US, June 3 -- Yesterday, Germany's national football team arrived in the United States on a Lufthansa flight. Head coach Julian Nagelsmann's squad arrived in Chicago on Tuesday evening before traveling to its base at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, joining the growing wave of players, officials, media representatives and supporters arriving from around the world ahead of FIFA World Cup 2026 preparations.

For many of those visitors, the journey to America is about football.

But for many others, it is also an opportunity to witness a country undergoing a profound debate about its identity.

For decades, the United States promoted itself as the "Land of the Free" - a nation that welcomed immigrants, celebrated diversity and projected an image o...