In February 1937, somewhere on California’s Pacific Coast, a couple sat side by side in a beat-up vehicle. The woman wore a faint, practiced smile — not wide, but composed, as if holding the line against everything they’d left behind. Her hands rested in her lap. The man, eyes fixed on the horizon, held the steering wheel with one hand and the gear shift with the other, his posture suspended between motion and exhaustion. Drought had claimed their Missouri farm. The banks had taken what was left. Now, everything they owned was packed around them. All that remained was the road ahead — and each other.
This reimagined rendering, drawn in the spirit of Norman Rockwell but born from the lens of Dorothea Lange, refuses to soften what it shows. The man’s face is weathered by dust and decision. The woman’s faint smile doesn’t cancel out the weight she carries. They are not symbols. They are survivors.
They left everything behind for a chance—a whisper of dignity, a paycheck that might stick, a roof without a landlord’s knock. They weren’t asking for luxury. They were chasing work. Food. Shelter. That’s it.
And now?
Now we live in a country where the powerful talk about “real Americans” while gutting the programs that keep families afloat. We hear speeches about greatness from men who’ve never gone hungry, never fixed a truck, never sat with eviction paperwork in their lap.
When they say they want to make America “great again,” I look at faces like this and wonder: which part are they trying to bring back?
The desperation? The displacement? The quiet, obedient poor?
This couple didn’t want pity. They wanted fairness. Opportunity. A shot.
And here we are again—not in a cloud of dust, but drowning in gig work, shuttered hospitals, and promises that vanish like rain that never came.
Is this the ‘Again?’
Because if it is, we should’ve known better the first time.
The Past, Reimagined Like Rockwell #12
Is This the “Again?” #6
