New York City kids raised in a progressive bubble often assume that the South is full of backward bigots. But some are discovering firsthand that these strangers are, in fact, people just like them.

The American Tributaries program sends kids from NYC and suburban New Jersey to South Carolina — where President Trump won 58.2% of the vote last year — to open their minds up to how the rest of the country lives.

Leo Mullin, an 18-year-old from Brooklyn, recalled meeting farmer George Albers, who was wearing his “God, guns and Trump” hat during his trip in the summer of 2024.

“That was very different from what I was used to,” Mullin, now a freshman studying Political Economy at Tulane, admitted. “But I was able to have a really strong conversation with him, and we ended up talking about bas

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