After living abroad in cities like Beijing, New Delhi, and Rome and watching the United States from afar for more than a decade, correspondent Jim Yardley returns to find a country he doesn’t recognize.
An American in a Strange Land
Jim Yardley | The New York Times | November 4, 2016 | 6,007 words
An American in a Strange Land: A Journalist’s Tour of a Divided Country
After living and working abroad as a foreign correspondent for more than a decade, Jim Yardley returns to the United States to see, with his own eyes, how the country has changed.
After living abroad in cities like Beijing, New Delhi, and Rome and watching the United States from afar for more than a decade, New York Times correspondent Jim Yardley returns to find a country he doesn’t recognize.
This summer, I decided I wanted to explore this place that had become a foreign country to me. I didn’t understand what had happened since I left, why so many people seemed so disillusioned and angry. I planned a zigzag route, revisiting places where I once lived or worked, a 29-day sprint through 11 states (and four time zones). I knew I would be moving too fast to make any sweeping declaration about the state of America, and I wouldn’t ask people which presidential candidate they were voting for. I was more interested in why they were so anxious about the present and the future. I wanted to find out why the country was fragmenting rather than binding together. Most of all I wanted to see with my own eyes what had changed — and so much had changed.
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