Black lands, Mexican bands: how a southern rural family built a Latino cultural hub

Caitlin Gooch in the pasture with her horses Ruth and Ardent. Photograph: Dare Coulter View image in fullscreen Caitlin Gooch in the pasture with her horses Ruth and Ardent. Photograph: Dare Coulter Black lands, Mexican bands: how a southern rural family built a Latino cultural hub As the Latino population of North Carolina booms, opportunities abound – and Donal Gooch is capitalizing on changing nature of his home region Donal Gooch is not pleased about the trash on his arena floor. “Shit, it’s pitiful,” he says. Donal leans back against the stage of the Gooch Sports Arena, the centerpiece of a family-held 12-acre plot in Eagle Rock, North Carolina , an unincorporated community at the fringes of the growing research triangle region. Also on the land are a house where Donal’s daughter, Caitlin, and three of her children live; a weathered barn; and a quarter-horse racetrack known as Eagle Rock Downs. But Donal only has eyes for the hundreds of empty Modelo cans, crushed plates and cracked cups strewn about the grounds, the detritus from the arena’s twice-a-month raucous concerts with touring bands from Mexico. “This is terrible,” Donal says, pondering the cleanup. “It means we didn’t make enough money.” If Donal’s not happy about paltry day-after-the-concert trash, it means the Gooch arena only sold 1,500 to 2,000 tickets. Trash as far as the eye can see could mean over 5,500 tickets sold, each typically starting north of $70. Bands come from Michoacán, Sinaloa, Chihuahua and other corners of Mexico. Jaripeos , or bull-riding festivals, sometimes appear on the schedule, as do carros tumbados (low-riders). Donal boasts that nearby gas stations sometimes sell out of fuel and food, hotels get more bookings and “everybody makes money off me” when ticket sales peak. Turning a dollar is front of mind for Donal, 69, who was raised on this land when eastern Wake county was tobacco country. Today, subdivisions are the dominant cash crop. Eagle Rock, 15 miles from Raleigh, is on the edges of one of the nation’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas , in its third fastest-growing state . The dual economic and population growth is concentrated around North Carolina’s health, finance and tech cores , turning its rural outskirts into suburbs. Much of the land surrounding the Gooch Arena, formerly woods and farms, has turned into warehouses, gas stations, medical centers and an under-construction subdivision. View image in fullscreen Donal Gooch leans against the stage at the events arena he founded in Eagle Rock, North Carolina. Photograph: Dare Coulter Caitlin, 33, came of age during this growth. She lived in a distinctly Black, rural and southern world, riding horseback over neighboring farms and woods, much of it owned by distant relatives. Donal and Caitlin refuse to turn their plot, acquired by the family in 1944, into cul-de-sacs. Caitlin focuses on passing down the horse-loving culture that formed her, virtually to her substantial online following, in-perso