Museums tell America’s story. Exhibit by exhibit, they acquire, study, preserve, and interpret art and artifacts for the public, offering proof to bolster thoughtful interpretations of our national truths. But they haven’t always done so freely. What can museums do when the state imposes revisionist history on them? Can curation be a form of self-censorship? Is censorship ever good? And what have museums done to protect their freedom of expression and the separation between art and state?

Featured guests:

Devon Akmon (Director, Michigan State University Museum and Chair of the Board, American Alliance of Museums)

Ann Burroughs (President and CEO, Japanese American National Museum)

Hamza Walker (Director, The Brick and Co-Curator, MONUMENTS) Hamza Walker will discuss how museums resist the erasure and revision of our history and culture, and what this means for how we document our shared past, present, and future.

This program is co-presented by Zócalo Public Square, Japanese American National Museum (JANM), and The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)

Visit www.zocalopublicsquare.org/ for more programs, interviews and essays.

With the national midterm elections alongside high-profile contests such as the Los Angeles mayoral and California gubernatorial races, voters, election officials, and policymakers alike are being forced to confront AI’s growing role in democratic life. Can AI be responsibly integrated into election systems without compromising transparency or fairness? Who bears responsibility for governing its use—technology companies, election officials, lawmakers, or voters themselves? And what safeguards, norms, or reforms are needed to ensure that innovation serves democracy rather than undermines it?

Featured guests:

Kristen Muller (Executive Editor, The LA Local)

Darwin Mastin, Ph.D. (Founder & CEO, Synaptic Spike Venture Studio & TwinWise AI)

Michael Moore (Chief Information Security Officer, Arizona Secretary of State’s Office)

Gowri Ramachandran (Director of Elections and Security on the Elections & Government team, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU)

This program is co-presented by Zócalo Public Square, LA Local, and the ASU Mechanics of Democracy Lab.

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Deportation has impacted communities across California and the country, and has become the face of U.S. immigration policy today. At the culmination of a year marked by violent ICE raids, it’s crucial to understand how we got to this point, and what may lie ahead.

Part origin story, part forecast, this conversation between historian and MacArthur Fellow Kelly Lytle Hernández and filmmaker and MacArthur Fellow Alex Rivera illuminates the history of deportation. The pair discuss the first man to be deported under the 19th-century Chinese Exclusion Act, reach further back in time to consider that law’s predecessors, and, finally, return to the present day to pose questions about the future of U.S. banishment.

Is deportation an anomaly of our modern era, or does it reflect the very heart of this country’s history? Who is targeted for deportation in America, and why? And where should we look for reform or respite—resistance groups, the courts, political leaders?

This program is co-presented by Zócalo Public Square, the MacArthur Foundation, Times of San Diego, and Bread & Salt, as part of Zócalo’s series “What Connects California?,” marking the 175th anniversary of California’s statehood.

Is hip-hop the driving force behind Black business and economic mobility? What can we glean from its innovative strategies and enterprising spirit? And how do the creative economies hip-hop has brokered affect California’s racially diverse and rapidly changing communities?

Tara DeVeaux is a brand marketer influenced by hip-hop culture and Detavio Samuels is a media executive for youth culture storytelling. They discuss hip-hop’s impact on the economy with Robeson Taj Frazier, director of the USC Annenberg Institute for Difference and Empowerment in the Arts, during the opening night of CA FWD’s 2025 California Economic Summit.

This program was co-presented by Zócalo Public Square, ASU, and California Forward (CA FWD) in partnership with Stocktonia.

Part of Zócalo’s series "California 175 — What Connects California?"

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intros

04:23 - Panel: Robeson Taj Frazier, Tara DeVeaux, Detavio Frazier

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A panel featuring Stanford IAJS faculty co-director Brian Lowery, James Beard Award-winning cookbook author and Jewish cuisine expert Joan Nathan, community organizer and immigration activist Power Malu, and food studies scholar Krishnendu Ray explores how what we eat, and where it’s from, shape our sense of identity.

This program is inspired by "Speak Sing Shout: We, Too, Sing America" (2025) by Pakistani American artist Sarah K. Khan. The piece is commissioned by Stanford Institute for Advancing Just Societies, and will be on view at BRIC in Brooklyn from October 7 to December 23, 2025.

Visit Zócalo's Youtube channel to watch a performance by artist Sarah K. Khan: https://youtube.com/live/ztRolqNFXoQ

This is the third program in “What Can Become of Us?”, a collaboration between the Stanford Institute for Advancing Just Societies (IAJS) and Zócalo Public Square, envisioning new perspectives on migration, America’s diverse communities, and how people come together across differences.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intros

04:17 - Panel: Brian Lowery, Power Malu, Joan Nathan, Krishnendu Ray

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Zócalo Public Square presents two back-to-back panels moderated by Zócalo’s California columnist Joe Mathews to ask: How exceptional do we want California to be?

The first panel features expert voices in fields shaping California’s identity: business advocate and public affairs specialist Brooke Armour Spiegel, Caltech astrophysicist Konstantin Batygin, and immigrant rights advocate Yliana Johansen-Méndez.

The second panel features youth leaders who are inheriting the state: trans rights organizer, budget advocacy and policy expert Michaé De La Cuadra, community organizer and housing justice advocate Aidan Lin-Tostado, and Tongva, Chumash, and Xicano artist and environmental advocate Isaac Michael Ybarra.

This program is presented with generous support from Latino Community Foundation, the Karsh Family Foundation, and Snap Foundation.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intros

00:03:18 - Panel 1 (Expert Voices): Brooke Armour Spiegel, Konstantin Batygin, Yliana Johansen-Méndez

00:43:02 - Panel 2 (Youth Leaders): Michaé De La Cuadra, Aidan Lin-Tostado, Isaac Michael Ybarra

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It used to be that Spanish-language artists had to perform in English to succeed in the U.S. Today, they can sing in their native tongue and top the charts. But with increased visibility, does increased industry equity follow for Spanish-language artists? In an era of division over immigration—when so many love Latin music that crosses borders, but question Latin people who do—can music bring America together?

Activist, musician, and Chicanx-Latinx studies professor Martha Gonzalez and "La Banda Elástica" magazine founder and publisher Emilio Morales discuss how Latino music transcends borders.

This program was co-presented by Zócalo Public Square, The Skirball Cultural Center, and Grand Performances.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intros

04:00 - Conversation with Emilio Morales and Martha Gonzalez

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This program is inspired by "So, I told her I was half-Indian" (2025) by Chicanx and Punjabi American weaver Kira Dominguez Hultgren. The piece, multiple looms woven together as a suspended sculpture, is commissioned by IAJS and will be on view at Zhou B Art Center from August 12 to September 12, 2025.

Artist Kira Dominguez Hultgren and guitarist and Chicago Immigrant Orchestra co-director Fareed Haque discuss the work’s larger themes, including how race plays out across generations, how public memorials help make hushed histories visible, and how new technology reveals outdated stereotypes.

Then, a panel featuring Stanford IAJS faculty co-director Brian Lowery, Yale historian and Pulitzer Prize-winner David W. Blight, historic preservation leader Bonnie McDonald, and creative consultant and fashion designer Siying Qu explores how migrant communities help stitch together our ideas of American life.

This is the second program in “What Can Become of Us?”, a collaboration between the Stanford Institute for Advancing Just Societies (IAJS) and Zócalo Public Square, envisioning new perspectives on migration, America’s diverse communities, and how people come together across differences.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intros

06:40 - Artist Talk: Kira Dominguez Hultgren, Fareed Haque

27:40 - Panel: Brian Lowery, David W. Blight, Bonnie McDonald, Siying Qu

Visit www.zocalopublicsquare.org/ for more programs and essays in the series.

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Medusa, the “Godmother of West Coast Hip-Hop,” and reparations advocate and business manager to the stars Khansa T. Jones-Muhammad aka Friday Jones, discuss the role of women in hip-hop.

Hip-hop is a conversation across communities. But power and privilege exert control inside this industry as they do outside. It is all interconnected. Many talented female hip-hop performers have fallen prey to fear and exploitation, and continue to fight for recognition while battling abuse and stereotypes imposed by industry insiders and general audiences. Meanwhile, streaming and predatory contracts have opened the doors for new modes of financial manipulation in the fine print, impacting royalties and devaluing artistry. What do reparations for these unfair practices look like? How can women in the industry support the next generation and build pathways for their success? And how can hip-hop respond to the changing political climate?

This program was co-presented with Levitt Pavilion Los Angeles.

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Jean-Martin Bauer is the author of “The New Breadline: Hunger and Hope in the Twenty-First Century” and the winner of the 2025 Zócalo Public Square Book Prize. He’ll visit Zócalo to explore the role hunger plays in our world today, and what it takes to help people come together and feed one another. This discussion is moderated by Ertharin Cousin, Food Systems for the Future CEO.

Zócalo Public Square is proud to award the 2025 Zócalo Poetry Prize to Jennifer Blackledge for her poem "Mt. Trashmore."

The 2025 Zócalo Book and Poetry Prizes are generously sponsored by Tim Disney.

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