STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
As part of our celebration of America's 250th birthday, we partnered with StoryCorps to launch a project of human connection. It's called Connect250. We asked Americans to help us create a time capsule of who we are. We matched strangers in different parts of this country for virtual interviews to talk about their lives and to help us see how much we have in common.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: OK, here we go.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I think we're recording.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Yes, we are good to go.
INSKEEP: This is amazing. Americans recorded nearly 3,000 interviews. More than 100,000 minutes of conversation from all 50 states.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Today, I am speaking with Mariana from Tucson, Arizona.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: Waynetown, Indiana.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: Tulsa, Oklahoma.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: I'm in a log cabin in California today.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #8: I grew up in El Paso.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #9: A little town called Amity, Pennsylvania.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #10: Where in South Dakota are you from?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #11: Right in the middle in Pierre. And we call it Pierre, not Pierre.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #12: Worcester, Massachusetts, right?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #13: It's pronounced Worcester, which is so weird, right?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #12: Right.
INSKEEP: It is kind of weird. Anyway, you told each other stories about the things that divide us and scare us and about the shared experience of being American, like this man in Pennsylvania named Star Gibbs.
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STAR GIBBS: I came to the United States on 4 July. I'm age 9 and I'm looking around. I'm like, well, these fireworks are for me (laughter). Welcome.
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INSKEEP: Other conversations reflected the state of the country and our shared future. One of the questions you asked each other was, tell me about the America you want to live in.
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AUSTIN PAUL: I just would like it if it didn't feel like we were going from crisis to crisis all the time.
BERNEET KAUR: I would love to get to a place where the political unrest is put to bed. Like, can we please stop?
KATHY SIMMONS: I don't want to live in a world where everybody believes the way that I believe. That would be boring. And, you know, we need to be able to give each other the benefit of the doubt that we genuinely want what's best, even if we disagree on how to get there.
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INSKEEP: That was Austin Pahl in Creighton, Nebraska; Berneet Kaur in Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Kathy Simmons in Gordon, Georgia. Elena Colicelli from New Jersey has been a Sister of Charity, a nun for 59 years. She wanted to connect with someone from a younger generation and was paired with Rob Sulaski in Boulder, Colorado.
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ELENA COLICELLI: I worry about your future.
ROB SULASKI: So do I (laughter).
COLICELLI: When my nieces and nephews were born, I always gave them a picture of the full Earth and said, it's not ours - we borrow it from our children. What I got, I'm borrowing from you, so...
SULASKI: Yeah.
COLICELLI: ...I'm interested in hearing what you think about what we've done to set you up for the future.
SULASKI: It's hard to answer that because it's not like you did anything. But I do wish more people thought about it like you.
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EMILY WOLFENBARGER: If someone is listening to this 50 years from now on America's 300th anniversary, what would you want them to know about life today? I hope we make it (laughter).
MANUEL MATOS: I thought that maybe we were not going to get to 300 years.
SARAH KONTER: I think it's a sad moment for America. I think it's a sad moment for the world. And yet, when you meet a stranger who's lovely and like you, and you feel like, oh, it's not so bad. So I think there is a lot of hope that it's going to get better. And I think there are glimmers that it will.
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INSKEEP: That was Emily Wolfenbarger in Knoxville, Tennessee; Manuel Matos in Benton, Kentucky; and Sarah Konter in Newton, Massachusetts. Dian Seidel in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and Claire Fisher in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, asked each other what they would say to their great-grandchildren.
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DIAN SEIDEL: I would like to apologize to them. I feel like the world that my generation is leaving them is going to be harder to live in. And I don't mean to be a depressing person.
CLAIRE FISHER: No, no, I think you're being realistic. It's hard for me to envision what my grandkids will see. So I guess the thing I will say are the things that are probably always true, which is, humans are capable of great love. They're also capable of being really dumb and frustrating. And don't let that stop you from answering them with your love. And remember that there always is a future, even when it's a weird one, even when it's a bad one, even when it's the one you didn't want, because the second you stop planning ahead for the future, that's when things get worse.
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INSKEEP: On this Election Day, those are just some of the lessons you shared with MORNING EDITION and StoryCorps as part of our Connect250 project. Throughout this fall, you will hear more voices of people from across the country who started out as strangers and ended up, in some cases, as friends. And we should note, their full conversations are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
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