Héctor Tobar Wins the 2024 Zócalo Book Prize

Our Migrant Souls Is an Essential Exploration of ‘Latino’ Identity

Héctor Tobar is the winner of the 2024 Zócalo Public Square Book Prize for Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino.”

Zócalo has awarded the $10,000 prize yearly since 2011 to the nonfiction book that best enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion. The 13 previous Zócalo Public Square Book Prize recipients include Heather McGhee, Michael Ignatieff, Danielle Allen, Jonathan Haidt, and most recently, Michelle Wilde Anderson.

Tobar is the author of six books, a …

Interview by Sarah Rothbard | May 4, 2024

In Search of the ‘Tomato King’

Finding a Mexican Migrant Politician, Rooted in California Soil

by Adrián Félix | April 8, 2024

There is only one person more obsessed than I when it comes to the memory of Don Andrés Bermúdez: his son, Andrés Junior. Junior lives with his family in the …

America’s Judges Are Bungling the 2024 Election

Does Our Democracy Need a Separate Court System?

by Joe Mathews | March 26, 2024

Last year, while organizing a global democracy forum in Mexico, a member of that country’s national electoral court requested I add a speaker to our program: an American …

In Mexico, a New Vocabulary for Grief and Justice

Most Murders in the Country Go Uninvestigated. Activists and Writers Are Coming Together to Demand Accountability

By Natalia Villanueva-Nieves | February 15, 2024

“Almost everyone lost someone during the war,” writes Cristina Rivera Garza in The Restless Dead: Necrowriting and Disappropriation.

In 2006, Mexican president Felipe Calderón initiated the …

Alejandra Campoverdi’s Diaspora Jukebox Playlist

The Sounds of Faith, Struggle, and the ‘Magic Dark’ Braid Together in This First-Gen Soundtrack

by Alejandra Campoverdi | November 9, 2023

As part of Zócalo Public Square’s 20th birthday, we’re sharing the sounds of the Southland with “Diaspora Jukebox,” a series of playlists that celebrate …

Gustavo Arellano’s Diaspora Jukebox Playlist

Essential Music for this Zacatecano Spans Corridos, the Beatles, and AM Radio

by Gustavo Arellano | November 1, 2023

As part of Zócalo Public Square’s 20th birthday, we’re sharing the sounds of the Southland with “Diaspora Jukebox,” a series of playlists that celebrate …

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