Griffith Park, a Place of and Apart From Los Angeles

Like Its Namesake, Griffith J. Griffith, This Huge Urban Space Is a Story of Contradictions

Griffith Park is one of the wildest and largest urban parks in the United States. And yet it sits smack in the middle of the country’s second-largest city, a place that invented and exported urban-suburban sprawl, the auto-centric strip mall, and the four-level stack freeway interchange.

In its own contradictory ways, Griffith Park is a reflection of Los Angeles itself. The park gets more annual visitors than Yosemite or the Grand Canyon, and millions of people have seen the park in films and television, but you’ll still find long-time Los Angeles …

What Does It Mean to Be a ‘Local’ in Hawai‘i?

A Honolulu-Born Writer Reflects on How Demographic and Economic Change Are Making an Idealized Aloha State Identity Obsolete

The story of the modern Hawai‘i diaspora is a paradox: Many of us who grew up in Hawai‘i in the second half of the 20th century developed a powerful sense …

How Hawai‘i Forces Us to Redefine the Meaning of ‘Native’

An Environmental Historian Argues That Being Indigenous Is More Alchemy Than Fact

I was born in the Territory of Hawai‘i, three weeks before statehood. As a kid I played in its dirt, ran around in the rain (my hometown of Hilo is …