WHEN PRESIDENT BUSH visited New Orleans this week, on the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, he tried as best he could to put a positive spin on recovery efforts. But amid the debris and devastation, one good thing has emerged: A politicized Vietnamese American community of 10,000 that refused to let Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco use their neighborhood as a toxic dumping ground.

Earlier this month, the Sierra Club’s Delta Chapter and the Vietnamese residents of the Versailles neighborhood succeeded—so far at least—in shutting down the potentially dangerous Chef Menteur landfill. Nagin had once insisted that the landfill was safe, and even now refuses to say otherwise. Meanwhile, the state of Louisiana still wants to keep it open.

With all the talk of black and white in the post-Katrina era, we’d like to remind Gov. Blanco and the Mayor of the Chocolate City that jambalaya comes with rice! •