My American Story

This essay was written for the St. Charles Writers Group topic “Your American Story” on July 11, 2026. The writing assignment was based off the “Our American Story” project which aims to collect the largest archives of American stories in commemoration of the nation’s 250th anniversary.

A few years ago, I asked my parents if I could take an old Rubbermaid bin filled with hundreds of loose photos, ostensibly to organize them. Among snaps of #23 Ryne Sandberg of the Chicago Cubs at bat, smiling shots of my uncle Pintu who has since passed away, and images of our family home during various construction phases, I found some grainy 3 x 5’s of New York City. In one, absent of people, the World Trade Center twin towers rise over the bay. In another, the Statue of Liberty soars overhead, my father or mother the unseen photographer.

The box was stuffed with evidence of my family’s travels. We drove everywhere in our Dodge station wagon, as good Midwesterners do: Philadelphia to see the Freedom Bell, Niagara Falls (twice) via Detroit and the Henry Ford museum, Mackinac Island in upper Michigan because my mom loved the Somewhere in Time movie starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. We traversed west to witness the steaming geysers of Yellowstone, the natural wonder of the Grand Canyon, and the desert mirage of Las Vegas. Here were some of my family’s happiest memories; however, certain unphotographed scenes came to mind as well.

Somewhere out west, I remember my father asking a front desk agent for directions. I stood next to him as the lady declared, “Then you go left. Left. That’s this way.” She gestured excessively with her whole arm.

Why is she talking to him like that? I wondered. My father was an excellent driver and certainly knew which way was left.

Once, in a rural Kentucky Tastee Freeze-type establishment, everyone in the joint turned around and stared at our family as we entered. I got chills on the back of my neck, and wanted to turn around and flee. But why?

Another time, when my brother and I were little, in the early morning hours on the country roads of Virginia, a police officer pulled us over. The red and blue lights flashed as he approached the driver’s side door. My father manually rolled down the window.

“Yes, officer?” he asked. “Is something the matter?”

My brother and I sat wide-eyed and motionless in the backseat.

The cop peered over at my mother on the passenger’s side. “You okay there, ma’am?”

“Of course,” she replied. “I’m with my husband and children.”

After a minute, we were allowed to continue on. At the time, I had no idea what that was about.

Also in the box were photos of our family trips to Thailand—my father’s birthplace. He came to the US as a young man in the 1970s. Years later he became a citizen and met my mom, a blue-eyed “American girl,” the granddaughter of immigrants from Germany, England, and Mexico. My father and mother married in 1977, exactly ten years after Loving vs. Virginia ruled that interracial bans were unconstitutional. They settled in the suburbs of Chicago, where I was raised, never a day going by where I wasn’t aware of being an immigrant’s kid.

I married a guy whose Irish and Sicilian ancestors had been here a few generations, and we remained in the same Chicago suburb. I regret that we’ve yet to take our kids to Thailand to meet their relatives, but we have repeated many of the road trips my parents took us on—even to Kentucky, Virginia, and most recently, the Grand Canyon. Our kids travel with ease anywhere we go in America. Most people we’ve encountered are friendly.

The trips my parents took me on and the ones I’ve taken with my kids are a testament to our belief in “America the beautiful,” my father’s chosen land. The photos tell part of his American story, one I’m sure he would deem a success. I don’t know if he would recall the same stories I do. But my story is in there, too, and my kids will have their own to tell. We all have an American story, one that feels true to us, for better—or far worse.

Before I put everything away, I found one more picture from our New York trip, my mother behind the camera. My father is attempting to hold my squirming toddler brother, while I, six years old or so, hang off a fence, my other arm raised, fist clenched in a sort of victory pose. In the distance, grey turbulent water stretches between us and Lady Liberty. She faces away from us, her stance the mirror image of my own.