The New Mexico Oppenheimer Erases

Films and Tourism Campaigns Depict an Empty State That Is In Fact Full of Life

Los Alamos, New Mexico’s tourism website quickly clues visitors into what the city considers its two principal assets. There’s the national laboratory, represented by an illustrated atom, and there are three national parks, represented in an illustrated leaf. Underneath these symbols is the slogan “where discoveries are made.”

In 2021, New Mexico attracted 7.2 billion in tourist dollars. Many visitors come for the leaf: Outdoor recreation added $2.3 billion to the state’s economy that year. Meanwhile, the atom—the state’s nuclear past and present—attracts a subset of tourists who come to visit …

Wild Sights

Originally from Canada, illustrator Sarah Campbell moved to Australia in 2010. A graduate from the Design Centre Enmore in Sydney, her work is featured in children’s books, editorials, logos and …

Our Favorite Essays of 2022 | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Our Favorite Essays of 2022

From Behind Prison Walls to a Container Ship Out at Sea to the World’s Largest Refugee Camp, Zócalo’s Contributors Traversed the World to Report on the Human Condition

In 2022, Zócalo’s contributors reported from the front lines of a changing world, looking to foster conversation—and curiosity—about the way we live now.

While selecting just 10 essays from the scores …

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 …

Thanks for Being Obsessed with Us, America | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Thanks for Being Obsessed with Us, America

This Holiday Season, Be Grateful to Your Out-of-State Friends and Relatives Who Have California on the Brain

Thank you, America, for always keeping California in your thoughts.

Now it’s that time of the year when we should give thanks for the only California real estate that’s still cheap—all …

It’s Time to Embrace the Vaccine Passport | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

It’s Time to Embrace the Vaccine Passport

There Shouldn’t Be Any Controversy Around This Crucial Public Good

Vaccine passports, and the questions of whether governments or private businesses can or should require people to show them, have recently inspired controversy, and much misinformation, in many countries.

Some …