Finding America

I didn’t set out to find America. But I had to reckon with my place inside it.

Three years. Twenty-eight states. Thousands of miles.

I found a country both beautiful and broken.

What began as a lifestyle experiment became something deeper and more urgent: a street-level witnessing of a nation.

One part participant. One part observer.

Since 2022, I’ve lived in red states and blue, border towns and big cities; finding not a single story, but a constellation of contradictions. This journey revealed my own blind spots, but in that discomfort is an invitation: to look again, listen carefully, and believe in what can change.

It’s what led me to a practice I now call Expansive Patriotism—an ongoing effort to see the whole country clearly, love it more honestly,

Finding America is a field report from the fractures. Told through essays, photography, and quiet encounters, it offers a perspective on the country as I’ve witnessed it, not as it's debated on social media.

If you want to see what America looks like when you stop passing through, start here, and then head to Writing for long-form essays from the road.

Expansive Patriotism

  • This is the practice of honoring the majesty found in both the monuments and the margins of American life. It invites a dual gaze: admiring this grand experiment of democracy, while also cherishing the quiet, shared rituals that hold our communities together.

  • This is the practice of seeing a country clearly, even when it is uncomfortable. It asks us to confront foundational fractures: the erasure of Indigenous nations, the brutality of slavery, the shadows of Jim Crow, and the forced invisibility of migrant and marginalized lives. By mapping what has been hidden, we build a future grounded in honesty rather than omission.

  • This is the practice of looking again. The stories we were handed were not always lies, but often fragments pretending to be complete. Reframing is not about tearing down. It is about expanding. It asks us to stretch our national narrative until it can hold the contradictions we live with every day. It turns a one-dimensional legend into a complex, living history where every voice has a place.

Photo Essays on America

Monuments to Memory

Monuments to Memory
The Truths We Bury

The Truths We Bury
Walls that Speak

Walls that Speak
Secular Cathedrals

Secular Cathedrals
The Language of the Street

The Language of the Street

Fragments of America

  • Talladega Superspeedway, Talladega County, Alabama

  • Crowley's Highland House Cafe, Cincinnati, Ohio

  • Uncle Sam, Danbury Railway Museum, Danbury, Connecticut

  • Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts

  • Idaho State Capitol, Boise, Idaho

  • Lunar New Year Parade, Chinatown, Chicago, Illinois

  • Hauntfest, Oregon District, Dayton, Ohio

  • Aiken, South Carolina

  • Austin's New Year, Austin, Texas

  • Redwoods, Hoyt Arboretum, Portland, Oregon

  • John Martin's St. Patrick's Street Festival, Coral Gables, Florida

  • Wildlife Loop Road, Custer State Park, Crazy Horse, South Dakota

  • Jamestown Mercentile, Jamestown, Colorado

  • Trivia Night, Lakefront Brewery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  • Sun Studio, Memphis, Tennessee

  • Fort Sumter, Charleston County, South Carolina

  • Ysleta Mission, El Paso, Texas

  • Raygun, Historic East Village, Des Moines, Iowa

  • Richmond Dairy Company, W Marshall Street, Richmond, Virginia

  • Sunset on the Great Plains, Dupree, South Dakota

  • Elfreth's Alley, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  • Boston Harbor Hotel, Rowes Wharf, Boston, Massachusetts