New at Zócalo
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Election Letters
This Korean Election Shows How Fragile Our Democracy Is
Our Economic Culture Has Isolated Us. Our Politics Have Divided Us. Now We’re Backsliding
More than three decades after South Korea’s democratic transition, we thought we had consolidated our democratic progress. We imagined that our democracy was strong and would grow stronger.
We are learning …
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Essay
In Honduras, Defending Your Land Can Be Deadly
Amid Deepening Climate, Criminal, and Economic Crises, Indigenous Activists Are Being Murdered
On May 28, 2023, the body of Martín Morales Martínez was found floating in the Gama River in Triunfo de la Cruz, Honduras. Morales Martínez was Garifuna—a people descended from …
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Connecting California
I’m Proud to Be Un-American
A New Poll Shows the Rest of the Country Hates the Golden State—And That’s a Good Thing
I’m not really American, and I couldn’t be prouder of that.
I hope you, my fellow Californians, feel the same way.
Because sometimes there’s no greater compliment than an intended insult.
This time, …
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Up For Discussion
What Should Your Local Public Square Look Like?
People With Deep Community Ties Share What Keeps Them—And Their Neighbors—Rooted to Place and One Another
The public square is the meeting ground where people make society happen. In these spaces, physical or metaphorical or digital, we work through our shared dramas and map our collective …
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The Takeaway
Why Shouldn’t Phillis Wheatley’s Poems Show Up at an NFL Game?
At Last Night’s Event—”Can a Football Stadium Be a Black History Museum?”—Panelists Argued to Democratize Culture
On the rarified second level of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, amid premium owner suites and premium beer sales, there’s an Angela Davis quote plastered on a wall.
“Our histories never …
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Culture Class
What the Wonkapocalypse Can Teach Us
An Immersive Experience Gone Wrong Shows Us the Perennial Emptiness of Carefully Curated Escapes from Reality
Last month, an “immersive” Willy Wonka event took over my news feed.
Normally, I’d keep scrolling.
Promoters market these voguish multisensory experiences—which are supposed to literally immerse you in an environment through …
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Essay
What Bruce Springsteen Taught Me Then—And Teaches Me Now
On 40 Years of Listening to the Sonic Squall from the Boss’s Soul
Bruce Springsteen was the first artist I saw in concert—in 1976, when I was 15. He had recently graced the covers of Time and Newsweek, and journalist Jon Landau, who …
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Essay
How San Francisco Became a Labor Enforcement Laboratory
Community Partners Are Helping Local Government Protect and Empower Low-Wage Workers
In the U.S., there is a chasm between what the labor laws say and what workers experience as their everyday realities. That’s because employment here is based on private contractual …
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Democracy Local
America’s Judges Are Bungling the 2024 Election
Does Our Democracy Need a Separate Court System?
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 …