The 13 books that made the 2024 Zócalo Summer Reading List all make for excellent bookworm bait. They show us what goes into building cities, and what goes into building the image of one of the biggest bands of all time. They move us from India’s 1857 uprising to New Mexico’s present-day wildfires. They chronicle wisdom passed down across generations, and cutting-edge scientific research that helps us see the cosmos anew.

As you peruse this year’s offerings, we think you’ll see why these picks should be your catch of the day.

Shop Zócalo’s 2024 summer reading list through our independent bookstore partner:

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It’s Zócalo’s 20th birthday, and we hit the two decade milestone running—we hosted 21 events in 2023 to fulfill our mission of connecting people to ideas and to each other.

At our homebase at the ASU California Center in downtown Los Angeles, we discussed some of the biggest issues of the day—from artificial intelligence to surveillance. We enjoyed a special homecoming, hosting our first-ever event steps away from our namesake: Mexico City’s Plaza de la Constitución, otherwise known as the Zócalo, one of the largest public squares in the world. We traversed California, from Sacramento to Riverside, to discuss the needs of workers in low-wage sectors of the state’s economy. We traveled to Jackson, Mississippi, and to Memphis, Tennessee, to consider how sins of the past shape the present, and what might move us forward. We even threw a dance party—shout out to all 700 of you who boogied with us at the Port of L.A. on a Sunday afternoon!

Picking our favorite public programs each year is never easy, but these seven events reflect the variety of our work—and most importantly, kept us talking long after the discussions wrapped. Whether you came in person or watched virtually, you’re what makes our public square so robust. Thanks for being part of Zócalo, and we look forward to continuing the conversation next year.

Do We Need More Food Fights?

This emotional conversation and cooking demonstration brought together photographer Zahara Gómez Lucini, who compiled a cookbook that collects recipes from the families of desaparecidos—the tens of thousands of people who have gone missing in Mexico—and Maite Gomez-Rejón, a culinary historian and co-host of the “Hungry for History” podcast. Livestreamed and in person from LA Cocina de Gloria Molina’s demonstration kitchen in downtown L.A., the women prepared special guest Blanca Soto’s pozole from the cookbook and spoke about the power of a meal. Cooking does not just satisfy our hunger, they noted, but can also unite us, and in this case reunite us, with those who are no longer here. The special event, presented in partnership with LA Cocina de Gloria Molina and California Humanities, was part of our birthday series “What Connects Us?”

The 2023 Zócalo Book Prize: How Does a Community Save Itself? With Michelle Wilde Anderson

For 13 years, Zócalo has honored the author of the best nonfiction book that explores community and social connection, inviting them to visit us to collect their prize—$10,000 and a nifty Zócalo Rubik’s Cube—and deliver a lecture. In June, this year’s honoree Michelle Wilde Anderson arrived at a packed house at the ASU California Center and shared stories of hope from The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America, her book looking at the communities of Stockton, California; Josephine County, Oregon; Detroit, Michigan; and Lawrence, Massachusetts. “We have to invest in people where they live,” she told the evening’s moderator, Alberto Retana, president and CEO of South L.A.’s Community Coalition. The program also featured poet Paige Buffington, who joined us virtually to read her 2023 Zócalo Poetry Prize-winning submission, “From 20 Miles Outside of Gallup, Holbrook, Winslow, Farmington, or Albuquerque.” And, because this kicked off Zócalo’s 20th birthday celebration, the night ended with cake.

What Does Boxing Owe Its Champions?

The gloves were off at the ring (okay, the ASU California Center) as panelists—professional boxer and actress Kali “KO” Mequinonoag Reis, former middleweight champ Sergio “the Latin Snake” Mora, California State Athletic Commission executive director Andy Foster, and sport and ethnic studies scholar Rudy Mondragón—shared candid perspectives on the state of their sport. The discussion, presented in partnership with UCLA College, Division of Social Sciences and ASU Global Sport Institute, called for more protections for athletes and left the audience with a major question: What will be left of professional boxing if it does not do more to protect its athletes’ physical and financial well-being?

What Is a Good Job Now? For Fairness in the Workplace

What better way to get the attention of California politicians than by convening a conversation right on the Capitol steps in Sacramento? As part of the Zócalo Public Square series supported by The James Irvine Foundation, “What Is a Good Job Now?,” we brought together California State Senator Maria Elena Durazo, founding member of Inland Empire Amazon Workers United Sara Fee, and California Labor Commissioner assistant chief Daniel Yu for a memorable conversation on wage theft, unpaid overtime, dangerous working conditions, discrimination, and rising employer retaliation, moderated by our own Joe Mathews.

What Is the Value of Art?

Nobody called the fire department on us, but so many people showed up for this powerhouse night of arts and culture that we had to open a separate screening room. In anticipation of the international art fair Frieze Los Angeles, we curated a conversation on the state of the art world, inviting LAXART director Hamza Walker, artist and activist Andrea Bowers, writer and curator Helen Molesworth, and artist, cultural organizer, and co-founder of Meztli Projects Joel Garcia to break down some of artists’ greatest aesthetic, moral, and financial challenges, as well as their biggest opportunities for social change and community building.

How Does a Community Move With Music? A Diaspora Dance Party

We came. We shared our songs and stories of L.A. And we danced. We danced a lot. Zócalo’s first-ever dance party (another birthday series event), held at the Wilmington Waterfront Park at the Port of Los Angeles, was a smashing success. Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano, the inaugural contributor to our ongoing “Diaspora Jukebox” playlist series, emceed. KCRW DJ Raul Campos and local Wilmington DJ Mario “Dred” Lopez kept the music flowing. Curation from Levitt Pavilion and performances by Pacifico Dance Company and Korean Classical Music and Dance Company wowed the crowd. If you needed a break from the dancing, we had food vendors, an art activation by LA Commons, and a pop-up Wilmington Art Walk at the ready. And glow sticks. So many glow sticks.

How Do We Hear America? A Special Evening of Music by Pulitzer Prize-Winning Composer Raven Chacon

We thought our final program of 2023 was pretty special, and you did, too: Zócalo’s audience voted “How Do We Hear America?” as the fan favorite event of the year. This night of music, co-presented with L.A.-based music collective wasteLAnd, ASU Gammage, and GRoW Annenberg, brought us together at the ASU California Center to watch and listen as the ensemble brought a selection of composer and musician Raven Chacon’s works to life. With our senses activated by the music and our bellies warm with tamales from Mama’s Tamales, and Tacos, Too, we think we ended the year on a high note.

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South Africans got it right when they made “kuning,” the isiZulu word that roughly translates to “it’s a lot,” one of the defining words of 2023.

It was a lot this year.

2023 seemed an epoch of crises: the highest number of global conflicts in three decades, myriad climate disasters that claimed more than 12,000 lives, and the erosion of democracies worldwide.

Amid all of it, Zócalo was here—sifting through the pressing stories and providing context, perspective, and humanity.

Our favorite 15 essays of the year, selected by the Zócalo staff and you, our readers, remind us that even in overwhelming times, people forge ahead. They think deeply. They ask questions. They create. They build community. And they even have some fun.

May you enjoy revisiting these writings as much as we did, as we ready to ring in a new year.

Boxers Know the Power of an Entrance

By Rudy Mondragón

Can anyone make an entrance like a boxer? Before moderating the Zócalo panel “What Does Boxing Owe Its Champions?,” scholar Rudy Mondragón made the case that the boxing ring entrance is the most important ritual in sport. More than a mere act of bravado, he writes, a ring entrance communicates everything from pride to dignity to political protest—in just a few ephemeral, glittering, bombastic moments.

A boxer’s entrance is more than just flash. It’s how they make their mark in the sport and the world, scholar Rudy Mondragón writes. Above, William “El Gallo Negro” King wears a Mexican sarape with a rooster and a sombrero de charro, embracing his Afro-Mexican roots. Photo by Rudy Mondragón.

How Is a Poem Like a Political Campaign?

By Derek Mong

Most of us haven’t given much thought to how poetry and political campaigning might be alike. But Zócalo contributing editor Derek Mong, who won a National Arts and Entertainment Journalism award for this essay, has given it serious thought. Aside from the obvious—that “both benefit from a clipboard”—he unearths deeper threads tying the pursuits together.

My Work as an In-Home Caregiver Shouldn’t Be This Hard

By Alva Rodriguez

Alva Rodriguez is one of more than 550,000 caregivers in California’s In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program—workers who help an estimated 650,000 disabled, blind, or elderly Californians continue living in their own homes. Writing from Fresno for our The James Irvine Foundation-funded series “What Is a Good Job Now?,” Rodriguez describes the deep precarity of the job—“one of the toughest and worst-paying you will find”— and reflects on ways to improve this essential line of work.

What Mourning Looks Like in Monterey Park

By Wendy Cheng

On January 21, 2023, a gunman opened fire and killed 11 people at Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, resulting in the deadliest mass shooting in Los Angeles County history. Wendy Cheng writes about the outpouring of community support and solidarity in the wake of the attack, and the ways a public memorial for the victims reflected the city’s unique multiethnic and multiracial history as a home for “immigrants and lost ones.”

Whose Sedona Is It, Anyway?

By Tom Zoellner

During the pandemic, Sedona, Arizona, temporarily stopped advertising in high-end travel magazines. In the place of well-heeled visitors have come day travelers and overnighters from nearby cities that some residents say are destroying “Slo-dona”—and the town finds itself stuck in a fierce debate about whether it should “yank back the welcome mat to the middle class,” writes Tom Zoellner. Published in the fall, the piece generated enough chatter that just recently the city and the chamber of commerce put out a joint statement in response.

Intellectual Snobbery is for the Birds

By Tim Birkhead

Ornithologist Tim Birkhead shares how an encounter with a hobbyist birdkeeper who breeds bullfinches (who are, if you aren’t aware, “humbly endowed”) led him down a new line of research into the phenomenon known as sperm competition, and a better understanding of reproduction in birds. While the subject of Birkhead’s essay might make a middle schooler giggle, the story itself makes a powerful point: Researchers need to listen to people outside academia’s ivory tower.

Tim Birkhead, one of the world’s leading bird biologists, shares why being open to learning from people outside of academia’s ivory tower—in this case hobbyist birdkeepers—can lead to “unexpected and exciting results.” Photo by T.R. Birkhead.

Dianne Feinstein’s Most Important Job Was an Unofficial One

By Joe Mathews

Zócalo columnist and democracy editor Joe Mathews has made some big proclamations this year. That San Diego is California’s “finest college town.” That we should call it the California, not the Colorado, River. That the Santa Cruz otter absolutely should have bitten back. But one of his most memorable takes came in the wake of Dianne Feinstein’s death. Reflecting on her long tenure in U.S. political life, Mathews makes a case that her greatest role in office was as California’s “last ambassador to the American government.”

Reckoning With Racist ‘Lynch Law’ and Rape Charges, a Century Later

By Margaret Burnham

For two years, Zócalo has worked on a project supported by the Mellon Foundation that asks: “How Should Societies Remember Their Sins?” This essay by Margaret Burnham, director of the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at Northeastern University, shows how such reckonings can lead to action and change through the story of John Henry James. In 1898, James, a Black man in Virginia, was accused of raping a white woman, murdered by a lynch mob, and posthumously indicted for assault. Burnham details how, 125 years later, a judge dismissed the indictment thanks to a campaign by historians, lawyers, and community members. The decision opens a “path forward for a crucial American reckoning with a thousand-plus state executions of Black males accused of assaulting white females,” Burnham writes.

The Struggle for a Latino Place in Chicago

By Mike Amezcua

Historian Mike Amezcua explores the parallel struggles of mid-20th century Black and Latino Chicagoans overcoming segregation and making space for their communities. “This history of Latino placemaking is far less known than the civil rights struggle led by King,” Amezcua writes. “But it remains an important context for later developments in Chicago’s urban and political history.” Readers were passionate about Amezcua’s piece, writing it in as a favorite in our audience survey.

My Mom is Out of Prison, But I’m Still Not Free

By Angel Gilbert

Most young people look forward to college as a time of independence, but when Columbia University student Angel Gilbert started school, she had already been on her own “for far too long.” In her Zócalo essay, Gilbert, one of millions of young people who have had an incarcerated parent, shares what it was like to grow up with a mother behind bars. “My emotional pain will never truly heal,” she writes. However, she adds that once she reaches her goal of becoming a lawyer, all of her experiences ensure that she will fight harder for her future marginalized clients.

Destined to Be Trans, Muslim, and Indonesian

By Amar Alfikar

Growing up in a traditional Muslim neighborhood in Java, Indonesia in the 1990s, Amar Alfikar, a trans man and activist, shares how he leaned into family and faith to understand—and embrace—his true identity. “If it was not for my family’s acceptance, I would have left my religion,” he writes. “Instead, I am pursuing an academic career in theology and religious studies and have become firm in my faith and thinking about gender diversity in Islam.”

Can Two Friends Agree to Disagree on Abortion in Post-Roe America?

By Joanne Samuel Goldblum and Colleen Shaddox

Joanne Samuel Goldblum and Colleen Shaddox found sisterhood raging about injustice—but they disagree about abortion. Read how they’ve worked to maintain their bond in post-Roe America. “Being truly pro-life or pro-choice requires us to knock down rhetorical barriers and focus on the areas where we wholeheartedly agree,” they write, “that every child has a right to be placed on a path to success and that no mother should have to sacrifice her own success to make that happen.”

Where I Go: The Candy Wrapper Museum

By Darlene Lacey

Darlene Lacey was 15 when she started collecting old candy wrappers. Eventually, she turned her hobby into an online museum. For our series “Where I Go,” she gives truth to the adage that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure, and shows the power of appointing ourselves as the curators of the things that matter to us the most.

Candy Wrapper Museum curator Darlene Lacey was 15 when she started collecting for her “roadside attraction.” Building the online museum has led to all kinds of surprises—including being sent a Necco scrapbook saved from a dumpster (pictured above). Courtesy of author.

Zócalo’s Diaspora Jukebox

As part of Zócalo Public Square’s 20th birthday celebration, we’ve been sharing the sounds of the Southland with “Diaspora Jukebox,” a series of playlists that celebrate the unique communities and musical traditions that represent greater Los Angeles. Our first “drop”—which had us moving to the rhythm of the city, dancing like it was 1982, and partying like a Zacatecano—culminated in an IRL dance party we threw at the Port of L.A. 

The Human Costs of Building a World-Class City

By Ankush Pal and Anubhav Kashyap

And, drumroll please: Our first-ever audience choice award goes to authors Ankush Pal and Anubhav Kashyap! They take a clear-eyed look at New Delhi’s effort to “polish” the city ahead of this year’s G20 summit, at the expense of poor and working-class people. “Rather than improving life in the city for everyone,” they write, “the beautification projects funnel public resources into creating a cosmopolitan bubble for a few.”

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We spent the spring surveying Zócalo’s friends and contributors to learn what new (mostly) nonfiction books fed their minds and souls in 2023. They delivered, sending us an eclectic mix of works sure to nourish you—from coming-of-age journeys to global searches for transcendence, from probings into our shared past to forward-looking examinations of our present.

Make these recommendations your summer companions, and they’ll keep you company whether you’re lucky enough to be lying on a sandy shore or just find yourself mentally there.

Shop Zócalo’s 2023 summer reading list through our independent bookstore partner:

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While selecting just 10 essays from the scores we’ve published this year is no easy task, the ones we’ve highlighted below reflect the best of Zócalo’s special, eclectic blend of ideas journalism with a head and heart. From a first-hand account of incarceration, to a case for how the global fight against authoritarianism can begin in your backyard, to even why, when feeling adrift, one might consider passage by container ship, here, in no particular order, are our staff’s favorite essays from 2022:

The Valley’s Last Camaro

San Fernando Valley aficionado Andrew Warren and automotive writer Tim Moore pen an ode to the last Camaro to leave the Van Nuys General Motors assembly plant before it closed in 1992. Today, the cherry red Z-28 lives on, serving as a time capsule to a bygone era of life and labor in the Valley.

Van Nuys General Motors assembly plant’s “Last Camaro” became a “memento of what that plant had meant to [workers] and their community,” write Andrew Warren and Tim Moore. Courtesy of Leonard Stevenson.

How Horror Helps Your Brain

Mathias Clasen, director of the Recreational Fear Lab at Aarhus University, Denmark, studies why we’re drawn to the things that go bump in the night. “Recreational fear,” he explains, is a form of play behavior that prepares our brains to handle real-life horrors.

How the Kids Are Getting to All Right

As the youth mental health crisis worsened in recent years, young adult fiction writer Bree Barton decided to speak directly to young people to better understand the challenges they faced. For Zócalo and “State of Mind,” a partnership of Slate and Arizona State University, she shares what she learned—and the power that comes with letting tweens and teens shape their own narratives.

If You’re Latinx, Loving the Dodgers Is Complicated

USC professor Natalia Molina’s relationship with Los Doyers has never been easy. As someone who grew up in the shadow of the ballpark, she reflects on Dodger Stadium’s dark history of displacing Latinx communities, and how she still finds community in the bleachers.

When the Public Narrative Fails

In a fractured nation, writer David L. Ulin finds consolation in literature. He explains why today, amid the breakdown of American consensus, writers provide lucidity: “In staring down their circumstances directly, with grace and clarity, they offer a model of how I want to think and to behave.”

With the collapse of society’s public narrative, writer David L. Ulin looks to literature for consolation. Illustration by Be Boggs.

How You Can Spot—and Stop—the Next Putin

With his column “Connecting California,” Zócalo’s Joe Mathews has tirelessly chronicled the inner workings of the Golden State for 10 years. Now, Mathews is introducing a second column, Democracy Local, exploring how everyday people, all over the world, govern themselves at the local level. The spirit of the column is embodied by this piece, which makes the case for why, amid the rise of authoritarian leadership around this world, you—yes, you!—can stop the next Putin-in-the-making.

How My Republican Grandfather Helped Legalize Abortion

Editor-at-large Caroline Tracey weaves personal and intellectual histories to highlight how an unlikely coalition came together in Colorado in the 1960s to support abortion rights. In her essay, Tracey considers the motivations behind the players in this fight for reproductive freedom—one of whom was her own grandfather.

Why Food Vendors Belong in the Prison Yard

Food sales “remain the closest thing to direct contact that C-yard inmates have with the community,” writes David Medina, an inmate at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in Corcoran, California. For the Zócalo/California Wellness Foundation Inquiry “What Would the End of Mass Incarceration Mean for Prison Towns?,” supported by the California Wellness Foundation, Medina writes about how these sales have had a positive impact inside and outside of prison walls.

Where I Go: A Big, Slow-Moving Boat

In 2013, Elena Legeros quit her publishing job in New York City to travel around the world as a passenger on container ships. Legeros shares how, out in the middle of the ocean, life aboard a container ship gave her “the space and time” to embrace herself.

What We Miss When We See the Plight of the Refugee

Our ongoing Zócalo/Mellon Foundation inquiry delves into complicated histories around the world, confronting the past in order to better understand it, and to forge paths forward. In response to the central question, “How Should Societies Remember Their Sins?,” political economist Mausumi Mahapatro draws on her work with Rohingya refugees in the world’s largest refugee camp, in Bangladesh, to highlight the social and political lives they carry with them and create anew.

Mausumi Mahapatra works in refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh, which house close to 1 million Rohingya, like the woman photographed here. Courtesy of Saiful Huq Omi/Counter Foto.

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Since 2003, Zócalo Public Square has been on a mission to connect people to ideas and to each other. Whether you visited us in person, streamed our programming live online, or watched on YouTube or Soundcloud later on, thank you for being part of our ongoing experiment to promote public curiosity and dialogue.

Join us as we take a trip down memory lane to relive five events (and one special musical performance) that our staff felt best encapsulated the spirit of 2022. And be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to learn about our very special, upcoming 20th anniversary lineup.

What Can We Laugh About?

Comedy has always been society’s release valve. Which is why we invited political satirist Bassem Youssef, and playwright, actor, and performance artist Kristina Wong to speak about the political and psychological power of humor. In partnership with ASU Gammage, this Zócalo event, moderated by Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano, explored comedy’s great potential, and made the case for why the joke can be mightier than the sword.

Will Americans Ever Be in This Together?

The economist and social policy advocate Heather McGhee offered us a new story of American solidarity during her 2022 Zócalo Book Prize lecture. McGhee was our 12th annual winner for her book The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. In prepared remarks and a Q&A with LA84 Foundation president and CEO Renata Simril, she reminded us that everyone loses when we see prosperity and success as a zero-sum game.

How Do Homelands Cross Borders?

Can you leave your homeland while keeping your cultural and ethnic identity alive? At this Zócalo/Soraya event, presented in conjunction with a performance of Ragamala Dance Company’s Fires of Varanasi, we asked Ragamala Dance Company’s Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy, Science Fiction Poetry Association president and poet Bryan Thao Worra, and deputy director of USC’s Institute of Armenian Studies Shushan Karapetian to reflect on the pain and promise of being a member of a diaspora in America.

What Would the End of Mass Incarceration Mean for Prison Towns? with Keri Blakinger

Susanville, California, is one of many rural communities whose economic survival is currently tethered to incarceration. Which is why the city sued the state this year to avoid having its prison shut down. To understand the link between prisons and rural economies, we assembled Lassen Community College president Trevor Albertson, Parlier mayor and retired correctional officer Alma Beltran, and University of Wisconsin sociologist John M. Eason, author of Big House on the Prairie: Rise of the Rural Ghetto and Prison Proliferation, to speak at this Zócalo/California Wellness Foundation event in Susanville. Moderated by journalist Keri Blakinger, the discussion explored how prison towns came to be, and how they might imagine new futures.

How Can Women and Girls Win in Iran?

Ongoing unrest in Iran, incited by the death of a young Kurdish woman detained by Iranian authorities for supposedly violating state dress laws, has become one of the top stories of 2022. For this Zócalo event, co-presented with the Goldhirsh Foundation with support by Pedram Salimpour, and moderated by author Porochista Khakpour, we invited Iran analyst Holly Dagres, artist Sahar Ghorishi, and anthropologist Pardis Mahdavi to discuss how months of mass protests have created a new movement—and what the world can learn from it.

A Special Zócalo Music Presentation: How Immigrants Composed L.A.

A first for Zócalo: A string quartet from the Los Angeles Opera visited the Public Square. In the historic lobby of the ASU California Center at the Herald Examiner building, musicians Evgeny Tonkha, Roberto Cani, Ana Landauer, and Erik Rynearson performed to a packed house, bringing the music of L.A.’s immigrant composers to life during this special Zócalo/Artistic Soirées event, presented in partnership with ASU Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

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The 12 books on this list traverse turning points in history, and navigate the headwinds of the future—with a port stop or two at Whimsy Island along the way. With subject matter ranging from Buddhist meditation for the age of anxiety to Africa’s central place in world history, our crew’s selections are sure to steer you boldly into a summer rich with ideas. But no need to look for an “X” to mark the spot on this treasure map—we promise a cruise through these picks will be a reward all its own.

Shop Zócalo’s 2022 summer reading list through our independent bookstore partners:

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From a world leader retreating from an unwinnable foreign war (Emperor Hadrian, circa 117 A.D.) to the false promise of automation in the workplace (1950s America), the stories we published provided key context that headline news and hot takes missed. Our favorite essays of the year covered a great deal of territory, from climate change in California and a tragedy in Lebanon to the work of immoral artists and the literature of dentistry. But what we think they all have in common is that, in one way or another, they help us see the world and our place in it anew.

Here are the dozen essays (well, OK, 11 essays and one collection!) that Zócalo’s staff chose to highlight as 2021 comes to a close:

America’s Anti-Chinese Bigotry Has a Very Old Stench

Illustration by Be Boggs.

Almost exactly a year after the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in the U.S., The Smell of Risk author Hsuan L. Hsu explored how American scientists, doctors, and public health officials, as well as historians and novelists, stigmatized “Chinese air” beginning in the 19th century. Hsu demonstrates how these racist, damaging olfactory narratives originated to target the earliest Chinese immigrants to the U.S.—and why it’s no surprise that they remain pervasive today.

Look Away

In 1978, Adam Smyer’s junior high chorus performed “Dixie” at the annual school pageant. Of the couple of hundred people in attendance, “only my mother complained,” recalled the Knucklehead author and attorney. Drawing a parallel to the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Smyer meditates on why it’s not the Nazis, but rather the “not-sees” who may be our biggest existential threat.

The 20th-Century Rise of the Confederate Soybean

Why did the varieties of soybeans grown in the American South suddenly acquire the names of Confederate generals nearly 100 years after the Civil War’s end? This story, from University of Pennsylvania historian and Magic Bean author Matthew Roth, reveals how the USDA spent decades catering to white farmers, which resulted in a more unequal agricultural landscape that persists today.

The Fires California Grieves—And Needs

It may be counterintuitive, but the hugely damaging California wildfires of the past few years prove that California needs more fire. Lenya Quinn-Davidson, a fire advisor in Northern California, reflects on the lessons the fires Native Californians set before cultural burning was criminalized can teach us about fighting today’s megafires, and why every flame holds a story of loss and renewal.

The author’s favorite hometown swimming hole, on the South Fork Trinity River in Forest Glen, California, after last year’s devastating August Complex fire. Courtesy of Lenya Quinn-Davidson.

Where I Go: The Poet Sits in the Dentist’s Chair

“Did you know there’s a rich and under-loved canon of periodontic literature?” asks poet and Wabash College English professor Derek Mong. In this entry from our “Where I Go” series, Mong investigates why he transforms his trips to the dentist’s chair into lectures on books and poetry about teeth—from Edgar Allen Poe and Elizabeth Bishop to Zadie Smith and Valeria Luiselli.

Where I Go: My Small, Queer Corner of the Internet

When he moved from Venezuela to Madrid in 2019, journalist José González Vargas thought he might be able to find the LGBTQ+ community that had eluded him. He did, but not at the bars and bookstores he expected. Rather, once the world locked down, the online platform Discord offered him a space where labels didn’t matter and he could just be himself.

The United States Didn’t Really Begin Until 1848

Gold miners in El Dorado, California, circa 1848. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Forget the hackneyed debate between the New York Times’ 1619 Project and the Trump administration’s 1776 report on when American history begins. “Much like a party that only truly starts when the coolest kid saunters in, today’s United States—antically ambitious, deliriously diverse, violently war-mongering, maniacally money-grubbing, and kaleidoscopically cruel—did not really get rolling until California arrived in 1848,” argues Connecting California columnist Joe Mathews.

Lebanon’s Other Explosion

In August 2020, the world’s attention turned to Lebanon in the wake of the horrific Beirut port explosion. Almost a year later, Beirut-based editor Abby Sewell found herself covering another deadly explosion; this time, the world didn’t pay attention, leaving Sewell wondering what it means to try to tell stories that make a difference when you’re writing for an indifferent audience.

After 150 Years, Is L.A. Ready to Remember the Chinese Massacre?

For most of his life, former L.A. City Council member Michael Woo had never heard of the largest massacre of Chinese in California history, which took place on October 24, 1871. In the first essay of Zócalo’s new Mellon Foundation-supported inquiry, “How Should Societies Remember Their Sins?,” Woo asked why this chapter of history wasn’t widely spoken about, and how a public memorial might help the city finally start to reckon with its racist past.

Can We Still Bump n’ Grind to R. Kelly?

Wellesley College philosopher and Drawing the Line author Erich Hatala Matthes suggests an alternative to “cancel culture”: engaging with the work of immoral artists as a way of clarifying our emotions. “The artwork,” writes Matthes, “provides a lens for reflecting on our feelings, and perhaps the promise of sorting them out.”

What Can We Learn From the Failings of William Mulholland?

“When I read about the crimes of history, I rail against the wrongness of the thinking, the backwards, shortsighted cruelty,” writes author Kendra Atleework, who lives and writes in the part of California William Mulholland drained dry. Her meditation on Mulholland’s crimes exonerates nobody: “I, too, exist within the sticky sap of an era. The things I hold to be self-evident and undeniable may, in time, be proven false and denied.”

How Should Societies Remember Their Sins?

In January 2021, on the same day as President Biden’s inauguration, Zócalo began publishing a group of essays about why, from Japan and Germany to the American South, societies around the world struggle to acknowledge the crimes they committed—and persist in repeating them all over again. We published too many wonderful pieces to single any out, and we’re looking forward to turning to this question throughout 2022 and into 2023, now with the support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Illustration by Mary Kirkpatrick.

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COVID only accelerated this work, moving our events to a livestream in spring 2020 and, this year, once public health restrictions allowed, pushing us to introduce a new hybrid event format. Now, audience members can once again join us in-person or tune in from anywhere in the world. It’s turned out to be an advantageous mix for a roving organization that’s both global and local.

In 2021, Zócalo made it to South Central L.A., Culver City, and to our new home at the ASU California Center at the Herald Examiner. Our move to this historic building in downtown Los Angeles means, among other things, that we can offer an even bigger stage (quite literally) to further foster community and connection among Angelenos and beyond.

In a year that saw both changes and a return to a new kind of normal, it was fitting that our very first Zócalo speaker returned as well. We welcomed back The Economist’s Adrian Wooldridge (whom we probably owe a Zócalo members-only jacket for all the times he’s shared our stage) for one of the events that Zócalo staffers voted among their favorites.

Selecting just five events to spotlight proved to be a nearly impossible task. We owe a warm debt of gratitude to our audience members, speakers, and partners for joining us in making the public square such a dynamic place. See you there next year!

 Can Boyle Heights Save America?

In short: “yes.” USC historian George J. Sánchez—whose new book, Boyle Heights: How a Los Angeles Neighborhood Became the Future of American Democracy, inspired the conversation—Josefina López, author of Real Women Have Curves and founding artistic director of CASA 0101 Theater, and Los Angeles Times city editor Hector Becerra, a Boyle Heights native, came together in May to make a strong case for why Americans should look to this “magical and multiracial neighborhood” to understand the true meaning of citizenship and belonging. Bonus—our chat room was packed with people from Boyle Heights who shared their memories, restaurant recommendations, and more.

Is South L.A. Forging a New American Identity?

Zócalo’s first-ever hybrid event explored how place-based identity can forge new bonds across racial and ethnic lines. Held at the Mercado La Paloma, in partnership with Esperanza Community Housing, the event was part of the South Central Innervisions: An AfroLatinx-Futurism multidisciplinary arts festival. Fittingly our panelists, Community Coalition’s Corey Matthews and USC sociologists and South Central Dreams co-authors Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Manuel Pastor used much of the conversation to look ahead at South L.A.’s future.

Is There Still Merit in a Merit-Based System?

New Yorker staff writer Nicholas Lemann, as moderator, asked Wooldridge, whose latest book is The Aristocracy of Talent, and the other panelists to define meritocracy and evaluate whether it has any currency left in today’s deeply unequal society. Among the event’s trenchant observations: “We need to look for better ways, the best ways possible, of finding promise, wherever it is in society,” said Wooldridge.

Can California Help Reduce Gun Violence?

Too often a dialogue around gun violence in the U.S. derails into a reductive “pro-gun” versus “anti-gun” stalemate. This was not that conversation.  Instead, this Zócalo/California Wellness Foundation event brought together a group of people who fundamentally agree that gun legislation can save lives, and asked them to discuss the difficulties and occasional victories of their work. Their solution-centric talk focused on the policies, research, and everyday action coming out of the Golden State that might have a ripple effect on the nation as a whole.

What Will It Take to End Homelessness in L.A.?

A graduate of Yale University who had worked on Wall Street, Shawn Pleasants shared his journey into and out of homelessness during this powerful panel put on in partnership with United Way and the Committee for Greater Los Angeles. Pleasants, who is now an advocate for the unhoused, and fellow speakers from a variety of local organizations and perspectives called for more innovation, collaboration, and simple human relationship-building to address what might be L.A.’s most pressing crisis.

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