A single bead of sweat near my temple refused to fall. My gloved hands were far too dirty to brush it away, so I allowed it to repose serenely near the rose-colored handkerchief that was wrapped around my frizzy golden mane. I slumped into the wooden Adirondack chair next to me that was overlooking the pond and cracked open the can.

“Ahhhhh.” I inhaled the sweet scent of sassafras and took a swig.

The can of root beer was almost a year old now. I had been saving it for a special occasion, and tackling gigantic zucchinis and tangly tomatoes seemed like occasion enough. I carried four cans home in my suitcase from New York to Paris—one can for each family member to savor during the year.

I always save mine, usually for almost the whole year. The moment we book our family’s plane tickets to return stateside for a visit, it feels safe enough to let go of my sugary nostalgia, and I crack open the root beer on a midsummer’s scorcher.

Root beer was a part of my childhood. It was birthday ice cream floats and hot summer days. It was a frosty mug next to a hot dog and my dad grilling while my mom prepared the picnic table for dinner.

It harkens back to the dog days of summer when I rode my red bike with a bell all over the neighborhood and didn’t come home until dusk.

When we moved to France, I had to let go of the notion that my kids would experience summer the same way I had. Maybe I also had to let go of my 1980s American childhood. I definitely had to let go of root beer (except my one can a year).

While we might associate our fond memories with “nostalgia,” the origin of the word has a darker meaning. Coined to refer to an unwanted medical condition, “-algia” comes from New Latin and is used in more clinical terms. Johannes Hofer (1669-1752) was a Swiss physician who developed the word to describe a mania tied to homesickness found in Swiss mercenary soldiers.

The “nost-” of nostalgia means “homecoming,” and Hofer used it to describe the longing for home that soldiers in the field experienced in ways that were detrimental to both their work and health. It was considered a neurological disorder with symptoms ranging from mild disturbances such as melancholy, to the more severe, like malnutrition and hallucinations.

In an 1874 journal article, nostalgia was described using four words: sadness, sleeplessness, loss of appetite and weakness. Those who experienced it were often seen as weak, and treatments could be demeaning and cruel. 

In Victorian literature, nostalgia is a mood that captures a “wistful regret of the past.” By the end of the 19th century, it was seen less as an ailment and began to be used as a descriptor for a longing for something from the past.

“Nostalgia” was eventually romanticized and became a word used to fondly describe the past. Though the Victorian mood seemed to rub off on the term, it came to encompass a sort of reworking of the ideologies of progress: Those were the good ‘ole days.

It is also a theme embodied in American art.

Winslow Homer’s 1872 painting “Snap the Whip” is a joyous depiction of American childhood. The boys are barefoot, playful, but with a hint of sadness. The boy at the end is being tossed out, hinting at the reminder that the era of the red schoolhouse and open fields seen in the backdrop are fading into the past. 

The iconic Rockwell painting, “Freedom from Want” (1943), epitomizes nostalgia in American art. It depicts the apron-clad woman who has prepared the turkey feast being presented to the family around the table. It has served as a symbol of American prosperity and patriotism for decades.

Yet, we can’t ignore that these images are overwhelmingly white and depict a narrow vision of family and belonging: heteronormative, middle-class and steeped in 20th-century ideals. Rockwell’s canvas reflects not the diversity of America, but a sanitized version of it, curated for comfort.

The so-called “melting pot” is conspicuously absent from the table. It raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: Whose memories are we nostalgic for, and whose stories are left out of the frame?

Post-WWII, when the American economy was booming, the nation was a superpower, and the country was able to leave behind the Great Depression. For some, it was considered a prosperous time. 

The GI Bill opened opportunities for education and business, and the white GIs were welcomed home as the “greatest generation.” New freeways made travel easier, and the car industry was booming. The government subsidized suburbia, and Eisenhower’s combination of lower taxes and balancing budgets led to the country’s Decade of Prosperity in the 1950s.

Was this the “Leave it to Beaver” era when America was great? For the white middle class, perhaps. 

But Jim Crow laws proved America was great only with “caveats and exclusions.” Emmett Till was murdered, Rosa Parks was arrested, and though segregation officially ended in the armed forces, desegregation was met with widespread resistance.

Other eras of history were equally marred by unequal rights. Although women gained the right to vote in 1920, it was not until the 1960s that they were able to open a bank account independently. And it was not until 1974 that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was passed, which “was supposed to prohibit credit discrimination on the basis of gender.”

Unequal access to healthcare for women came to be symbolized by the coat hanger; it wasn’t until 1974 that women gained safe access to abortion care. In 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the brutality of the coat hanger imagery remains a symbol of how far back into history we have fallen.

Indigenous peoples in America didn’t gain citizenship until 1924, and before that, they had been forcibly removed from their land or resettled. Even laws that appeared to be “well-intended” often had devastating consequences. The 1952 Urban Indian Relocation Act encouraged Indigenous peoples to leave their reservations to pursue economic opportunities that were much less plentiful than promised.

The promise of American “greatness” is merely nostalgia, disembodied from history and reduced to “a set of aesthetic values identified with sentimentalism.” And we have let the sickness of nostalgia permeate our American political landscape. Red hats have become the symbol of a time of prosperity and peace that only applied to some.

Fueled by a twisted nostalgia for a past that never existed, elected power has rolled back our rights, one executive order at a time. The red hat sentiment ignores the ugliest parts of American history, seeking to reclaim the “greatness” of power for a few of the privileged.

We cannot base our nation’s future on a past that never was. And yet, we are marching backwards into a red, white and blue parade of unreality. We have weaponized nostalgia to justify regression disguised as tradition.

But clinging to a mythological past while ignoring its exclusions builds a future on falsehood. If we are to move forward as a nation, then we must do so with clarity, not sentiment.

The sweetness of root beer lingers, but the work of harvesting truth from memory is messier than even my summer garden. If we are to cultivate something better—even something great—we must plant seeds in justice, awareness, and truth.

The time for wistful remembrance is over; the time for an honest reckoning is now.