Until the 1970s, the few square blocks of ravaged ground known as Tee Coteau were strictly Cajun—poor farmers from the backcountry and scruffy fishermen who, nightly, blew off steam in the dingy bucket-of-blood bars. In the last twenty years the population had changed. First blacks moved in, then Mexicans, followed by Vietnamese in the early nineties, and in the last ten years, Laotians had staked their claim. But Tee Coteau had never lost its lower-than-blue-collar roots or seedy reputation, which was probably why Ralph Angel was so fascinated with the place; something about the narrow
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