Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez grew up together, as Catherine put it, “in the backseat, getting driven around, going on at least an annual family adventure in the car.” Their relationships with cars grew more complex in adulthood: both have lived in cities with easy-to-use public transportation, and in suburbs where cars were a costly necessity, and traffic a constant frustration.

Tomás Jiménez knew that something was missing from the way the press and academia portrayed Mexican Americans. Growing up in California in a Mexican American family, Jiménez said he noticed “that there was an incredible amount of diversity within the Mexican origin population — socioeconomic diversity, diversity with respect to legal status, diversity with respect to language abilities, the way people looked.” Jiménez, a past Zócalo guest, began to study immigrant assimilation, particularly the differences for Mexican immigrants and early 20th century European immigrants….