Where I Go: A Big, Slow-Moving Boat

Aboard a Container Ship, I Found the Courage to Navigate Toward a New Future

May 2013: CMA CGM Dalila, offshore of Yokohama, Japan

The flat sea glimmers like a disco ball and it’s warm enough to sit outside without a puffy coat. All day long there have been whale sightings. … WHALES! The watchmen called me in the gymnasium where I was playing ping pong with Ian and Cloyd, crewmembers from the Philippines. WHALES! Each time I’d race to starboard or port side and scan the sea, squinting for a splash of a fin or tail. Finally this evening I saw the whales on port …

by Elena Legeros | June 15, 2022

A Tale of Two Pride Marches

In the 1980s, Mexico’s Gay Rights Movement Was Fractured. Its Legacy Offers Lessons for Today

by Noe Pliego Campos | June 2, 2022

On June 25, 1983, two distinct marches set out from Mexico City’s Monumento a Los Niños Héroes. One was a traditional march, with a serious tone in line with the …

Can a Historic L.A. Bar’s Queer History Still Demand Justice?

Photographs from the Black Cat Tell the Tale of a Movement’s Muddled Origins—And Where It Might Go

by Talib Jabbar | February 27, 2022

The round face of a cartoon cat—big eyes, earnest smile—still hangs off the front façade of the Black Cat in Silver Lake.

Today, it peers out from above the kind of …

Where I Go: At the Ice Rink, My Feet End in Knives

An Adult Figure Skater Pivots Past Gendered, Classist, Racist Norms

by Erica Rand | February 16, 2022

When 25-year-old Mariah Bell competed in Beijing yesterday, she made history as the oldest U.S. women’s national champion in 95 years to step foot on Olympic ice. But “advanced age” …

Our Favorite Essays of 2021

At a Moment Where There Are No Easy Answers, Zócalo Contributors Asked Unexpected, Tough—and Sometimes Quixotic—Questions

December 23, 2021

It felt like 2021 was a year of firsts—the first rollout of new vaccine technology; the first insurrection in Washington, D.C.; the first female U.S. vice president; and the first …

Where I Go: My Small, Queer Corner of the Internet

After Years of Searching for an LGBTQ Community, I Found it on Discord During the Pandemic

by José González Vargas | August 19, 2021

I remember Ángelo Ponce. He was a teenage boy in my hometown of Maracay, Venezuela, whose classmates set on fire for being gay. That was 2012. I was 21 at …

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