Boxers Know the Power of an Entrance

The Way a Fighter Steps Into the Ring Communicates Everything From Pride to Protest

The first time I really paid attention to boxing ring entrances—the long, celebratory walks fighters take from their dressing rooms to the ring before a bout—was in 1992, when I watched the classic match between Julio César Chávez and Hector Camacho that symbolically pitted Mexico against Puerto Rico. I was a 7-year-old U.S.-born Mexican, yet it was Camacho’s entrance that drew me in: the blaring strains of McFadden and Whitehead’s “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now”; the flashy Captain Puerto Rico outfit; the way Camacho danced his way to the ring.

Camacho …

Neo-Burlesque Slaps Glitter on Feminism and Makes It Shine | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Neo-Burlesque Slaps Glitter on Feminism and Makes It Shine

A New Generation of Women Has Found Liberation Dumpster Diving in the ‘Freedom Trash Can’ of the Miss America Protest

Blush! I scream at my reflection. More blush!

I am backstage at the Miss Coney Island USA pageant caking on makeup. My actual eyebrows have been glued down—a technique learned from …

Why Divestment Defeated Apartheid and How It Might Help Beat Climate Change

The Money Didn’t Matter. The Movement Did

The environmental activist and writer Bill McKibben estimates that climate divestment—the movement to pressure universities, churches, and other institutions to stop investing in, and thus profiting from, carbon-emitting companies—has removed …

When Kazakhstan Turned Off the Internet

Did a Five-Day Crackdown and Flood of Misinformation Send a Message to Activists or Ignite a Movement for Political Reform?

This was no ordinary internet blackout. For five days, the ninth largest country in the world was a black box.

On the evening of January 5, 2022, we set our respective …

The Beloved Bard of Solidarity | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

The Beloved Bard of Solidarity

Jacek Kaczmarski Wrote the Soundtrack for Poland's Cold War-Era Resistance Movement

A microphone on a stand; a man with a guitar. The waiting audience is restless, shifting in seats as he tunes his instrument. He speaks one word—Kołysanka, lullaby in Polish. The …

The Damning Silence of Polish Americans | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

The Damning Silence of Polish Americans

My People Protested Tyranny in the 1980s. Why Didn’t They Step Up in 2020?

I march in the anti-police brutality protests in New York following the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

These aren’t my first protests—far from it. As the child of Polish …