This Season's Trauma Tourism

More privileged New Yorkers, some of whom are more familiar with poverty from their travels to the third world than from exploration within their hometown, unearth deep guilt among the piles of donated clothes as they come face to face with misery that existed so close to home even before the storm. Those coming to them for relief worry that their helpers are taking some voyeuristic interest in their plight, treating it as an exotic weekend outing, “like we’re in a zoo,” said one resident of a Rockaway project — echoing a complaint often heard in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina — as volunteers snapped iPhone photos of her as she waited in line for donated food and clothing.