For nearly three decades, I’ve been traveling the backroads and industrial corridors of America, drawn to the places that built this country and the people who still call them home. What began as assignments and chance encounters has become a lifelong pursuit — a search for what remains when the headlines fade and the noise quiets.

This work traces the shifting story of America: towns worn by time, landscapes shaped by labor and loss, and communities caught between division and tradition. These are places where the factories have gone silent but pride endures; where light still falls through the same windows that once lit generations of work; where the past and present lean hard against each other.

This is the America that I’ve seen — a country both fractured and resilient, familiar yet always changing. Nearly thirty years of looking, listening, and bearing witness to a nation still reckoning with itself, a story that continues to unfold in the faces and places within these pages. America is never one story, but many — overlapping, enduring, and unfinished.

People line up outside the Wise County Fairgrounds to enter Remote Area Medical’s clinic in Wise, Va., where free dental, medical, and vision care is offered. The three-day event draws more than 2,000 uninsured and underinsured patients, many of whom camp in the parking lot and wait for days.

A man shoots his dog, Pooh Bear, a family pet for 8 years, near a small grave he dug just moments before in the families back yard. A rabid skunk bit the dog earlier in the morning. The man didn't have the money to care for the dog and had to make the difficult decision to euthanize it himself.

A supporter of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump yells while waiting in line outside PPG Paints Arena before a campaign rally on Nov. 4, 2024, in Pittsburgh. With one day left before the general election, Trump was campaigning in battleground states including Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina.

A flag hangs on the side of a home on Thursday, March 2, 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio.

Supporters listen as former South Carolina Gov. and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley announces her candidacy for president on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023, in Charleston, S.C.

Summer Lee, the Democratic nominee for the state House, joins a march protesting the police shooting of Antwon Rose on June 23, 2018, in Pittsburgh. Rose, an unarmed Black teenager, was shot and killed by police on June 19, sparking protests and outrage across the city.

Chicago's Columbus Day parade marched along State Street on Monday, October 10, 2022. This year marked the 70th year of the parade in the city, which has the third-largest Italian-American population in the U.S. This year, parade organizers said they welcomed the celebration of the immigrant experience beyond the story of Columbus, framing him as one of America's first immigrants. Columbus Day has become a controversial holiday, as many argue Christopher Columbus represents the violent history of colonization in the western hemisphere. Over the years people have pushed to remove statues of Christopher Columbus and rename the holiday to Indigenous People's Day.

Deanne Hupfield, a Temagami First Nation fancy shawl dancer from the Ojibway Nation, performs during the 41st annual powwow at the Council of Three Rivers American Indian Center on Sept. 28, 2019, in Dorseyville, Pa. Hupfield, an educator on the Indian Act, treaties, and Indigenous worldviews, teaches social studies through powwow dance and regalia-making classes.

As 10-month old Shyann Holt of Kingsport, Tenn., sleeps in the backseat her mother, Jessica, 20, smokes a cigarette in the parking lot of the Wise County Fairgrounds on the final day of the Remote Area Medical (RAM) mobile clinic on Sunday morning, July 23, 2017 in Wise, Virginia. Jessica, her baby and her mother have camped in the parking lot for three days and spent last night in the car during a thunderstorm. She has several hours left to wait until she can pick up her free glasses and head home. Justin Merriman / American Reportage

A deer skull is attache to a truck above a "God is my co-pilot" license plate in the parking lot at the Wise County Fairgrounds on the final day of the Remote Area Medical (RAM) mobile clinic on Sunday morning, July 23, 2017 in Wise, Virginia. The three-day event provides free healthcare to uninsured and underinsured people.

Aaron Schissler, 8, jumps on his trampoline at his home near FirstEnergy’s Bruce Mansfield Power Plant on Sunday, December 3, 2017 in Shippingport, Pa.

EAST PALESTINE, OHIO - FEBRUARY 24: Toxic chemicals float on the surface of Leslie Run creek on February 25, 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio. On February 3rd, a Norfolk Southern Railways train carrying toxic chemicals derailed causing an environmental disaster. Thousands of residents were ordered to evacuate after the area was placed under a state of emergency and temporary evacuation orders. Photo by Justin Merriman

Rosalia Pampena, 75, of Glenshaw, Pa., speaks with attorney and U.S. Senate candidate George Bochetto, left, during a rally on April 23, 2022, in Pittsburgh to support the Christopher Columbus statue behind her. Bochetto, representing the Italian Sons and Daughters of America, filed a 2020 lawsuit to block the statue’s removal, which the Pittsburgh Art Commission and then-Mayor Bill Peduto approved that same year. Italian American groups argue the statue, erected in 1955, honors their heritage, while critics cite Columbus’ enslavement and brutality of Indigenous people as a painful symbol that has led to removals nationwide.

People are baptized in the lobby of Grace Life Church on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in Monroeville, Pa. The church hosted the Pittsburgh stop of the “Courage Tour,” a Christian revival billed as a “celebration of Jesus Christ’s courage and triumph.” With events in seven swing states, the tour aims to mobilize suburban Christians to reelect former President Donald Trump. Headliner Lance Wallnau, an evangelist, self-proclaimed prophet, and Christian nationalist, is known for popularizing the idea of Trump as a modern-day King Cyrus from the Book of Isaiah.

Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, Border Patrol doubled in size to nearly 21,000 agents, all but 3,000 of whom are stationed along the border with Mexico. That's more than nine agents for every mile of border from Texas to California, and the agency contends it never has been more effective at capturing coyotes and the illegal immigrants they bring in. At Freedom Park in Border Field State Park in Imperial Beach, Calif., Dylan Terrazes of Santa Barbara, Calif., touches his grandmother's fingers as she meets him for the first time. The park sits at the end of the 1,933 miles of U.S. border with Mexico, the Border Patrol allows people to congregate on both side of the fence on weekends. The small holes in the fence leave little room for physical contact through the fence except for fingertips. Those who visit at the park say they give "pinkie kisses" though the fence.

A flag flies from Patrick Lavigne’s truck parked along Main Street in front of his home on March 29, 2023, in New Freeport, Pa. The town of about 80 people has been without drinking water for more than a year after EQT, the nation’s largest natural gas producer, inadvertently tapped an abandoned oil well in June 2022, sending fracking fluid and other pollutants into the water supply.

A bridge collapse along Forbes Avenue near Frick Park in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Friday, January 28, 2022. Photographer: Justin Merriman/Bloomberg

People sit outside their home in East Palestine, Ohio, as they wait for President Joe Biden to drive by during his visit to the Norfolk Southern crash site on Friday, Feb. 16, 2024.

Kate Stollar stands in her backyard where Range Resources’ Folly Hollow Farm Unit natural gas well pad sits next to her home in South Franklin Township, Washington County, Pa., on Tuesday, July 30, 2024. She fears for her children’s health living so close to the fracking site. “My job is to advocate for my kids,” she said.

Issac Vanderpool, 9, of Kingsport, Tenn., right, lays down in a chair near his family's tent and his cousin, Dominic Stewart, 11, left, as they prepare to spend the night in the parking lot of the Wise County Fairgrounds on Thursday evening, July 20, 2017 in Wise, Virginia. The family is waiting for the gates to open tomorrow morning at the Remote Area Medical Clinic (RAM) at the fairgrounds. Justin Merriman/American Reportage

Students in the North Area Army Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) cheer each other on at Boyd H. Anderson High School in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

The “Big 9” Second Line, the annual parade hosted by the Big Nine Social Aid and Pleasure Club, begins in the Bywater neighborhood and marched to the Lower Ninth Ward, in New Orleans, La.

Snow falls along North Market Street as seen through my windshield in East Palestine, Ohio on January 18, 2024.