Rural Remix

Este episodio analiza la participación de los inmigrantes en la economía rural. Las historias que se presentan explican la influencia de las industrias en la determinación del lugar de asentamiento de los nuevos inmigrantes y ofrecen perspectivas sobre el costo de alcanzar el sueño americano como recién llegado.

Este episodio desmiente conceptos erróneos comunes sobre la inmigración en las zonas rurales de los Estados Unidos. Las historias presentadas en este episodio describen los patrones de inmigración a los EE.UU. a lo largo del tiempo, los factores que influyen en la difícil decisión de un inmigrante de abandonar su hogar y resaltan las contribuciones vitales que hacen los inmigrantes cuando encuentr...

On this episode, we’re taking a look at how farmers and gardeners are helping maintain the region’s biodiversity. Our first stop? A seed swap. With the summer gardening season at its end, many growers throughout Appalachia are turning their attention to seed saving. It’s a practice where gardeners select the seeds from their best crops, and then save them over winter to plant the following spring....

In this episode of Beyond the Clock, our hosts Ash Hanson from Department of Public Transformation and Anna Claussen from Voices for Rural Resilience engage in deep conversation with rural Texas-based artist, Viktor le. Ewing Givens, aka Southern Android, who weaves poetry and ritual into his place-based creative work. Through unspoken language, layered memories, exploration of death and release,...

Ginny Hawker is a singer and mentor in the Primitive Baptist tradition, an acapella style with roots in Appalachia. This style of singing inspired bluegrass legends like Ralph Stanley, along with country stars like Patty Loveless and Ricky Skaggs. Hawker is passing this music tradition on to a new generation.

The final episode Routes to Roots , Better Together , explores feelings of loneliness common to the rural immigrant experience and illuminates tried and true strategies for immigrant inclusion. The stories featured in this episode offer a pathway away from policies and practices of exclusion toward cultures of belonging that strengthen the whole community. Learn more here. Transcript for this epis...

Episode Four, Lost In Translation, surveys the different kinds of language barriers that immigrants encounter as they try to adapt to rural American life. The stories featured in this episode show how, when you add language to the access issues that almost all rural Americans deal with, the challenges of living intensify. These stories also provide insights around the strength that is possible in...

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 n...

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. Learn more here. 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...

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...

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...

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 R...

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...

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), Worl...

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...

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...

In this episode, Anna Claussen (Voices for Rural Resilience) and Ash Hanson (Department of Public Transformation) talk with Central Iowa muralist and organizer Siriaco “Siricasso” Garcia about the power of art to bring visibility to diversity in rural communities. Siricasso shares how he turned to the canvas to process personal hardship and express experiences too often judged or silenced because,...

Cherokee people have been making pottery in the mountains of western North Carolina for nearly 3,000 years. But after centuries of colonization and targeted, cultural oppression, there are relatively few Cherokee potters carrying on the art form today. Thanks to a community-led pottery workshop, a new generation of Cherokee potters is emerging. They’re sustaining age-old traditions, while building...

For most studio potters, making a new piece starts with opening a fresh bag of commercially produced clay. But Naomi Dalglish and Michael Hunt of Bandana Pottery have a different process. They produce their own clay bodies out of local clay dirt from their community in Bakersville, North Carolina. “A really wonderful side effect is our connection to the place and people where we live. Not just to...

In the week of July 4th Rural Remix takes a look at the first amendment via Federal Communications Commissioner Anna Gomez visit to the Appalachian town of Fleming-Neon, Kentucky. On June 18, 2025 Gomez went to the rural stop on her nationwide tour to protect the First Amendment. The event was hosted by the Center for Rural Strategies, which publishes the Daily Yonder, and featured a panel of expe...

 In this episode we travel to Westel, Tennessee, home to fiddle maker Jean Horner. For more than seventy years, Horner built instruments that traveled across the country—Carnegie Hall to California, the Grand Ole Opry to the Smithsonian.  Two factors shaped Horner’s fiddles. The first was his deep roots in the Cumberland Plateau. The second? His fascination with great Italian violin makers of the...

In this Beyond the Clock episode, Ash Hanson from Department of Public Transformation and Anna Claussen from Voices for Rural Resilience converse with Eastern Kentucky-based artist and advocate, Lacy Hale about resilience, restoration, and reciprocity in rural places. In this conversation, they explore the role of the artist in times of disaster and division. Lacy inspires us to advocate for our r...

What’s it like to cover the renewable energy transition in rural America? Daily Yonder reporters Claire Carlson and Julia Tilton spoke with Canary Media’s Kari Lydersen during a live show recording at the Rural Journalism Collective on May 14, 2025. This week, we’re bringing you an edited version of that conversation. Kari has spent extensive time reporting on coal mining communities and the clean...

Today’s story takes us to western North Carolina, where the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is working to preserve the Cherokee language.  Their dialect of Cherokee is considered “severely endangered” by UNESCO.  To help revitalize the language, community leaders opened the New Kituwah Academy in 2004.  It’s a Cherokee language immersion school for elementary-age students.  A partnership with a p...