What does it mean to be an American? Does your family trace its roots to the American Revolution? Did your ancestors come here seeking opportunity, arrive by force and endure enslavement, or live on this land since time immemorial?

As we mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, the question of what it means to be American is a tactile one; it is inseparable from the places we inhabit and the histories embedded within them. Places tell us who we are and how we came to be here—as individuals and as a nation.

Yet the Trump administration is working to dismantle legal protections for the historic places that narrate and preserve our nation’s heritage. A federal advisory council, made up of Trump appointees, is working to roll back the National Historic Preservation Act, and in particular Section 106, which requires federal agencies to consider how the projects they carry out and fund may affect historic properties.

If we hope to look back after another 250 years and understand how far we have come, we must leave something on the landscape to see.

This process, as its currently designed, gives consulting parties and the public a voice in helping to identify ways to avoid or minimize adverse effects to our important historical places, whether they be a recently discovered archaeological site, or a famous building. The proposed changes shift that balance by concentrating decision-making authority solely with federal agencies, reducing meaningful consultation with Tribal Nations, state and local governments, preservation experts, and the public.

Making public participation optional and drastically shortening review timelines will give communities, preservation advocates, and the people who live in and care for these places fewer opportunities to raise concerns before important cultural and historic places are altered or lost.

This is a form of cultural and historical erasure and a further erosion of the public trust. While the consequences may not be immediately visible, one potential outcome is the unchallenged destruction of the material evidence of who we are as a nation: evidence of our diversity, the difficult truths of our founding and colonial history, and the struggles and progress that shaped American life.

Once these places are destroyed, the histories embedded within them become more difficult to recover, understand, and tell. Cultural resources are a nonrenewable resource deserving of rigorous protections.

Eighty-eight percent of Americans believe that historically and culturally significant places should be preserved for future generations, according to a June 2026 YouGov poll. And yet, some losses are unfolding in plain sight. The East Wing of the White House was demolished as part of a ballroom project that........

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