A cut out of Michelle Wilde Anderson against a yellow-orange background. She wears a black blazer and is smiling, looking slightly to the right. Hovering to her right is a cut out of two copies of her book 'The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America.' Below the books is the Zócalo Book Prize logo.
Los Angeles In-Person | Streaming Online

2023 Zócalo Book Prize: How Does a Community Save Itself?

America’s high-poverty cities and counties have suffered for decades, enduring skyrocketing inequality, the opioid epidemic, rising housing costs, and widespread disinvestment. Governments have offered a variety of failed solutions, from luring wealthy outsiders to slashing public services. But four communities are turning inward instead: Stockton, California; rural Josephine County, Oregon; Lawrence, Massachusetts; and Detroit, Michigan. In these diverse places—all of …

What Is A Good Job Now? A Zócalo and James Irvine Foundation Inquiry – all events | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian
Oakland In-Person | Streaming Online

“What Is a Good Job Now?” In Gig Work

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Over the past decade, and especially in the pandemic, California made major changes in its criminal justice system to reduce its prison population and sentences. But it has been slower to develop and invest in new systems to support Californians as they transition out of jail or prison into workplaces. What are …

How Should Societies Remember Their Sins? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian
In-Person | Streaming Online

Why Isn’t Remembering Enough to Repair?

The Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel did not believe in collective guilt. Instead, he asked for repair, and for holding the post-World War II generation of Germans responsible “not for the past, but for the way it remembers the past. And for what it does with the memory of the past.” Other societies and communities have taken up Wiesel’s call—at the …

Sacramento In-Person | Streaming Online

“What Is a Good Job Now?” For Fairness In the Workplace

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The state of California has some of the nation’s strongest legal protections for workers. But Californians continue to suffer from wage theft and various forms of abuse by their employers. What are the biggest challenges for agencies and communities as they seek to turn pro-labor legislation into better workplace realities? To what …

How Should Societies Remember Their Sins? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian
In-Person | Streaming Online

Does Confronting Our History Build a Better Future?

Recent attempts to confront difficult history appear to be dividing the United States and entangling communities in cultural and legal conflict. But historians, social justice activists, and many others argue that grappling with the sins of the past, and the way they reverberate into the present, is a necessary foundation for reimagining the future. What are the best and most …

| Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian
Los Angeles In-Person | Streaming Online

“What Is a Good Job Now?” For the Formerly Incarcerated

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Over the past decade, and especially in the pandemic, California made major changes in its criminal justice system to reduce its prison population and sentences. But it has been slower to develop and invest in new systems to support Californians as they transition out of jail or prison into workplaces. What are …

What Is A Good Job Now? A Zócalo and James Irvine Foundation Inquiry – all events | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian
Salinas In-Person | Streaming Online

“What Is a Good Job Now?” In Agriculture

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The advance of technology and the decline of immigration have profoundly changed the nature of agricultural work. But toiling in the fields remains difficult and dangerous, even as it requires more mechanical expertise from workers. And agricultural work remains seasonal, forcing repeated relocations and putting financial and housing pressures on working families. …