It is one thing to study the fall of democracy, another to have it hit your homeland—and yet another to raise children as it happens. Join Sarah Kendzior as she shares one family’s journey to the most beautiful, fascinating, and bizarre places in the United States during one of its most tumultuous eras. As Kendzior worked as a journalist chronicling political turmoil, she became determined that her young children see America before it’s too late. So Kendzior, her husband, and the kids hit the road—again and again.

Starting from Missouri, the family drove across America in every direction as cataclysmic events—the rise of autocracy, political and technological chaos, and the pandemic—reshaped American life. They explore Route 66, national parks, historical sites, and Americana icons as Kendzior contemplated love for country in a broken heartland. Together, the family watches the landscape of the United States—physical, environmental, social, political—transform through the car window.

She told the tale of her epic car trips in The Last American Road Trip, calling it one mother’s promise to her children that their country will be there for them in the future—even though at times she struggles to believe it herself.

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Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs.

This program contains EXPLICIT language.

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