Nuevo South

Siler City, North Carolina, used to be a typical small southern town: lots of families had roots going back a century or two and its citizens were proud of the town's close-knit culture and neighborly feel.

2008 / John Biewen / Tennessee Watson / Center for Documentary Studies, USA

But in the 1990s the culture began to change, as Latino immigrants started moving to Siler City. They've come to find work, and are bringing their own traditions and customs along with them. "Nuevo South" tells the complicated story of a town in transition.

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John Biewen (he/him) is a longtime journalist and audio documentary maker now based at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, where he produces and hosts the Scene on Radio podcast.

Tennessee Jane Watson lives in New York City and likes to make stuff out sounds, images and using her body. She's terrible at sitting still but loves listening to stories; a dynamic that makes life as an audio producer always interesting.

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BEHIND THE SCENES with John Biewen and Tennessee Watson

What's the story behind this story? What inspired you two to work on "Nuevo South" and how did you decide to focus on Siler City? John Biewen: I've lived in North Carolina since 2001. Latino immigration is the most interesting and important change taking place in this part of the country. And it's the south. So you take a fraught, centuries-old relationship between southern whites and blacks and now, in a remarkably short time, you add a large number of brown folk. As one of the first North Carolina towns to attract a big Latino population (imagine a half-Latino Mayberry), Siler City makes a fascinating microcosm for that wider story. David Duke's rally in Siler City (in 2000) carried a lot of symbolic power, and that tape was chilling. Finally, Siler City was handy -- a one-hour drive from Durham. Together and separately, Tennessee and I went there at least 20 times over the course of a year. **Tennessee Watson: I moved to North Carolina in 2005 in large part because I was interested in Latino immigration. There are folks in North Carolina working with immigrants and on issues related to immigration who are national leaders in their field. I would compare living in North Carolina right now to living in California in the time of Cesar Chavez and the birth of the United Farm Workers. But a lot of that activism and advocacy is based out of urban areas. I was drawn to Siler City because it is a small southern town. But I was also drawn to it because of feisty activists like Ilana Dubester and outspoken journalists like Paul Cuadros

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