Zócalo Public Square

Live from the Arizona State University California Center Broadway in Los Angeles, CA: A panel of civically engaged Gen Zers and young millennials from across the political spectrum visit Zócalo to stand up and speak for themselves: progressive political digital media specialist Annie Wu Henry, youth civic engagement advocate Ava Mateo, and former Iowa State representative Joe Mitchell, moderated b...

This program is in Spanish. For a version with English audio interpretation, please visit: https://youtube.com/live/A9zQSsOYdhk Zócalo Public Square y la Universidad de Guadalajara transmiten en vivo desde la feria de libro LéaLA en la LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes en el centro de Los Ángeles. Únete a una conversación moderada por Alfredo Corchado, editor ejecutivo del PUENTE News Collaborative, con...

Live from the Arizona State University California Center Broadway in Los Angeles, CA: Zócalo convenes two back-to-back panels moderated by KQED correspondent and co-host of “The California Report” Saul Gonzalez to discuss when and how protest makes a difference. The first panel features scholars and thinkers who can offer larger context for the current moment: urban journalism professor Danielle K...

Live from Sherwood Elementary in Salinas, CA: Agriculture worker and student José Anzaldo, agricultural consultant James Nakahara, Alianza Nacional de Campesinas executive director & co-founder Mily Treviño-Sauceda, and retired farmworker attorney Juan Uranga visit Zócalo in “America’s salad bowl” to discuss what it would take to make life in California sustainable for the people whose work helps...

The Inland Empire exemplifies an ongoing tension between hate and resistance, harboring grassroots movements that have banned lessons about race in public schools at the same time as it celebrates the opening of the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture. This duality makes the region a perfect place to grapple with the history of hate in California, and understand past and present efforts...

Is “Latino” a race or an ethnicity? Is it European or American? Is it a source of strength or of subjugation? And does it bring people together—around shared histories of migration and resilience—or is it born from racial ideas about “the other,” borders, and national identity? Journalist and novelist Héctor Tobar is a professor of English and Chicano/Latino studies at UC Irvine, a native Angeleno...

Live from the CalMatters Ideas Festival in Sacramento, CA: XPRIZE Foundation CEO Anousheh Ansari, Public Policy Institute of California president and CEO and retired Chief Justice of California Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, and Ian Klaus, founding director of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace California Center, visit Zócalo at the CalMatters Ideas Festival to discuss the state of new ideas in t...

Live from the ASU California Center Broadway in Los Angeles, CA: Artist and sculptor Charles Dickson and Destination Crenshaw founding lead historian Larry Earl visit Zócalo to discuss Dickson’s sculpture, “Car Culture,” which will be on permanent display in Sankofa Park, and how monumental public art projects and cruising scenes throughout Southern California can bring people together across zip...

Live from the Crenshaw High School Performing Arts Center in Crenshaw, CA: Architect Gabrielle Bullock and Los Angeles City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson join Destination Crenshaw senior art advisor V. Joy Simmons on the Zócalo stage at Crenshaw High School to discuss Destination Crenshaw’s genesis and design. This program was presented in partnership with Destination Crenshaw, with genero...

Live from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA: Artist and Bloom & Plume founder Maurice Harris, sports agent and former NFL player Jacques McClendon, and poet aja monet visit Zócalo and Kinsey Collection at SoFi Stadium to discuss what one of the world’s largest private collections of Black art and historical objects is doing at one of the world’s grandest football stadiums, why it matters, and where si...

Live from the New Parkway Theater in Oakland, CA: Gig worker and advocate Sergio Avedian, Gigs founder and CEO Allen Narcisse, and the Workers Lab chief research officer Shelly Steward visit Zócalo to help us understand how we might make gig work good work. This is the fifth event in Zócalo's series “What Is a Good Job Now?,” co-presented with the James Irvine Foundation. This discussion is modera...

Maxwell L. Stearns, constitutional law professor and author of the new book Parliamentary America, visits Zócalo to outline a three-part plan to turn the United States into a multi-party parliamentary democracy that could make our politics less maddening, more collaborative—and perhaps even more fun. What are the legal, constitutional, and political steps needed to modernize American democracy and...

What are the best ideas and models for finding good jobs for the formerly incarcerated? How can we improve the low pay and challenging working conditions in those industries that are most likely to employ people who have been in the system? And what policies and economic changes would open more possible career paths and economic opportunities for this population? Amity Foundation president and CEO...

Artists across disciplines have harnessed generative AI as mind-extenders, expanding the possibilities of their work, and unleashing new ways to see the world. But as bots get more adept at human-like thought, writers, actors, and others protest in lawsuits and on picket lines, asking: What’s left for artists? Should tech companies be allowed to use existing art to train AI engines? Who gets credi...

How are institutional leaders navigating the warring tides of politics and public opinion—tides that may steer them toward uncertain futures? Can organizations help artists, patrons, and the public find common ground, or productive ways to discuss their differences, in this moment of deep democratic and cultural conflict? And, even as they themselves struggle to stay afloat, how do arts institutio...

Can artists shield themselves from the demands of politics and polarized discourse or—in places and periods where activism puts their life and liberty at risk—from bodily danger? Does all their work, in a moment of crisis, have to address that crisis? And how can they know when that moment has come? Two women artists—social-practice artist Suzanne Lacy and photographer Catherine Opie—discuss the r...

Environmental activist and hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez (Xochimilco), L.A. LGBT Center communications officer and former editor-in-chief of Out magazine Phillip Picardi, and “On Being” founder, executive producer, and host Krista Tippett visit Zócalo to discuss how society might draw strength and coax vision from the shortcomings and failures of its collective past, moderated by University...

The state of California has some of the nation’s strongest legal protections for workers. But Californians continue to suffer from various forms of abuse by their employers—from unpaid overtime to dangerous working conditions; from wage theft to racial, ethnic, gender discrimination. What are the biggest challenges for agencies and communities as they seek to turn pro-labor legislation into better...

Early this year, an uncrewed Chinese-operated high-altitude balloon floated across U.S. airspace, stoking anxiety and fascination among Americans, who assumed it was spying on them, and ultimately provoking President Biden to order the Pentagon to shoot it down. Just as alarming as foreign espionage, though, is the fear of information-gathering turned inward. American anxieties around the “surveil...

We know cooking best as an act of nourishment, love, and tradition—but it can also cut as sharply as the knives that chop an onion. In Sinaloa, Mexico, a group of relatives of desaparecidos (the tens of thousands of people who have disappeared from the country), have banded together to fight back against government indifference and complicity. Dubbed Las Rastreadoras del Fuerte, the members’ main...

Benjamin W. Rawlins Professor of Communication Andre E. Johnson, Monument Lab co-founder and artist Ken Lum, and reparations leader Robin Rue Simmons join Zócalo and the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis to discuss what repair looks like, and how different people and places have stumbled and succeeded in its pursuit. This program was co-presented with the National Civil...

Public health professor Helda Pinzón-Perez, health care workforce researcher Janette Dill, and in-home supportive services provider Martha Valladarez visited Zócalo to discuss how to build a healthier health care workforce. This discussion was moderated by KVPR News Director Cresencio Rodriguez-Delgado at The Fresno Center in Fresno, CA on Thursday, August 23. This is the second program in the "Wh...

Boxing is a sport of contradictions. Known as the “sweet science” because of the technical skills its fighters need to succeed, it is also incredibly brutal. Boxing has provided a creative outlet and a path out of poverty for generations of California strivers, forging cultural and individual identity, promoting dignity, pride, and agency, and delivering million-dollar paydays for some. But the sp...

Beyond debates over keeping statues up or tearing them down and changing the names of schools and streets lie more fundamental questions at the intersection of personal and public memory. We know how to honor and memorialize idealized heroes; we know less about remembering complicated, real people, who did extraordinary things—let alone how to remember historical figures who changed the world for...

There is a long and global tradition of artists—visual, performing, and literary—creating arresting, even beautiful works that address the horrors of war. How is art used as a form of protest, to change minds as well as hearts? What happens to its meaning over time—as war persists, and as new battles erupt? And what does it say about us all that war has inspired acclaimed works from artists as div...