What Happened to Stockton’s First Asian Enclaves?

How the City’s Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Manila Were Razed in the Name of “Progress”

What happened to Stockton’s first Asian enclaves?

In the 20th century, downtown Stockton established itself as a cultural and commercial hub for Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino communities in California’s San Joaquin Valley. But, over decades, misguided and racially biased projects deliberately destroyed this ethnically diverse and inclusive urban core.

Only recently have the city and state started to look into remedying the harm they did to the people of color who lived and worked in that five-by-five block of Stockton and made it home. This work, part of a larger national racial …

The Slideshow That Kept Oil Drills Out of the Arctic National Refuge

The Last Great Wilderness Helped Earn a Grassroots Victory for Indigenous Rights and Environmental Justice

The story seems impossible to believe: A low-budget traveling slideshow kept oil drills out of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But Indigenous leaders from the Arctic, environmental advocates on Capitol …

Iran’s New Revolutionary Figure Is Feminist | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Iran’s New Revolutionary Figure Is Feminist

The Women at the Heart of the Movement Offer Potent Visions of Social Change

The feminist uprising in Iran—sparked by the beating, arrest, and death in police custody of Mahsa (also known by Jîna) Amini, a young Kurdish Iranian woman accused of “improper hijab”—is …

Beyoncé’s Dance Floor Liberation | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Beyoncé’s Dance Floor Liberation

From the Golden Age of House to ‘Break My Soul,’ Black Divas Continue to Lift Us Up in Hard Times

I can very clearly remember in 1993 the first time I heard Robin S.’s “Show Me Love.” I felt moved.

It wasn’t just me. The infectious groove and Black gospel diva …

Nobuko Miyamoto and the 120,000 Stories of Japanese America | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Nobuko Miyamoto and the 120,000 Stories of Japanese America

Melding Art, Culture, and Politics, the Feminist Troubadour Helps a New Generation Reimagine Itself

Since the 1970s, Japanese Americans have observed the Day of Remembrance on February 19, the anniversary of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066 that authorized the forced removal …

Activist-Scholar Catherine Garoupa White

I Have So Many Fond Memories Around Madera County

Catherine Garoupa White is the executive director of the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition, working to restore clean air to the San Joaquin Valley. They also teach at CSU Stanislaus …