From the hollers of Appalachia to the streets of east LA, America is full of beautiful weirdos
America: the land of the free (and the home of the brave).The land of opportunity.
A nation of immigrants.A country built on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
A country built on slavery. Democratic.Republican.
Once great.Still great.
Great again.Never great.
United.Divided.
Under threat.Stronger than ever.
An ideal.A dream.
A scam.What is America? The United States celebrated its 250th birthday this year, and politicians and pundits have endlessly opined on the significance and meaning of this great experiment and its position today. Peter Santenello, however, is not interested in such grand (and often simplistic) proclamations.He’s interested in Americans — the individual people who live in this vast, diverse, confounding, contradictory place we call home.“I look at a map of the United States, and it’s like, ‘Whoa, there’s so many more areas to check out!’ ” the 48-year-old independent journalist told The Post.And he’s been to a lot of them: For the past six years, Santenello has zigzagged across the nation interviewing everyday people for his massively popular YouTube channel, which boasts 4.2 million subscribers.
His most watched video, on Appalachia, titled “Poorest Region in America: What It Really Looks Like,” has more than 37 million views.“That’s such a blessing to live in a country like that,” he added.“It’s not all homogeneous and one-dimensional.
It’s multidimensional.”Now, Santenello has turned some of his most surprising, compelling findings into a book.“Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches from Across the Country We Call Home” (Simon & Schuster, Aug.
4) focuses on 10 regions Santenello has visited in his six years filming the United States, from Deep Appalachia to the Hamptons, the redwood forests to the Chesapeake Bay.He jumped in a horse-drawn buggy in Amish country and a lowrider in East LA.
He dined on raccoon in the Mississippi Delta (“it was almost like the Thanksgiving turkey, ex...