Many Houma families migrated to northern parishes such as Orleans and Jefferson Parishes in the 1940s-1960s for new educational and job opportunities. As the oil industry became a more valuable career option for them, many of these families migrated back to southern Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes in cities like Isle de Jean Charles and Dulac.
Today, the Houma people are beginning to migrate north again due to significant erosion of their land along the Louisiana coast.
According to the United States Geological Survey, more than two thousand square miles of Louisiana’s coast has been lost since 1932.
In the 1940s-1960s, many Houma people migrated from Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes to more northern areas due to education, employment and erosion of land.