Why Sweden Stopped Pretending to Be Switzerland
My Two Home Countries Were Famously Neutral. But They Were Never the Same
For most of my life, people have offered joyful shouts when I have presented either of my passports …
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Can the Real San Francisco Airport Please Stand Up?
SFO and OAK Both Want to Claim the Bay Area City, but Neither Is Actually Located There
I’ve never much cared for San Francisco International Airport—until SFO decided to take a courageous stand …
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Will California’s Quest for Clean Energy Get in the Way of Land Back?
PG&E and a Chumash Tribe Had a Deal for Diablo Canyon. Until the State Stepped In
In 2019, the California public utility Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) announced that once its Diablo Canyon …
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What Could American-Style Gun Culture Do to Israel?
An Armed, Internally Divided Nation Is Not One That Makes Peace Easily
Among the core Israeli national narratives fractured by the October 7 Hamas terror attacks and the …
Héctor Tobar Wins the 2024 Zócalo Book Prize
Our Migrant Souls Is an Essential Exploration of ‘Latino’ Identity
Héctor Tobar is the winner of the 2024 Zócalo Public Square Book Prize for Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino.”
Zócalo has awarded the $10,000 prize yearly since 2011 to the nonfiction book that best enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion. The 13 previous Zócalo Public Square Book Prize recipients include Heather McGhee, Michael Ignatieff, Danielle Allen, Jonathan Haidt, and most recently, Michelle Wilde Anderson.
Tobar is the author of six books …
Melanie Almeder Wins the 2024 Zócalo Poetry Prize
‘Coyote Hour’ Tracks a Summer in Southern Maine
Melanie Almeder is the winner of the 2024 Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize for “Coyote Hour.” The poem tracks the rhythms of summer in a part of coastal New England where you can smell Deet and rotting seaweed, hear piping plovers call and speed boats growl, and spot a seal and even a former president. “With rich musicality and stark imagery, this beautiful poem explores place, class, nature, flora, and fauna,” wrote one of our Poetry Prize judges. “Each line sings with surprise and delight.”
Since 2012, we have awarded the Zócalo Poetry Prize to the U.S. writer whose original poem best evokes a connection to place. This year, writers submitted more than 1,000 poems to Zócalo staff …
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Huell Howser Lives!
One Chronicler of Our State Offers His Take on Another
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A Movie That Might Be Worse Than Civil War
‘Civil War’ Offers A Vision of California Fighting the U.S. That Matches Foreign Propaganda—and Misses the Point
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The Losing A’s Found a Winning City to Host Them
West Sacramento Is on a Hot Streak. Other California Cities Should Watch
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What the Wonkapocalypse Can Teach Us
An Immersive Experience Gone Wrong Shows Us the Perennial Emptiness of Carefully Curated Escapes from Reality
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Cowboy Boots Were Made for Everyone
For Over a Century and Half, the Footwear Has Carried the Story of a Nation
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Why We Hunger for the Holiday Special
Every December, an Age-Old Format Warms the Winter Night
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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 unfold in isolation,” reads the excerpt from the scholar and activist’s 2015 book, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle. “We cannot truly tell what we consider to be our own histories …
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Artist Maurice Harris
‘I Am Deliberate and Afraid of Nothing’
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Poet aja monet
The Energy You Bring to a Word Can Heal or Harm
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Agent and Former NFL Player Jacques McClendon
There’s Nothing Like ‘Rocky Top’
