Northridge In-Person | Streaming Online

How Do Homelands Cross Borders?

How Do Homelands Cross Borders? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Illustration by Joycelyn Cabrera. From left to right: Gustavo Arellano, Aparna Ramaswamy, Ranee Ramaswamy, Shushan Karapetian, and Bryan Thao Worra.

A Zócalo/Soraya Event
Moderated by Gustavo Arellano, Columnist, Los Angeles Times

To leave your birthplace behind and make a home elsewhere is to cross any number of boundaries—national and linguistic, religious and spiritual. While loss is an inevitable part of this journey, it’s not just about displacement; it is also a story of cultural change and celebration. Migrants and immigrants find new ways to balance assimilation and tradition—and to create entirely new identities. This reinvention happens at home and out in the world, and cuts across religion, food, and art. Its impact is as personal as it is global. How do people who are separated from their homelands reinvent cultural practices in their new communities? How does cultural identity change across generations and over time?

Ragamala Dance artistic directors, choreographers, and principal dancers Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy, writer and Science Fiction Poetry Association president Bryan Thao Worra, and USC Institute of Armenian Studies deputy director Shushan Karapetian visit Zócalo to discuss how they are reimagining what home means.

Zócalo invites our in-person audience to continue the conversation with our speakers and each other at a post-event reception with complimentary drinks and small bites.

Proof of vaccination (at least two weeks after the final dose) or a negative viral test with a valid form of ID will be required. Masks will be required at all times during your visit, except when eating and drinking.

LOCATION:
The Soraya
18111 Nordhoff Street
Northridge, CA 91330

The Takeaway

How Does Culture Immigrate? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

How Does Culture Immigrate?

Artists and Scholars Explore the Ways Their Work Helps Them Understand Homeland

Home can be physical or imagined—a point of departure and return but also a memory or feeling. When migrants and immigrants move across borders, they bring along the places they …