Umar Rashid, "I only have eyes for you, my enemy. Consider the jaguar a blessing. Or, Guerilla warfare in the Yucatan peninsula. Anansi travels.", 2021. Acrylic and mica flake on canvas, 72 in. x 72 in.
Image courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Claudio Rocha.
Image courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Claudio Rocha.
Uncovering a Life Deemed ‘Unworthy of Life’
Why the Story of Hans Heinrich Festersen—Gay, Disabled, and Murdered by the Nazis—Matters
On September 8, 1943, Hans Heinrich Festersen was hanged at Berlin’s Plötzensee prison. Festersen, 35, had been arrested almost a year earlier, on October 12, 1942, for violating …
Sherman’s March Toward Reparations
A Little-Known Civil War Story Illuminates America’s Broken Promise to Black America
Americans get Sherman’s March all wrong. Ask anyone who’s seen Gone with the Wind, and they’ll tell you that U.S. General William T. Sherman’s roughly 250-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah marked the swan song of the Confederacy. They’ll recall the burning of Atlanta, a panoramic scene in the film that made cinematic history, and they’ll regard Sherman as most Georgians still do, as the man who laid waste to the state by slashing …
The question of how a society should remember its transgressions carries with it substantial weight. How does one begin such work? Is the act of remembering, in and of itself, enough? And more importantly, can the intensive work of confronting one’s history ensure the desired outcome …
UPCOMING EVENT
Beyond debates over keeping statues up or tearing them down, and changing the names of schools and streets, lie more fundamental questions at the intersection of personal and public memory ...
EVENT
Why a Polish Resistance Fighter’s ‘Failure’ to Stop the Holocaust Resonates Today
Jan Karski, and a New Play About His Life, Remind Us of the Importance of Truth, Valor, and Memory
Jan Karski was born in 1914, and trained as a soldier and diplomat. He joined the fledgling Polish Resistance at the onset of World War II, after Poland was attacked by both Germany and Russia. Karski worked as a courier, delivering messages about clandestine German and Russian operations to the Polish government-in-exile in London. In late 1940, he was captured by the Gestapo and tortured …
What We Miss When We See the Plight of the Refugee
In Bangladesh, the Resettled Rohingya in the World's Largest Refugee Camp Lead Complicated Lives
In 2015, the image of a Syrian child, drowned and washed ashore near the Turkish town of Bodram, went viral. This singular, visceral image of the hapless refugee victim spoke to …
Going Back to Blair Mountain
The Largest Armed Labor Uprising in American History Is Finally Getting the Remembrance It Deserves
For most people, the memory of the largest armed labor uprising in American history is unknown, buried beneath the dirt of West Virginia’s Blair Mountain alongside bullet casings and relics of coal camp life. In miners’ families, the stories stayed alive, passed down around kitchen tables and on front porches. But until the 21st century, there were no monuments, museums, or markers of the West Virginia mine wars, a seminal American story of how …
How to Treat the ‘Wounds to the Soul’
A Therapist Assembles an Emotional Toolbox to Help Us Grapple With Collective Trauma
The subterranean strata of U.S. wrongdoing run deep—the genocide of Native Americans, the long history of slavery and racism, the effects of xenophobia, the illegal wars of aggression around …
Could a Truth Commission Unite America?
How Fractured Nations and Communities Reckon with History and Move Toward Repair
The truth commission is a widely used transitional justice instrument—and one that can offer the most insight to Americans looking to reshape the collective memory and conscience of our nation. These official fact-finding bodies investigate, document, and disseminate accurate information about past wrongdoing and human rights violations authorized or carried out by the state. The United States can certainly learn …
Ukraine in My Blood and on My Mind
A Foreign Correspondent’s Family Served Russian Imperialism, and Then Was Destroyed By It
A thick, dusty file records the progress from life to death of my grandfather Boris Bibikov, an official of the Communist Party of Ukraine, at the hands of the Soviet secret police …
Event: What is Our Responsibility for Our Government’s Wars?
‘It’s Difficult to Win Hearts and Minds When You’re Holding a Gun’
Watch the event and read the Takeaway by editor Talib Jabbar.
Lieutenant General (ret.) Robert E. Schmidle, Jr., Air Force veteran and social worker Noël Lipana, and Farnaz Fassihi, journalist and United Nations Bureau Chief at the New York Times, visit Zócalo to discuss what it means to bear responsibility for war and its atrocities, and why that matters …
Why Is the Santa Susana Nuclear Accident Still Being Covered Up?
Excavating Six Decades of Buried Secrecy, Neglect, and Flat-Out Lies in the San Fernando Valley
In 1979, the year of Three Mile Island, I exposed another nuclear accident—another partial meltdown—in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It occurred at the Santa Susana Field Lab, a reactor and rocket-testing facility in the mountains between the San Fernando and Simi Valleys.
Back then, the story was both news and history. The Field Lab opened in 1947, at the onset of the Cold War, and the reactor accident happened in 1959 …
Looking Deportation in the Face
The Fence Between Tijuana and San Diego Reminded Childhood Arrivals of Their Exile—Until They Used It to Share Their Stories
I first met Jorge in June 2017, at a Father’s Day celebration at Friendship Park in Playas de Tijuana. We were steps away from the border fence separating Mexico and San Diego’s Border Field …
What Can We Learn From the Failings of William Mulholland?
The 'Father of Los Angeles' Was a Link in a Chain of Theft and Loss—And Its Consequences Ripple Into the Present
Mulholland engineered the Los Angeles Aqueduct. That metal pipeline, double-barreled, each tube nine feet in diameter and pocked with rivets, spans more than 230 miles of desert, crossing peaks and canyons between the Eastern Sierra Nevada region and the city to the south. Since 1913, the Los Angeles Aqueduct has collected water from my home valley …
After 150 Years, Is L.A. Ready to Remember the Chinese Massacre?
Long Buried, the Bloodiest Night in the City’s History Surfaces Amid a New Wave of Violence
One of the bloodiest nights in Los Angeles history took place 150 years ago, on October 24, 1871, when at least 18 Chinese (about 10 percent of L.A.’s Chinese population at the time) were …
Zócalo Receives Major Grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Two-Year Event and Editorial Series Will Launch in October 2021
Zócalo will publish original, multidisciplinary works including essays, photography, illustrations, and poetry. Participants will include scholars, artists, and others whose personal histories intersect with the question; the project also will highlight creators from a range of underrepresented groups. By providing a kaleidoscopic view of how America has remembered its sins, the project aims to reimagine the subject’s future …