The heyday of Ellis Island—1892 to 1924—is the subject of a new book by Ronald Bayor, Encountering Ellis Island: How European Immigrants Entered America. We posed five questions to Bayor, a Georgia Institute of Technology historian and former president of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, about the essence of his book.

The post The ‘Hot, Foul, Sultry Air’ of Ellis Island appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

George takes us behind the scenes of the long-lived, iconic variety show that brought booty-shaking moves, the pairing of knickerbocker pants with striped socks, and the ballads of Al Green to living rooms across the country. It also takes us into the mind of Don Cornelius, Soul Train’s cooler-than-cool creator, who shaped the show for its entire 35-year run.

Throughout his young adult years in 1970s Brooklyn, George got his Soul Train fix every Saturday at 11 a.m. He and his friends would watch the dance moves in the morning and try them out on the dance floor at a party that night. He remembers thinking that the bright colors on the show and the audacity of the outfits felt so Southern Californian compared to his muted northeast urban landscape.

The post The L.A. TV Show That Taught America How to Groove appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Twenty-one years ago, as she hurriedly pumped breast milk in a LaGuardia airport bathroom stall between flights, Spar wryly reflected that she was indeed “having it all.” The epiphany confirmed what she was already beginning to suspect: The reality of combining work and motherhood was quite a bit less glamorous, and certainly less tidy, than her generation had been led to believe. In Wonder Women, Spar attempts to dispel the “having it all” myth—arguing that her generation of women put too much pressure on themselves and neglected the feminist movement’s original collective social vision.

The post There Is No ‘We’ in Feminism appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Grant interlaces research and stories to propose a new approach to success. He argues that what shapes our achievements is how we engage in social interactions. People are either “givers” or “takers,” he argues—and the givers are more successful in everything they do.

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Goodin takes a simple topic and, in little more than 100 pages, offers a case for settling (settling on, settling for, settling in, you name it) as a necessary complement to striving.

The post Settle Up, Settle In, Settle For—Just Settle! appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Lyubomirsky argues that we’ve been fed a series of destructive “happiness myths” that prevent us from ever feeling truly content. We’re taught, for example, that certain life achievements—marriage, parenthood, a “dream” job—will generate everlasting pleasure, while others—illness, divorce, aging—will render us incapable of joy. She says that by being aware of these myths—and the biological reason that nothing can truly create permanent ecstasy—or melancholy—we can begin to lead happier, healthier lives.

The post Happiness Is A Big Fat Lie appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Herrera weaves together a multitude of unexpected voices and genres—poetry, prose, art, dialogue—to give voice to the pain and hope of the children whose lives have been ravaged by years of violence and war in the Sudan.

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Bergen blends psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience to put forth a new theory of how the brain understands words and sentences. He argues that people understand language by creating experiences in their minds—“embodied simulations”—that mirror interactions in the physical and social worlds.

The post When You Say Go Jump Off a Cliff, I Feel It appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Gorton argues that most post-mortems of the recent financial crisis failed to recognize the culpability of what he calls “the shadow banking system” and new-fangled forms of debt. He believes these innovations are necessary to markets, and mustn’t be done away with, but that we need to properly regulate them so that we know when they’re about to cause a modern run on the banks—the kind of run that even George Bailey in his most persuasive folksy tone can’t stop.

The post Can We Stop Another Run on the Banks? appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

To help explain how Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart influence political discourse today, Robinson reminds us of the decisive “Dance of the Comedians” scene in the opera “The Bartered Bride,” in which a ringmaster presents an ensemble of circus performers who simultaneously make the opera’s plot more chaotic and help to resolve it. That, he says, is the role of political comedians, who throughout history have played a critical role in our democracy—redefining Americans’ perception of the presidency, and shaping public attitudes and behaviors.

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