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Orleans chose to come back, chose to fight for their community. On his second day in the city, he stumbled onto John Boutté singing in a church. He ate a shrimp po’boy from a corner store. He sat on lawn chairs someone had put out along Bayou St. John. The combination of those things brought home to him that certain specialness of New Orleans, and his love of culture and people found a home in the U.S. During his final year of college, every time a break came up (Spring, Thanksgiving, Christmas) he would drive 13 hours cross- country to the city. When he graduated, no ties held him to Charleston, so he packed his belongings and drove the 13 hours — this time one-way. He moved into an Uptown apartment and got to work building a new life. He found work as a teaching assistant. The job played to all his strengths: He was fluent in Spanish, artistic, and in possession of a boundless love for the community. (As for his plans of becoming a lawyer: While still in college, he was scheduled to take a practice LSAT, the exam necessary to get into law school. It was the most beautiful day, he thought, walking into the building, 80 degrees and sunny, and when he arrived in the classroom where the test was being administered, he looked around the room and thought, “I am clearly not going to hang out with these people the rest of my life.” Five minutes into the exam, he handed in his test and went to the beach. That dream died on the spot.) His first fall in New Orleans, he was sitting at Pal’s Lounge in Mid-City brainstorming what his Halloween costume should be. He thought about the things that made New Orleans special, and he arrived at the New Orleans tradition of red beans and rice on Mondays. When the Saints played on Monday nights, that tradition, paired with (a different kind of) football, evoked memories of his time in Brazil. He had an epiphany: He would make a suit of red beans and rice. Back he went to his little apartment Uptown, and he holed up in his room with a hot glue gun, a sack of red beans and an old suit. You start hot-gluing red beans and rice to your clothing, and there is only one option: total commitment. He guessed it might take an hour, maybe. (He grossly underestimated the task.) But by Halloween, he had done the unusual, and his jacket and pants were now entirely and elaborately made of red beans and rice. “I walked around Frenchman Street, and people freaked out,” he recalls. “People were taking my picture like paparazzi! And I thought there was clearly something to this.”

Concurrently, he was still doing volunteer photography in the city, and a family who was part of the Black Feather Mardi Gras Indian tribe invited him to their house, a place in Gentilly, for Mardi Gras. He arrived the day before, on Lundi Gras, and spent 24 hours documenting their night of final preparations. “I was a fly on the wall. It was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, watching months of work being pulled together.” The Mardi Gras Indians are celebrated, among other things, for their ornate suits of beads, feathers and sequins that can cost thousands of dollars to design, and take nearly a year to make. For Devin, that night and the next day were mesmerizing. “I saw how if you put so much of your heart and soul into a suit, it becomes who you are. It can be transformative. When I saw the Big Chief put his crown on, it was like witnessing a religious moment.” Again, just as he did in Brazil, Mexico and across Latin America, he saw with clarity how the culture of a place is shaped by its people. Inspired by the Mardi Gras Indian tradition and the style of the second line and brass bands, he decided to start a parade. He made a PowerPoint presentation

and everything. He invited the friends he had made during his teaching certification program to join him. He proposed the creation of the Krewe of Red Beans. They would march on Lundi Gras — the traditional day for red beans and rice — and they would wear suits decorated in beans, as he had done for Halloween. Twenty-five people were in, and every Sunday, they gathered in Devin’s little apartment, hot glue and beans all around. The night before Lundi Gras 2009, they had a little celebration. Musician and local legend Al “Carnival Time” Johnson even turned up at the festivities. The next day, they marched. At two in the afternoon, sharp, they met on the corner of Port and Royal streets. They had no permit, no spectators and no idea what they were doing. But Benny Jones of the Treme Brass Band joined them, and for the rest of the day, The Krewe of Red Beans attracts 15,000 spectators and includes 350 members. To help manage the crowds, they’ve started three separate and simultaneous parades. (Photos by Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee)

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