by Jeff Oaks
Of course the point is to be hidden, isn’t it?
To seem like nothing, to be forgettable,
to hold still. Lonely little things now,
the size of my fist and with a lid of snow...
by Charles Harper Webb
A child kneels beside a “dead” bee.
(Stinging black-and-gold soldier,
where’s your buzzing bluster now?)
Jab!—boxing glove in the face, hard.
A woman b...
Turn on the television today and you’re likely to see something dismal. Perhaps someone on a reality show is drinking herself senseless in New Jersey and getting carted away by the cops, or mayb...
British writer Christopher Isherwood arrived in Los Angeles after a long, slow bus ride from New York, where he had emigrated with his friend W.H. Auden. After unforgettably chronicling the underworld...
Strengthening our commitment to inspire new thinking on the meaning of community and place, Zócalo Public Square is pleased to announce the panel of judges for our second annual book prize as well as the launch of our first annual poetry prize competition, both sponsored by the Southern California Gas Company…
To kick off the first full week of summer, Zócalo asked 10 past guests – including economists, journalists, scholars and a video game designer – to tell us what we should be reading on the beach between now and Labor Day. No vampire romances or murder mysteries here: these nonfiction works will get you thinking hard about more than just your tan line…
The Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize is awarded annually to the U.S. poet whose poem best evokes a connection to place. “Place” may be interpreted by the poet as a place of historical, cultural, political or personal importance; it may be a literal, imaginary or metaphorical landscape. We are looking for one poem that offers our readers a fresh, original and meaningful take on the topic…
Alfredo Corchado is Mexico bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News. Before taking part in a Zócalo panel of journalists discussing the challenges of “Telling Mexico’s Stories,” he answered questions in our Green Room…
Shaurma No. 1 is not for girls. At least, it’s not for the kind of girl who wanders in in a tank top at 7:30 in the morning because she can’t find an Internet cafe with Skype…
The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America
by Mae Ngai
Hyphenated cultures seem to be a natural part of California’s landscape today, but it wasn’t always so. The Lucky Ones by Mae Ngai offers a fresh look at California history by reconstructing the lives of immigrant and second generation pioneers who lived between cultures when it was not such a common phenomenon. Ngai’s narrative brings Chinese Americans into a richer tradition of historical storytelling by humanizing an ambivalent, middle-class immigrant family, situating their lives within the more well-known histories of Chinese laborers and those who suffered from the 1882 Exclusion Act.