafayette.

Castiel uses their recipe as a blueprint for his put it on a board here and there.

Next thing you do is, you know, brush butter all over it.

So no such thing as too much product.

That's right.

It's good.

Or any more.

That's perfect.

All right.

Perfect.

And then for next, what we do is we take our pepper jelly right here.

The next step is bacon all around.

And finally, after that, this is our cane sirup.

that's just like the jasmine on the bacon holding on there.

Well, the final touch is the porcelain baby saber or not?

No.

King cake is complete without it.

Castiel says that whatever he doesn't sell, it's donated to the local nonprofit Ten Proof every week.

And that's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPD any time, wherever you are, with our LPD KPBS app.

You can catch OPB news and public affairs shows as well as other Louisiana programs you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook, X and Instagram.

For everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting, I'm crossing here.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together, we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana.

And by visit Baton Rouge and the foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Thank you.