New at Zócalo

  • Essay

    Extreme Heat Is Boring

    But Can Feeling Trapped Indoors Motivate Us to Climate Action?

    by Caroline Tracey |

    The first time I met someone from Tucson, Arizona, I asked him a burning—pardon the pun—question. How did people there tolerate the summer heat? I pictured my childhood summers in …

  • Connecting California

    What’s the Cost of a Family Secret?

    A California Writer on the Aunt He Never Knew He Had—and the Lessons She Taught Him

    by Joe Mathews |

    Is there a family trait more common than keeping secrets?

    These secrets can have hidden costs. When we leave a place or person behind, we don’t know what becomes of them. …

  • Essay

    The D.C. Boarding House That Moved the Needle on Slavery

    Where Abolitionists and Congressmen—Including Lincoln—Dined, Debated, and Became Bedfellows

    by Bennett Parten |

    In the early 1840s, where the steps of the Library of Congress now stand, a group of American abolitionists gathered in a modest boardinghouse to plot the destruction of slavery.

    The …

  • Poetry

    Excerpt From ‘Conversations With My Fathers’

    by Octavio R. González

    i.

     

    she brought an island’s worth of family to the states, her eye beaconed the promised land of mammon, and we came. when her dementia was really bad she worried she …

  • Essay

    What Makes a Song a ‘Camp Song’?

    Most Aren’t Composed at Camp. Nor Are They About Camp. But They Unite Kids Across North America on Trails, in Mess Halls, and Around Bonfires

    by Shelley Posen |

    At a children’s summer sleepaway camp in upstate New York in the mid-1920s, two young staffers, Artie and Larry, write a song for the annual camp play. It begins:

    Connecting California

    I’m the Santa Cruz Otter. Why Shouldn’t I Bite Back?

    Your Accusations Are Otterly Ridiculous—Humans Are the Real Aggressors on California’s Coast

    by AGGRESSIVE SANTA CRUZ OTTER, as told to JOE MATHEWS |

    Who are you to be calling me aggressive?

    Yes, I’m the 5-year-old female otter from the waters off Santa Cruz, about whom you’ve been reading scary headlines.

    Now, I do sometimes approach …

  • Culture Class

    Come on Barbie, Let’s Sell Barbies

    American Toy Companies, Led by Mattel, Have Entwined Marketing and Entertainment for Over Half a Century

    by Jackie Mansky |

    The year was 1997.

    “Un-Break My Heart” by Toni Braxton dominated the radio waves. Wallet chains and JNCO jeans were red-carpet staples. And plastic? It was fantastic.

    Cool Shoppin’ Barbie wasn’t just …

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