See an American town that's about to be completely lost to climate change.
The Jean Charles band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw have lived in the same place for more than 200 years.
The tribe's oral history has it that a Frenchman named Jean Marie Naquin married a Native American woman named Pauline Verdin in the early 1800s — and that Mr. Naquin's parents didn't take too kindly to their child's mixed marriage.
\n\nThe couple fled this familial wrath and settled on Isle de Jean Charles, a narrow inlet in the Louisiana bayou near Terrebonne Parish, about 11 miles off the mainland. The couple was soon joined by several other Native American families and this small community of indigenous Cajuns has lived there ever since...
A thatched roof island home on Isle de Jean Charles. Photo from NARA/New Deal Network/Library of Congress.
until now...
By the middle of the 20th century, there were nearly 400 people living on the island. At that point, the land was 11 miles long and five miles wide — providing this Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe with 55 square miles of lush, open land on which to hunt, farm, and thrive.
\n\nBut all that's left today is a half square mile of marshland — two miles long and a quarter-mile wide — with two dozen families struggling to survive.
Isle de Jean Charles in 2007, after Hurricane Gustave. Photo by Karen Gadbois/Flickr.
Over the last half-century, rising water levels and increasingly frequent natural disasters have all but destroyed the Louisiana shoreline.
"I'm not going to keep doing this," said Chief Albert Naquin in 2008. Naquin is a direct descendent of the island's first settlers, who inherited the title from his brother in 1997.
\n\nBut Naquin himself doesn't even live on the island anymore. He packed up and moved across the bayou in the 1970s, in an effort to keep his job on the mainland — because the only road off the island was quickly disappearing. The chief had hoped that the rest of his tribe would follow, but 40 years later, some 25 families still remain.
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"At one time I didn't want to relocate — I thought it would be like another Trail of Tears," he told the Washington Post in 2009. "But now I see that is a selfish viewpoint. It's only a matter of time before the island's gone — one more good hurricane, and we'll be wiped out."
Albert Naquin's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Victor Naquin. Photo by NARA/New Deal Network/Library of Congress.
But the families who still live there don't want to lose that ancestral connection to the island.
"All of our history, all of our ancestral line — that's where our people are buried. That's where our family members were born," said Chantel Coverdelle, the community's tribal secretary. "They were raised there, and they raised their kids and grandkids. We've been there forever."
\n\nThe island's remaining residents still speak their own colloquial French-Cajun dialect and work as fishermen, oystermen, and fur trappers to survive. But ecological damage has made that work hard to come by too.
Photo by Karen Gadbois/Flickr.
"People used to grow everything themselves; now you have to buy canned beans," a member of the tribe explained to the Washington Post. "People used to have cattle, but now you don't because you don't have any place to put them. We used to do for ourselves; now we have to rely on stores, and that means we have to get different jobs. It used to be everyone would share; now that's not around anymore. It just kills me."
"Island Road," the only landbridge between the island and the mainland, which was built in 1953 and still floods during storms. Screenshot from "Can't Stop the Water"/Vimeo.
Not to mention the island's last schoolhouse, a tiny one-room structure, closed nearly 50 years ago. This has created a devastating cycle of poverty and undereducation for those who remain on the island.
While it might be too late to save Isle de Jean Charles itself, it's not too late to save the tribe — thanks to a $48 million grant from the U.S. government.
Dardar is illiterate, so his son made this sign for him. Screenshot from "Can't Stop the Water"/Vimeo.
This last-minute financial savior comes as part of a National Disaster Resilience competition through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is providing more than $1 billion in funding for American communities that have suffered from natural disasters — making the Jean Charles band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw the first official U.S. refugees from climate change.
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"I’m very, very excited. I’ve been working on this for 13 years," Chief Naquin told Indian Country Today.
\n\n\n\n\n\n"Now we’re getting a chance to reunite the family. They’re excited as well. Our culture is going to stay intact, [but] we’ve got to get the interest back in our youth."
It's nice to finally see the U.S. government taking action to protect Native Americans. Let's just hope it happens again.
Climate change isn't going away. In fact, it's only getting worse from here on out.
\n\nAnd while we can't undo the mass eradication of Native American people, it's not too late for us to help the ones left — especially since towns like Kivalina and Shishmaref have already spent years dealing with the brunt of our worsening planetary disaster.
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAt the rate we're going, cultural preservation is the only hope we have. But if we work together, maybe that's enough.
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHere's the trailer for a documentary film about the tribe on Isle de Jean Charles:
The Frenchman's monologue was absolutely spot on 
A court reporter taking notes.via
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A man sweating in his car.via
Many people—including 
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There's a reason why some people can perfectly copy accents, and others can't
Turns out, there's a neurodivergent link.
A woman in black long sleeve shirt stands in front of mirror.
Have you ever had that friend who goes on vacation for four days to London and comes back with a full-on Queen's English posh accent? "Oooh I left my brolly in the loo," they say, and you respond, "But you're from Colorado!" Well, there are reasons they (and many of us) do that, and usually it's on a pretty subconscious level.
It's called "accent mirroring," and it's actually quite common with people who are neurodivergent, particularly those with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). According Neurolaunch, the self-described "Free Mental Health Library," "Accent mirroring, also known as accent adaptation or phonetic convergence, is the tendency to unconsciously adopt the accent or speech patterns of those around us. This linguistic chameleon effect is not unique to individuals with ADHD, but it appears to be more pronounced and frequent in this population."
Essentially, when people have conversations, we're constantly "scanning" for information—not just the words we're absorbing, but the inflection and tone. "When we hear an accent, our brains automatically analyze and categorize the phonetic features, prosody, and intonation patterns," writes Neurolaunch. For most, this does result in copying the accent of the person with whom we're speaking. But those with ADHD might be more sensitive to auditory cues. This, "coupled with a reduced ability to filter out or inhibit the impulse to mimic…could potentially explain the increased tendency for accent mirroring."
While the article explains further research is needed, they distinctly state that, "Accent mirroring in individuals with ADHD often manifests as an unconscious mimicry of accents in social situations. This can range from subtle shifts in pronunciation to more noticeable changes in intonation and speech rhythm. For example, a person with ADHD might find themselves unconsciously adopting a Southern drawl when conversing with someone from Texas, even if they’ve never lived in the South themselves."
People are having their say online. On the subreddit r/ADHDWomen, a thread began: "Taking on accents is an ADHD thing?" The OP shares, "My whole life, I've picked up accents. I, myself, never noticed, but everyone around me would be like, 'Why are you talking like that??' It could be after I watched a show or movie with an accent or after I've traveled somewhere with a different accent than my 'normal.'
They continue, "Apparently, I pick it up fast, but it fades out slowly. Today... I'm scrolling Instagram, I watch a reel from a comedian couple (Darcy and Jeremy. IYKYK) about how Darcy (ADHD) picks up accents everywhere they go. It's called ADHD Mirroring??? And it's another way of masking."
(The OP is referring to Darcy Michaels and his husband Jeremy Baer, who are both touring comedians based in Canada.)
Hundreds of people on the Reddit thread alone seem to relate. One comments, "Omfg I've done this my whole life; I'll even pick up on the pauses/spaces when I'm talking to someone who is ESL—but English is my first language lol."
Sometimes, it can be a real issue for those around the chameleon. "I accidentally mimicked a waitress's weird laugh one time. As soon as she was out of earshot, my family started to reprimand me, but I was already like 'oh my god I don’t know why I did that, I feel so bad.'"
Many commenters on TikTok were shocked to find out this can be a sign of ADHD. One jokes, "Omg, yes, at a store the cashier was talking to me and she was French. She's like 'Oh are you French too? No, I'm not lol. I'm very east coast Canada."
And some people just embrace it and make it work for them. "I mirror their words or phrase! I’m 30. I realized I start calling everyone sweetie cause my manager does & I work at coffee shop."
This article originally appeared in May.