Essays

Can Knitting Help Teach Science?

A Cell Biologist Reflects on the Connections Between Stitches and STEM

Hands stitching a blue pattern that looks like DNA.

When I was about 8 years old, my grandmother took me to a local fabric store to pick out a pattern for a dress we could sew together. Piecing together the brown pattern paper, cutting out fabric, and learning to pin and hem, I felt like I was solving the ultimate wearable puzzle.

What I didn’t know at the time was that I was also preparing for my PhD in cell biophysics—the study of how cells, and the structures within them, move and grow. Cells form, and interact with, the squishy, …

by Megan Chong |

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Sci-Fi’s Lessons in Neutrality

By Suspending Reality, We Can Better See What Is Possible

by Matías Graffigna |

Can we, and should we, ever really be neutral? In a new series, Zócalo explores the idea of neutrality—in politics, sports, gender, journalism, international …

What Will Deep-Sea Mining Do to Norway’s
Oceans?

Commercial Fishing Has Threatened Life in the Shallower Seas. Harvesting Seafloor Minerals Could Be Even Worse

by Elyse Hauser |

In what’s now Norway, the country with the world’s second-longest coastline, Neolithic fisher-farmers once harpooned enormous bluefin tuna. As centuries passed, Norwegians refined the arduous fishing process, becoming nimble conquerors …

The Borders Between My Mexican and American Identities

I Went Searching for Documents to Validate My Binationalism. I Found Something More Complicated

by Alejandra Ibarra Chaoul |

This essay publishes alongside this week’s Zócalo and Universidad de Guadalajara event, “Are the U.S. and Mexico Becoming One Country?” Register here to join …

Joseph Gatto standing to the left of Mike Gatto, both wearing black tuxedos. They smile toward the same direction to the left.

What Came After My Father’s Murder

A Decade Later, a Former State Legislator Is Still Wrangling With Police and the Criminal Justice System

by Mike Gatto |

It was the first and only murder in Silver Lake that year.

I picked up the phone at our house in Sacramento, where I was serving my third year in the …

Does My Neighborhood Want Me to Drop Out of College?

A Student in Watts Asks Why She’s Spent a Decade Choosing Between Survival and Her Degree

by Shanice Joseph |

Zócalo celebrated its 20th birthday recently! As part of the festivities, we’re publishing reflections and responses that revisit and reimagine some of our most …


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