Columbia professor Mae Ngai is the author of several books. Her most recent work, The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America, explores the saga of the Tape family and three generations of Chinese American immigration brokers. “Everyone needed them, but nobody trusted them,” Ngai said of the family. She visited the Zócalo office to explain the emergence of the Chinese-American middle class in the 19th century and what it meant for future generations of their descendants.

*Photo courtesy dano_StL.

Haitian-born, New York-bred Edwidge Danticat is author of several novels and most recently a collection of essays, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work. “Whether or not they write about being immigrants, there is that sense, perhaps that shadow, of another culture over immigrant art,” Danticat said. She stopped by Zócalo’s offices to chat about her first encounter with immigrant writing, what defines it, and where it fits into literature broadly.

Buy the book: Skylight, Powell’s, Amazon, Borders.

*Photo of Port-au-Prince courtesy M_Eriksson.

Leslie Marmon Silko’s first novel, Ceremony, sold a million copies. In The Turqoise Ledge, she turned to nonfiction to capture her world. “I thought if I didn’t write about the way things were when I was a girl that no one would ever know there had been this different way of being,” she said. Silko stopped by Zócalo’s offices to chat about her book, the encroachments on the land she calls home, and how even urbanites can find ways to appreciate the nature around them.

Buy the book: Skylight, Powell’s, Amazon, Borders.

*Photo courtesy Ken Bosma.

In Golden States of Grace: Prayers of the Disinherited, Rick Nahmias photographs the members of the fringes of mainstream faiths: a transgender gospel choir, imprisoned Zen Buddhists, Jewish addicts, Cambodian Muslims, and deaf Mormons. “The mainstream faiths were chosen specifically so the groups profiled were not easily dismissed. These are folks that are on the margins of society, but they’re following for the most part mainstream traditions,” Nahmias said. “I felt it would help build that bridge.” Nahmias stopped by Zócalo’s offices to chat about the communities he profiles, the commonality between them, and what makes California so fruitful a place for religious diversity.

Buy the book: Skylight, Powell’s, Amazon, Borders.
Learn more about the book here.

*Photo by Rick Nahmias of the Puja Room of a member of Kashi Ashram in Los Angeles, a Hindu center devoted to individuals who are HIV-positive or fighting life-threatening disease.

For centuries, from the earliest orientalists to the contemporary clash of civilizations theorists, the world has seemed split between East and West, and between Islam and Christianity, along some indefinite divide. But in The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam, Eliza Griswold posits a new way to think about the world: by considering the meeting place of the majority of the world’s Muslims and Christians, 700 miles north of the equator. “I started this book with the idea that four out of five of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims are not Arabs, they don’t live in the Middle East. They are Africans and Asians,” Griswold said. “Here, on the ground, along the tenth parallel, they meet with almost half the world’s two billion Christians.” Griswold stopped by Zócalo to chat about her travels along the line, and what we can learn from the cooperation and conflict she saw there.

Buy the book: Skylight, Powell’s, Amazon, Borders.

*Photo of Sufi Muslims in Kenya courtesy rogiro.

Jennifer Ouellette was an English major who long “avoided all math,” as she put it. Today, the science writer and author of The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse recalled asking her math teacher what every student wants to know: why does math matter in every day life? “He gave the usual stock answers,” she said. “But when you start to see where calculus is in the real world, that’s when you start to see where it’s useful.” Ouellette dropped by Zocalo’s offices to chat about how calculus can help you win in Vegas, anticipate the next dip or turn of a roller coaster, and why we should all aim for mathematical literacy to give us a richer view of the world around us.

*Photo courtesy Joe Penniston.

Before Monica Ganas began teaching California, she lived it. A native of the state and a 30 year veteran of the entertainment industry and now a professor at Azusa Pacific University, Ganas explained how her personal background inspired her book, Under the Influence: California’s Intoxicating Spiritual and Cultural Impact on America. “I think I’ve been trying to make sense of my personal experience for a lot of my life,” she joked. It wasn’t until she left the state that she began to see its strangeness, and the way it impacts the country. Ganas stopped by Zocalo’s offices to explore California culture — from the glamor of movies to the ordinariness of traffic, from car obsession to spiritual diversity.

*Photo courtesy Wolfgang Staudt.

Stephen Kinzer has reported from over 50 countries on five continents, including those with some of the most vexing relationships with the U.S. In his latest book, Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America’s Future, Kinzer argues that the U.S. should look to some unexpected partners for a smarter Middle East strategy — Iran and Turkey, the only Muslim countries with deep democratic roots. “Iran, although it has this repressive theocratic government, is a tremendously vibrant society,” he said. “This is a country that has had a constitution for a hundred years.” Kinzer also argues for a reconsideration of our tight ties with Israel and Saudi Arabia. Kinzer stopped by Zócalo’s offices to chat about the history of democracy in the Middle East and what Americans miss in all the media hype about Iran.

*Photo courtesy h de c.

As “Countdown to Zero” producer Lawrence Bender discovered, making a movie about nuclear weapons isn’t exactly easy. Most people don’t think about them, and those who do don’t necessarily want to talk, Bender explained. Still, Bender and director Lucy Walker secured commentary from an impressive catalog of world leaders, some of whom had to be booked over a year in advance — from former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to former Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Though they all agreed that the ideal number of nuclear weapons in the world is zero, Bender found, getting to zero is a major political challenge. Bender stopped by Zócalo’s offices before Zócalo and KCRW’s screening of “Countdown to Zero” to talk about why the world is more dangerous today than it was during the Cold War, and what we can do about it.

*Photo by Laura Villalpando.

A veteran Variety reporter, Nicole LaPorte wrote The Men Who Would Be King at the risk of never lunching — or breakfasting or dining — in this town again. Her book catalogs in precise detail — from boardroom blow-ups to red carpet premieres — the rise and fall of DreamWorks studios, the brainchild of Hollywood’s biggest moguls since the golden age of the studio system. “There was money, it was the 90s, Clinton was in office,” LaPorte said. “The movie business is always a risky  business, but back then, there were many more people willing to place bets.” Unfortunately, no matter how big the men behind it or how many hits it made in the early years, it didn’t keep DreamWorks alive, as LaPorte explained at Zócalo’s offices.

*Photo courtesy just_kelly.