Bridging Small Town Cultural Divides

Bryan Thompson started his career in local government more than 10 years ago as town manager of Mount Gilead in Montgomery County. He’s since also served as town manager of Erwin, in Harnett County, and Siler City, in Chatham County.

Given Siler City’s large, multigenerational Hispanic population, it was there that Bryan saw language and cultural differences as potential barriers to good communication between the town government and the community. So he and his colleagues got creative.

For starters, Bryan and other community leaders participated in Go Global NC’s Latino Initiative. The program, run through the UNC System, connects local leaders to a better understanding of their Hispanic communities, including through a weeklong visit to Mexico.

Even with a similar challenge shared through more than one community, each of those communities approached that challenge in a somewhat different way … there’s not just one right way of doing things.

“It gave us a better sense of who this portion of our community is as a people,” Bryan explains.

Other initiatives included an assessment of the community and its needs by the UNC Center for Global Studies’ Building Integrated Communities program, as well as small group conversations in Hispanic neighborhoods throughout town, where Bryan and residents could meet to discuss town services and the role the town can play in their lives.

“There are varying creative or even practical ways to address a thing, whatever that thing is, that issue, that challenge, that stumbling block, to get from where you are to where you as a community envision yourself to be,” Bryan says. “There’s not one way to get there.”