I didn’t make my short film “I Am an American” because of Trump.

I made it because the Trump administration forced me to confront questions I’d been asking my entire life.

As an artist, writer, and collector, I’ve spent more than fifty years gathering the paper trail of the American Dream—schoolbooks, advertisements, patriotic images, family photographs, and the everyday objects that taught generations of children what it meant to be an American.

When Donald Trump returned to power, I watched the language of exclusion, fear, historical revisionism, and manufactured nostalgia move from the margins to the center of American politics. I realized that many of the myths I had spent decades uncovering in my artwork were no longer hidden in old textbooks and advertisements—they were shaping public policy and our national conversation.

“I Am an American” is my response.

Shown: Dozens of U.S.-born children from across the country traveled to the White House with their undocumented parents to march and demonstrate against deportations.
Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The film asks what happens when patriotism is confused with obedience, when diversity is treated as a threat instead of a strength, and when the promise of American democracy is narrowed to serve those already in power.

This isn’t just a film about Donald Trump.

It’s about resisting the politics of division, defending democracy, and insisting that America belongs to all of us—not just those who fit someone else’s vision of who counts as a “real American.”

Art can’t change history.

But it can refuse to let history be rewritten.

Watch “I Am an American.”

Then decide for yourself what kind of America we’re becoming—and what kind of America is still worth fighting for.