Want to understand this country? Look at our stuff.

Welcome to My Museum of America

By Emily Keegin Illustrations by Laurent Allard Aug. 4, 2026

Defining what it means to be American today can seem like an impossible task. We are, after all, a big and unruly nation, prone to acting in extreme and contradictory ways, often at the same time. And yet, “Americanness” is easy to spot. It lives in our mannerisms (big smiles) and our worldview (bullish). And it is imbued in our things — the gadgets, food, tools and household clutter that surround us. Just as the relics of ancient Mesopotamians provide insight into their way of life, who we are, as a culture, and as a nation, can be uncovered by sifting through our giant piles of stuff.

To that end, I put together a collection of 25 objects that reveal something special about us. This isn’t a definitive canon; in a nation of 342.7 million individuals, no set of things could be. Instead, consider this my contribution to our favorite 250-year-old parlor game, a 25-part answer to the question: Who are we?

$4.99 Costco Rotisserie Chicken

They say we are a divided country. They say we have nothing in common. Right, Left, Urban, Rural, Men, Women, Real America, Fake America. But spend a Saturday afternoon wandering the aisles of your nearest Costco, and you will quickly find that we are not so different after all. Americans want the same thing — $4.99 rotisserie chickens, $1.50 hot dogs and a cart full of enough stuff to survive a nuclear winter. At Costco, we are one nation, under God, with bulk groceries for all.

Plastic Lawn Flamingo

As the lawn began, so did the United States. Nonnative seeds arrived on ships, took to the wind and colonized the landscape; welcome to America, Poa pratensis. Our lawns might be agriculturally worthless economic sinkholes, requiring hard labor and constant maintenance, but the American urge to tame the wilderness by transforming it in our own image is hard to deny. What we once called pioneering, we now call mowing the grass.

Juicy Couture Sweatsuit

Since the invention of Lycra in 1958, the American athlete and the American couch potato have worn the same pants. In a country where sloth is sinful and work holy, athleisure signals both virtue and vice, often simultaneously. In the aughts, a young Paris Hilton turned the leisure suit into a power suit by wearing Juicy Couture velour sets on the regular. It was a move that said, “I’m so wealthy, I don’t even have to get dressed.” With enough money in the bank, leisure itself becomes the sport. Those glutes might not be taut, but at least they are … Juicy.

NASCAR, like America, is built on the promise of transformation. Cars that look like the ones in our driveways are turned into elite machines capable of doing the unthinkable. That Impala you rented at the Tucson airport? On the highway it handled like a mattress; souped up for the racetrack, it goes 200 miles per hour and takes curves like a racehorse. NASCAR asks us to rethink our lives as full of possibility, and gives us a reason to believe in the most American fantasy: With the right pit crew, any of us can be champions.

This country has finally reached peak “opinion.” The modern-day pamphleteer has a “get ready with me” about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and yes, we will tune in to watch it live. We just can’t help ourselves. We the people wish to be heard, and, for better or for worse, we the people wish to hear the opinions of our fellow citizens, no matter how unhinged they may be. Sometimes this leads to a nation full of tinfoil hats. But sometimes it leads to revolution.

Personal Injury Lawyer Advertisements

Every city, town or........

© The New York Times