Return to Yakni Chitto: Houma Migrations by Monique Verdin

Venture into the heart of South Louisiana — a landscape of haunting beauty and fragile resilience — with Return to Yakni Chitto: Houma Migrations, a poetic and powerful exploration of identity, ancestry, and environmental transformation. Through stunning photography and deeply personal storytelling, Monique Verdin, a native daughter of southeast Louisiana and member of the Houma Nation, captures a region where land and water blur, where history breathes through the bayous, and where cultural memory flows as endlessly as the Mississippi River itself.

This book is both an elegy and a love letter — a reflection on a homeland reshaped by industry and climate, and a testament to the endurance of indigenous and métis communities reclaiming their roots in Bulbancha (New Orleans) and beyond. Verdin’s lens reveals the “strange beauty” of a place where 1,000-year-old cypress trees once stood, where fish and birds still return to spawn and nest, and where hope persists amid loss. With essays by Rachel Breunlin, ethnographer and director of the Neighborhood Story Project, this volume bridges art, ecology, and anthropology — illuminating the ties between environment, culture, and survival.

Return to Yakni Chitto: Houma Migrations is more than a book — it’s a journey through memory, ancestry, and the sacred geography of the Gulf South. A visual hymn for anyone drawn to the intersections of land, spirit, and story. A must-read for lovers of environmental art, indigenous history, and Louisiana’s enduring soul.

Details 

• Hardcover 
• 112 Pages 
• Dimension: 8.2in x 0.7in x 9.5in