Lynnell L. Thomas, a native New Orleanian, is associate professor of American studies at University of Massachusetts Boston. She uses popular culture to expand understandings of American identity, the modern south, and multiculturalism in the post-Civil Rights era. She is especially interested in the relationship between collective memory and public history in shaping policy decisions and popular perceptions. Her current book project examines Hurricane Katrina through the lens of New Orleans’s racialized tourism narrative.