Leroy Duvall
Ethnicity in the Seafood Industry on the Mississippi Gulf Coast
Like any place where hard work could yield fortune, Biloxi’s seafood industry attracted immigrant labor – first Polish by way of Baltimore, then Croatians and Cajuns, and more recently, Vietnamese. Collected here are some of the stories of Biloxi’s shrimping past and present.
When Leroy Duvall refers to himself as one of the younger people, it's despite his 64 years, but it's without a trace of irony. Part of it is that he is the President of the Fleur de Lis Society, a club half the size of what it once was because its membership is slowly passing from old age. And part of it is that, after 30 years of shrimping on the Gulf, his body still feels young. Eventually, the economic repercussions of endangered turtles forced him to retire from shrimping, and when Hurricane Katrina washed away his bakery, he retired from that, too. Mr. Leroy can now often be found keeping the books or taking out the trash of the newly reopened Fleur de Lis Society, a place that reminds many of its displaced members of home, and reminds Biloxi of its Cajun heritage.
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