Rice Media Center to screen ‘Welcome to Shelbyville’ May 18

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS

Shelbyville, Tenn., is a town of 16,000 located 50 miles southeast of Nashville. Like many towns across the country, it has faced dramatic demographic changes in recent years.

The documentary film “Welcome to Shelbyville,” which investigates the reaction of longtime African-American and white residents to the arrival of Latino workers and Somali refugees, will screen May 18 at Rice Media Center. The film is free and open to the public.

The film will begin at 7 p.m. in the media center’s film auditorium.

A panel discussion after the film will feature Stephen Klineberg, professor of sociology and co-director of Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, and Ruth Nasrullah, director of Light of Islam, a nonprofit educational center and bookstore located in Webster, Texas.

“Welcome to Shelbyville” is part of the Houston PBS Community Cinema series. For more information on the Community Cinema series, go to www.houstonpbs.org/site/PageServer?pagename=evt_communitycinema.