What's It Like For You To Be An American?
Portraits by Robert Kalman
Preface by Rasheed Newson
Text by 76 Americans
“Every person’s story is written plainly on [their] face, though not everyone can read it.”
—August Sander
“Handwriting tells a story...and there’s a simple truth. Something written by hand brings a singular human presence.... Something written by hand is a piece of your personality on paper.”
—Anna Quindlen
Dear Reader,
As you contemplate the stories written on the American faces you will meet on these pages, and reflect upon the stories they have set down by hand, I hope that you may connect to their humanity, and in so doing find the parallel to your own story.
—Robert Kalman
It began with American flags. As Covid-19 raged on in early 2020 I was wanting to create a photo project during the pandemic that avoided the cliche of empty streets or
the banality of people with the bottom of their faces hidden. I traveled around the Hudson Valley for days on end, searching for a way to memorialize the death and dying. It was sometime in February when I spotted the first flag.
The flag was massive, painted on the side of a barn, some- what faded, worn, and soiled. An older man with a red Keep America Great hat sat in a pickup truck and watched me as I surveyed the barn. I approached him and introduced myself. “What a great flag. Can I make a picture?” “Sure thing,” he answered. “Lots of people do but never ask. It even appeared in a bunch of magazines.” Thanking him, I set up my 8×10 view camera across the road and made two exposures. When I had knocked down the equipment I went over to thank him again. After commenting on the “old-fashioned camera,” he offered his hand and said “My name’s Olson,” then he paused and laughed saying, “Hey, we’re not supposed to be shaking hands now, are we?” While I knew he meant we weren’t supposed to shake because of Covid mandates, I thought about the notion that in Trump's America people with opposing views could no longer be civil or courteous towards one another. Similar moments would occur over the next three years.
It was a few days after New Year’s. While driving with my wife, Linda, through a small town I was blown away by the proper display of flags on a residential street. I counted, twenty-eight houses and seventeen flags. “Looks like lots of Americans live here,”I mused aloud with some irony,“I wonder what it’s like for them to be Americans”Then came the storming of the Capitol several days later. I was devastated; I had to process and make sense of it. I framed a new project: To make formal dignified portraits of everyday Americans in a particularly divisive time and then ask them to answer the simple yet profound question, What’s it like for you to be an American?
—Robert Kalman