Zócalo Public Square

Laboratories around the world are under fire for their lack of diversity, a culture of harassment and bullying, rigid hierarchies, and research that cannot be reproduced. Is the entire research system to blame? Our model of funding individual scientists encourages cutthroat competition rather than a cooperative infrastructure better tailored to solving our biggest problems. In a recent article for Issues in Science and Technology, NASA mission lead and ASU professor Lindy Elkins-Tanton argues for a radical restructuring of the way we do research—divesting from big names and instead deploying teams to focus on big questions and ambitious goals. Can egalitarian, interdisciplinary groups of experts reshape research for the better? How will breaking away from the current model open the floodgates for more invention and discovery?

NASA’s Psyche mission principal investigator and ASU Interplanetary Initiative vice president Lindy Elkins-Tanton and Issues in Science and Technology editor in chief Lisa Margonelli visited Zócalo to talk about untethering the academic research model from the cult of personality in order to take on humanity’s biggest problems. This Zócalo/Issues in Science and Technology online event was moderated by Issues editor in chief Lisa Margonelli.

Read more about our panelists here: https://zps.la/3cjL6OA

For a full report on the live discussion, check out the Takeaway: https://zps.la/2VKcxOF

Visit https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/ to read our articles and learn about upcoming events.

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South Los Angeles, one of the West Coast’s last great working-class places, has been a destination point for two great migrations: African Americans arriving from the South and East, and, more recently, Latin Americans immigrating to Southern California. While media have long dwelled on examples of interracial and interethnic conflict there, the everyday reality of South L.A.’s ever-changing neighborhoods has revolved around Black-Brown co-existence, cooperation, and innovative multiracial organizing. How have South Central’s diverse residents managed to find solidarity in unsettling and polarizing times? What new and shared place-based identities have emerged from the area’s mix of histories and cultures? And what can the rest of L.A., and the U.S., learn from South L.A.?

USC sociologists Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Manuel Pastor, co-authors of South Central Dreams: Finding Home and Building Community in South L.A., and Corey Matthews, chief operating officer of Community Coalition, visit Zócalo to explore the lessons of South L.A.'s struggles and successes. This Zócalo/Esperanza Community Housing event was streamed live from Mercado La Paloma on July 27, 2021 and was moderated by Los Angeles Times assistant managing editor for culture and talent Angel Jennings.

Read more about our panelists here: https://zps.la/3cjL6OA

For a full report on the live discussion, check out the Takeaway:

Visit https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/ to read our articles and learn about upcoming events.

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When Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1926, she beat the record of every man who’d attempted it before her—by two hours. And she did it in a two-piece bathing suit that she’d fashioned herself, eschewing the bulky wool dress, stockings, and shoes expected to be worn by women swimmers for modesty’s sake. Before Title IX’s 1972 passage, Ederle, and pioneering sportswomen from Mildred Ella “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias to Wilma Rudolph to Billie Jean King, began the work of breaking down cultural norms around sex and sport, as well as race and class—while making history in the process. In what ways has the world changed since women were denied the opportunity to compete because of their biology? What forgotten feats by trailblazers, on and off the turf, have been relegated to the footnotes of history? And how have earlier fights for gender equality laid the groundwork for today’s debates over equal pay, anti-trans legislation, and other issues?

LPGA and World Golf Halls of Fame member Amy Alcott, ASU sports historian Victoria Jackson, and sports attorney Jill Pilgrim, who has represented the LPGA and USA Track and Field, visited Zócalo to discuss how Title IX transformed sports for women, and its unfinished work leveling the playing field when it comes to everything from equal pay to equal opportunity. This Zócalo/ASU Global Sport Institute online event was moderated by writer Lindsay Gibbs, host of the “Burn It All Down” podcast.

Read more about our panelists here: https://zps.la/3cjL6OA

For a full report on the live discussion, check out the Takeaway: https://zps.la/3daRyuj

Visit https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/ to read our articles and learn about upcoming events.

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California’s smaller cities are pitied, when they’re thought about at all. Media coverage of towns, especially in rural areas, emphasize their poverty, their lack of amenities and people, or their supposedly clannish cultures or peripheral politics. But the reality is that small towns stand at the center of California’s biggest challenges—climate, energy, inequality, public health, education, water, broadband access, and homelessness. And some smaller and more remote places have found clever solutions to problems that bedevil big cities. What is it like to govern a small California town in the third decade of the 21st century? And what lessons can the rest of California learn from the struggles and successes of its smaller settlements?

Gonzales city manager Rene Mendez, Coachella councilmember and civil rights attorney Megan Beaman Jacinto, and former West Sacramento mayor Christopher Cabaldon visited Zócalo to discuss what makes a good small town. This Zócalo/Cal Wellness online event was moderated by Los Angeles Times staff writer Diana Marcum.

Read more about our panelists here: https://zps.la/3cjL6OA

For a full report on the live discussion, check out the Takeaway: https://zps.la/3qazOo7

Visit https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/ to read our articles and learn about upcoming events.

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Today, more than one-quarter of all unsheltered people in the United States live in L.A. County. And of all Angelenos experiencing homelessness, more than 70 percent are sleeping in the streets, or in makeshift structures, tents, or vehicles. Homelessness has always been a public health and humanitarian crisis, but the crisis has been exacerbated by the continued lack of affordable housing and the global pandemic. Policy changes and unprecedented housing investments, including Projects Roomkey and Homekey—converting hotels into housing—and the federal American Rescue Plan, haven’t been able to keep up with rising evictions and housing costs. Meanwhile, the issue is bitterly dividing neighbors and becoming a source of intense conflict in local politics. And elected officials, organizations dedicated to helping unsheltered people, and other stakeholders cannot agree on whether to put their resources toward local, interim housing or creating more permanent housing solutions. What should the city do to ease the crisis right now—and are many of the quick fixes being proposed truly sustainable? What sort of civic will and capacity must L.A. muster to respond to the many different fronts on which the battle against homelessness is being fought? And how much would L.A. have to change itself—its governance system, its economy, its housing, its laws—to end homelessness in the long-term?

In conjunction with the publication of new reports on homelessness from United Way and the Committee For Greater LA, UCLA California Policy Lab executive director Janey Rountree, Enterprise Community Partners vice president Jimar Wilson, L.A. resident Shawn Pleasants, Chair of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Commission Ad Hoc Committee on Governance Reform Sarah Dusseault, and United Way of Greater Los Angeles Homelessness Initiatives director Carter Hewgley visited Zócalo to discuss what it would take for L.A. to shelter all its people. This panel discussion, presented by Zócalo, United Way, and the Committee for Greater Los Angeles, was moderated by Anna Scott, housing and homelessness reporter at KCRW.

Read more about our panelists here: https://zps.la/3cjL6OA

For a full report on the live discussion, check out the Takeaway: https://zps.la/3q4jyot

Visit https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/ to read our articles and learn about upcoming events.

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Zócalo and the University of Toronto present The World We Want, an event series exploring our current societal, political, and economic challenges and how we might emerge from the current moment. The series ends with “Can We Still Find the Good in the World?”

It feels like such a dark time. The planet is burning with hatred, disease, and environmental degradation. And, between the confusing nature of our societies and our own biases, traumas, and privileges, it’s become increasingly difficult to be sure we will know the good when we see it. What does it mean, when the bad urgently demands our attention and action, to spend precious time looking for the good, in the world and in ourselves? What are the roots of the human attraction to goodness, and what roles does our pursuit of goodness fill in our lives and communities?

Central European University president Michael Ignatieff, author of “The Ordinary Virtues,” visited Zócalo to examine whether the human search for the good is itself still good. This online discussion was moderated by Joe Mathews, California & Innovation editor at Zócalo Public Square.

Zócalo and the University of Toronto thank the Consulate General of Canada in Los Angeles for supporting The World We Want.

For a full report on the live discussion, check out the Takeaway: https://zps.la/3pIYeF5

Visit https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/ to read our articles and learn about upcoming events.

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As Los Angeles emerges from pandemic and tumult, Angelenos are looking for new and bigger visions of the city’s future. But where will we find ideas and practical methods for transforming institutions, reimagining public policy, or reinvesting in communities? Business leaders are consumed with recovery. Elected officials aren’t trusted, because they have long failed to deliver on their biggest plans and promises. So why not turn to L.A.’s most creative visionaries, and tap our abundance of artists? The pandemic and racial reckoning of the past year have changed how artists work, and how they see L.A. What aspirations and dreams do artists—professional and youth, visual and performing—have for a more resilient and inclusive Los Angeles? How are they putting those dreams down on canvas, on walls and sidewalks, and on our screens?

LA Commons CEO Karen Mack, artist and designer Rosten Woo, and John Malpede, artist and founding director of Los Angeles Poverty Department, visited Zócalo to discuss the change they want to see in Los Angeles, and how they might lead it. This Zócalo/LA Commons online event was moderated by arts and culture writer Catherine Wagley.

Read more about our panelists here: https://zps.la/3cjL6OA

For a full report on the live discussion, check out the Takeaway: https://zps.la/2RvVA8R

Visit https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/ to read our articles and learn about upcoming events.

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Boyle Heights may be divided up by L.A. freeways and thoroughfares, but its people have a remarkable record of maintaining solidarity across racial and ethnic lines. What explains the ability of Boyle Heights residents to stick together while constantly integrating immigrants and incorporating newcomers? How has Boyle Heights kept its distinctive identity in the face of social upheaval, political transformation, and waves of gentrification? And what can a more diverse America, and a more globalized world, learn from the history of this magical and multiracial neighborhood in the center of Los Angeles?

Josefina Lopez, author of “Real Women Have Curves” and Founding Artistic Director of CASA 0101 Theater in Boyle Heights, joined USC professor of American Studies, ethnicity, and history George J. Sanchez, author of “Boyle Heights: How a Los Angeles Neighborhood Became the Future of American Democracy,” at Zócalo to examine whether the neighborhood that birthed him might point the way to a better future for the United States. This online event was moderated by Hector Becerra, city editor at the Los Angeles Times.

Event introduced by Zócalo board member Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and former member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Read more about our panelists here: https://zps.la/3cjL6OA

For a full report on the live discussion, check out the Takeaway: https://zps.la/34zNEXf

Visit https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/ to read our articles and learn about upcoming events.

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The year 1924 was a watershed in American immigration. A victory for the eugenics movement, the Johnson-Reed Act established race-based quotas that succeeded in limiting the entry of Jews and Catholics from Southern and Eastern Europe, as well as strengthening restrictions already in place barring the entry of Asians and Africans. It would take an extraordinary political window following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to overhaul the quota system through the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. By giving preference to family reunification and skilled workers, the legislation changed the demographics of the country, making it less European and less white. At the same time, it imposed the first numerical cap on Western Hemisphere immigration, making the U.S. less accessible for people coming from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

What lessons can we draw from these two historic shifts in American immigration? Has the United States ever been the nation of immigrants that it purports to be? And in our polarized times, can we fashion a new national identity that embraces immigrants and their families?

New York Times national editor Jia Lynn Yang, winner of the 11th annual Zócalo Public Square Book Prize for her debut book, “One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965,” visited Zócalo to discuss how immigration laws have changed the American population, our communities, and the country’s sense of itself. This online event was moderated by Tomás Jiménez, professor of Sociology at Stanford University and author of “The Other Side of Assimilation: How Immigrants are Changing American Life.” Read more about Yang here: https://zps.la/3n7tKuY

Angelica Esquivel, winner of the 10th Annual Zócalo Poetry Prize, delivered a public reading of her winning poem, “La Mujer,” prior to the lecture. Read more about Esquivel here: https://zps.la/3xgB6Rq

For a full report on the live discussion, check out the Takeaway: https://zps.la/3wnxps2

Visit https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/ to read our articles and learn about upcoming events.

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“I intend to live forever, or die trying,” said Groucho Marx. Distinguishing between life and its end may be easy for comedians, even immortal ones. But the task has proven surprisingly hard for biologists, who know too much about nature’s bewildering diversity. Modern science, for all its breakthroughs, has yet to produce a standard definition for life. What does it mean to be alive—and how have our answers to that question evolved over time? What roles do cells, genes, evolution, chemistry, and information play in determining life? And what does it really mean to create and protect life in our age of apocalypse and artificial intelligence?

Sir Paul Nurse—Nobel Laureate, director of the Francis Crick Institute in London, and author, most recently, of What Is Life?—visited Zócalo to discuss the search for the meaning of life. This event was moderated by Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, Caltech developmental biologist and author of “The Dance of Life.”

This Zócalo/CaltechLive! event was part of the CaltechLive! “Behind the Book” author series.

Read more about our panelists here: https://zps.la/3cjL6OA

For a full report on the live discussion, check out the Takeaway: https://zps.la/3oavO63

Visit https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/ to read our articles and learn about upcoming events.

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