A five-part series exploring how people from around the world
are finding home in rural America.
Created using oral history interviews conducted all across the country, Routes to Roots offers the perspectives of descendants of ancestors who immigrated generations ago and of newcomers who come from as far and wide as Benin, the Philippines, and Venezuela, landing in small towns all across the U.S. — from the mountains and prairies of Colorado, to the buttes of North Dakota, the forests of Arkansas, and beyond.
Storytellers talk about how they found home in rural places, the challenges they’ve faced along the way, and the ways inclusion and cross-cultural collaboration help rural communities thrive. Their stories show how immigration has always been a vital part of rural American history, and illuminate the major role that newcomers play in preserving the heart of rural life for generations to come.
Routes to Roots is hosted by Sara Ozawa and Phillip Norman, Rural Assembly 2024-25 Welcoming and Inclusion Fellows. Their fellowship is being sponsored through a partnership between Rural Assembly and Welcoming America, a nonprofit devoted to building a nation of neighbors.
Episode 1: Movement Across Time and Place
Episode 1, 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.
Episode One Transcript (Spanish)
Episode 2: Making a Living
This episode 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.
Episode Two Transcript (Spanish)
Episode 3: The Cultures We Carry
This episode 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.
Episode Three Transcript (Spanish)
Episode 4: Lost in Translation
This episode 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 multilingual communities.
Episode Four Transcript (Spanish)
Episode 5: Better Together
This episode 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.
Episode Five Transcript (Spanish)
Our team
Routes and Roots is hosted and produced by Sara Ozawa and Phillip Norman. Our Editor and Producer is Susannah Broun. Our Executive Producer is Joel Cohen.
Original theme music by Alejandro Ivan Vazquez Caballero and Victor Emiliano Cano Solache. Additional reporting by Zeltzin Esmeralda Nieto Mata. Translations by Miguel Weiss. Voiceover work by Angeles Osorio, Miguel Weiss, Itzel Delgado, and Andrea Duarte Alonso.
A special thank you to everyone who shared their stories for this series. And our gratitude to the staff of the Daily Yonder, Rural Assembly, and Welcoming America for bringing the series to life.
To republish Routes to Roots on your radio station or podcast, please contact Will Wright.