8/7/2023 0 Comments Aunt bee siler city houseSeemingly typical of Latinos who've moved to Siler City, Francisco says he came with no particular expectations about life in the rural American South. "But thanks to God for bringing us here," he says in Spanish. We put them in boxes, cover them up and send them down the line."įlorinda's husband, Francisco, works for a builder, making "walls for houses," in a nearby town. "I work in the packing department," she explains in Spanish. Florinda has put in more than six years for Pilgrim's Pride and the plant's previous owner, Gold Kist. Inside, her family's home bustles with the sound of kids and the clatter of dishes as Debra's mother, Florinda, washes plates in the kitchen. Outside the Townsend chicken plant, near the trailer park where Debra's family lives.ĭebra is the oldest of six children. And then the lady that owns this land, she decided to bring more mobile homes. Standing in the gravel road outside her family's singlewide home, Debra says she's seen the trailer park grow dramatically since she arrived as a middle-schooler. "It's a different experience since I used to live in the countryside in Guatemala."ĭebra's family lives in a trailer park near the Townsend chicken plant. She's a senior at the town's high school, Jordan-Matthews. At all."ĭebra's family arrived in Siler City in 2002. "I don't mean to say this in a racist kind of way," Greene says, "but if you've ever seen a house overrun with roaches? And you can't stop them? And it's like you look and there's two, and you look again, there's four, and when you look back there's seven? If you notice, you don't see a black person or a white person come out of this plant. "This is a good time they're changing shifts."Įvery worker in sight appears to be Latino. "Look at the work force," Greene says, watching workers in boots and hairnets walk out through the plant's chain link gate. Workers in the plant - and, until recently, in another one just about as large - turn live birds by the hundreds of thousands into packaged parts and nuggets. Now, passing through a neighborhood near the center of town that was once largely white, Greene says, "All through here now, all these houses now, are all Mexicans."Īny tour of Siler City is bound to wind up in front of a huge, boxy building of off-white concrete and steel enclosed by a chain-link fence: the Townsend chicken processing plant. that's like a all-black section." Go east a ways, toward the country club, and soon it's all white. Siler City, he says, has always been a racially divided town. But Greene says he sees clearly what's happening in his town and he doesn't mind speaking about it in blunt, even inflammatory terms. Greene's career as a truck driver ended a few years ago a rare disease that cost him his peripheral vision put him on disability. Siler City, he says, has always been a town divided by race. I knew I wasn't geared to work in a plant, so I started driving truck and hauling chickens from Siler City all over the country."Įddie Greene on the porch of his house. "In Siler City," Greene says, "we had two options: you either worked at the plant or you drove truck. Siler City has long been home to chicken processing plants, too. The town's workers once made furniture, dog food, tool parts, picture frames, and popcorn poppers, among other manufactured goods. Siler City is a town of houses with porches, plenty of churches, a downtown a few blocks long, and closed-up factory buildings. "I used to cut that lady's grass when I was 10 years old. Not far from his own house on the western edge of town, Greene remarks that his is a neighborhood of "old families," families that "have been here since, I guess, the town's been here." He gestures at a small bungalow off Airport Road. What does make some of them uneasy is the way this new Latino population is transforming the racial and cultural flavor of this and many other southern communities.Įddie Greene is leading us on a drive through his hometown, Siler City, in the rolling Piedmont region of central North Carolina. Many longtime residents of Siler City say they're not troubled by the fact that many of those immigrants are undocumented. It's not an isolated example North Carolina and surrounding Southern states have some of the nation's fastest-growing Latino populations. Today, thanks to chicken processing jobs that no one else wants, Siler City is about half Latino. In short, it was just about the last place a Spanish-speaking immigrant was likely to land. Characters on the Andy Griffith Show mentioned Siler City, and the actor who played Aunt Bee retired there because it reminded her of Mayberry. Siler City, North Carolina used to be the kind of town where almost everyone, black and white, had roots going back a century or two. Latino culture can be found everywhere in Siler City, N.C.
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