Episode Three, The Cultures We Carry, explores the process of adapting to life in a new place, while keeping hold of the customs that help you feel at home. The stories featured in this episode consider the challenges of assimilation, and offer examples of a better way–preserving personal cultures while also learning about others, and finding interesting opportunities to combine the old with the new.

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⁠Transcript of this episode in Spanish here. ⁠

This episode, Making A Living, discusses immigrant involvement in rural economics. The stories featured in this episode explain the influence industries have on determining where new immigrants settle, and offer insights about the cost of pursuing the American Dream as a newcomer.

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Transcript of this episode in Spanish here.

The first episode of Routes to Roots, Movement Across Time and Place, pushes back on common misconceptions about immigration in rural America. The stories featured in this episode outline the patterns of immigration to the US over time, the factors that influence an immigrant’s difficult decision to leave home, and highlight the vital contributions that immigrants make when they find new homes in America’s rural places.

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Transcript of this episode in Spanish here.

Our final episode goes beyond the silver screen to talk about real-world aliens – or at least, how people think about aliens in the real world. How have tales of UFOs and abductions been transformed into modern-day folklore? And how have rural communities been shaped by the search for extra-terrestrial life, both real and fictional?

Films discussed include: Roswell (1994), Roswell (1999 television series, rebooted 2019), Small Town Universe (2024).
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This episode looks at rural alien movies through an ecological lens. Aliens can function as both extractive forces and as symbols of nature’s raw power. How do aliens both embody nature and battle with it? And how can alien invasions in films warn us of our own environmental degradation? 

Films discussed include: Avatar (2009), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Nope (2022), The Faculty (1998), Signs (2002)

Honoring ancestors is a human tradition that crosses all cultures. In the southeastern United States, this often takes the form of Decoration Day. That’s when families come together in specially decorated cemeteries to celebrate their roots—sometimes with music and prayers, and almost always with storytelling and a feast.In rural Pickett County, where Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau and Highland Rim collide, one family maintains one of Decoration Day’s oldest traditions: a swept graveyard. Reporter Lisa Coffman takes us to the 200th anniversary of their Decoration Day.

This episode explores alien movies set in the Western United States and the mythology of the American West. Through deep dives into a variety of fascinating films, the spectacle, intrigue, and vastness of this unique landscape is analyzed (Nope, 2022; Asteroid City, 2023). The West’s violent history of expansion and colonization is also highlighted as aliens can become symbols for both colonizers and the oppressed (Cowboys & Aliens, 2011; District 9, 2009). 

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Welcome to Crop Circle Cinema. This episode discusses the paranoia embedded in rural alien movies. What do aliens reveal about our anxieties around the government, neighbors, strangers, and friends? Who do we believe? And who can we never trust? 

Films discussed include: Signs (2002), Independence Day (1996), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), The Faculty (1998), The Vast of Night (2019), World’s End (2013), Cowboys & Aliens (2011).

In our latest episode, we talked with Tiffany Joy and Shiloh Delaronde of the Appalachian Rekindling Project. The Appalachian Rekindling Project is based in southeast Kentucky and southwest Virginia. Its mission is to restore Indigenous relationships with the land, support cultural revitalization, and foster ecological care in Appalachia. In the interview, Joy and Delaronde share about their work around seed saving and other growing practices.

In the pottery world, there’s lots of different ways that makers can fire their work. Thanks to modern technology, most kilns can be fired by just one person over the course of a day. And some kilns don’t even need human supervision. But other, older methods are still around. And for those, it takes a village. In the mountains of western North Carolina, around a dozen potters recently gathered for 10 days for a wood firing, a method that’s been used for millennia.