Interviewer(s): Diane Austin; Jessica Piekielek. Boothville, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

Michael Dardar is the tribal historian for the United Houma Nation. He grew up on South Pass in the southernmost end of Plaquemines Parish and then moved with his family to The Village, a trailer park in Venice, when the parish government relocated the families from South Pass there. His family moved to Boothville, within the levee, when his father bought land and Michael and his wife put their trailer on it. Several years later his parents moved onto the property with them; his mother still lives in a trailer on the front of the property.

Michael Dardar was born and raised in southern Louisiana. In the late 1930s, his father worked on a dynamite crew for a company that was exploring for oil in the wetlands of coastal Louisiana. His father went into the service during World War II, and when he returned home he went to work on a drilling rig, moving his family from place to place as the rig moved. When Michael's father began working on offshore rigs, the family no longer had to move from place to place. When Michael was 3 years old, his family moved from Golden Meadow to South Pass, on the southernmost end of Plaquemines Parish. His family later moved to Venice and then to Boothville. Michael joined the army out of high school but returned to Plaquemines Parish when his father became ill and he had to take over his father's business. He has worked throughout the offshore industry for an oil field service company, a supply company, a construction company, and a crew boat business.