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CELEBRATING OUR FIRST 65 YEARS
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2399
1.75 LITER
Tito's Vodka
— ONLY — 1.5 LITER
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8
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Woodbridge Crown Royal Wine Whisky 750 ML
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Miller Lite, Coors Light, Bud Light or Yuengling
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30 PACK 12 OZ
Michelob Ultra
29
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1.75 LITER
Platinum 7X Vodka
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13
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750 ML
1699
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Bonanza Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon
Prices good at all Lafayette, New Iberia and Youngsville stores August 27th - September 3rd, 2025.
HAPP y L ABOR DAy
THE
ACADIANA
ADVOCATE
T H E A C A D I A N A A D V O C AT E.C O M
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M o n d ay, S e p t e M b e r 1, 2025
‘Positive presence’
Iberia Market Garden preserves Lao culture in south Louisiana
$2.00X
La. puts Voting Rights Act in crosshairs Supreme Court to mull race’s role in redistricting
BY ALYSE PFEIL | Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By BRAD KEMP
Phanat Xanamane, of Iberia Market Garden, talks recently about how the urban garden in New Iberia operates. BY JOANNA BROWN | Staff writer New Iberia’s West End neighborhood is one of the city’s most impoverished communities. Demarked by South Hopkins Street west of downtown, the West End is where Phanat Xanamane’s family first landed when they came to New Iberia from Laos in 1981 as part of a wave of post-Vietnam War resettlement in New Orleans and southwest Louisiana’s rural areas. They moved into a trailer in the Westend mobile home park, a community that still stands directly across the street from the brick house and market that Xanamane’s
creating a community-minded business that reflects the legacy his parents left for the property. “When the Asia Market was under my family’s ownership, this whole property was a social and cultural hub for the community in so many ways,” he said, gesturing to the grassy expanses that regularly hosted gatherings among the famSquash and eggplants wait to be ily’s friends and customers. bagged at Iberia Market Garden. “People would come after getting their paychecks and hang out, parents would later purchase and buy beers and a bunch of snacks. We had volleyball courts and Pingrun for 20 years. That house, one of the oldest still Pong tables, and there were parties standing on South Hopkins, is where ä See GARDEN, page 4A Xanamane lives and works today —
The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case that could fundamentally change the role that race plays in elections across the country — and Louisiana is at the center of it. Callais v. Louisiana is, on the surface, about whether Louisiana must have a congressional map with two majority-Black districts. But the nation’s high court could issue a ruling overturning decades of precedent that has governed how race can be used in redistricting. At issue is Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, landmark civil rights legislation that for years has driven lawsuits and court orders requiring states like Louisiana to draw majority-minority voting districts. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a federal law passed by Congress to guarantee Black people access to the ballot and prevent voting discrimination. In its original form, the legislation outlawed race-based voting tests, helped eliminate poll taxes, allowed the federal government to oversee voting in states where discrimination was happening and required states with discriminatory voting practices to get federal approval before making changes to voting laws. The stated aim of the law was to enforce the 15th Amendment, which had been approved nearly 100 years earlier and says, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
ä See VOTING, page 4A
High-stakes hunt underway for endangered sea turtles
able turtle species are nesting on the Researchers fight time on disappearing Chandeleur Islands. Every week during the turtle’s sumdisappearing La. islands mer nesting season, state officials in-
BY JOSIE ABUGOV | Staff writer
A small seaplane flies circles around a skinny strip of land more than 20 miles off the Louisiana coast as two of its passengers scan the sand below for promising tracks. Keri Lejeune and Todd Baker shout out when they spot them. Lejeune, the state’s herpetologist, and Baker, a project manager with the state’s coastal authority, are on the hunt for “crawls,” evidence that endangered and vulner-
WEATHER HIGH 90 LOW 72 PAGE 10C
volved in the project to restore the iconic barrier islands fly out on the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ seaplane for a survey of the area. The scientists document any evidence of new crawls and, if weather permits, wade out onto the islands for a close-up look. This year, they’ve found the most crawls they’ve seen since the turtle surveys started in 2022. In the earlier hours of Aug. 22 alone, they spotted one new
ä See SEA TURTLES, page 4A
Classified .....................4B Living............................5C Nation-World................2A Comics-Puzzles .....7C-9C Lottery..........................4B Opinion ........................2B Commentary ................3B Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C
Natalie Gerald, an undergraduate student worker at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, speaks to Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority project managers Jessica Diez and Todd Baker during a turtle survey on the Chandeleur Islands on Aug. 22. STAFF PHOTO By JOSIE ABUGOV
101ST yEAR, NO. 63