The Americans I Met is a photographic and oral history project that collects portraits of and conversations with people that photographer Viktor Hübner encountered during a series of cross-country hitchhiking trips in the United States. With only his camera, audio recorder, and a few provisions, he covered 41 states and over 16,000 miles from 2017 to 2019. Throughout Viktor’s travels, he embraced chance encounters and relied daily on the hospitality of people he met. As a result, the foreign traveler became an eye-witness to many Americans’ practical and spiritual lives and the bearer of many confidences. This document focuses on the people Viktor met on his travels, their words, their experiences, and, by extension, the Trump Era in which they lived.