The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, and I'm Jill Lippoor, sitting in today for David Remnick.

This is the second part of our special episode on America 250.

In the first part, we listened excerpts from a documentary that asked Americans in the

1970s how they felt about the bicentennial.

We have a long way to go, baby, as Billy Jean King, might have paraphrased it.

I love that style of documentary so much, the tradition that journalists call Vox Pop, that I wanted to hear what it would sound like if we made a piece like that for the radio hour today.

So we collaborated with an organization of audio storytellers known as Transom.

They sent producers to Illinois and California, Louisiana, Vermont, Utah,

then went to gas stations and city parks, to malls and street corners, to dairy farms,

to listen to us, to Americans. Because here's what I think. You could talk to politicians.

You could talk to scholars, pundits, reporters. But what this moment means, I think you'll find that right here.

We're doing a radio program about the 250th anniversary of America. Can we ask you a couple questions?

Oh, sure. Do you have plans to celebrate the Fourth of July this year?

Of course, of course.

What are you going to do?

Probably go see a parade and just being American.

Yeah.

How do you feel about being an American right now?

I feel great.

I personally, very proud to be an American.

I've been in this country since I was 15 years old.

...