Zócalo Public Square Zócalo Public Square

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 to strike back and fight for justice. Can the region’s battles against discrimination chart a path forward for the rest of the state, and nation?

California State Assemblymember Corey A. Jackson, Mapping Black California project director Candice Mays, and ACLU SoCal Senior Policy Advocate and Organizer Luis Nolasco discuss hate’s impact on the Inland Empire, and highlight efforts to resist. This program was co-presented with California Humanities, the National Endowment for the Humanities, United We Stand, UCR Arts, and UCR College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

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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, and the son of Guatemalan immigrants. He is the winner of the 2024 Zócalo Public Square Book Prize for Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino,” which wrestles with these questions and many more around identity, history, and culture. Tobar visits Zócalo to discuss the epic journey the book took him on—across the country, to Guatemala, and back again—and the epic American journeys that define the “Latino” experience.

Zócalo Public Square is proud to award the 2024 Zócalo Poetry Prize to Melanie Almeder for her poem “Coyote Hour.”

The 2024 Zócalo Book and Poetry Prizes are generously sponsored by Tim Disney.

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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 the Golden State. This discussion was moderated by Joe Mathews, California columnist & democracy editor at Zócalo Public Square. This program was presented in partnership with CalMatters.

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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 codes. This discussion was moderated by Destination Crenshaw’s Director of Public Art Projects Heather Heslup.

Presented in partnership with Destination Crenshaw, with generous support from Supervisor Holly Mitchell and Akieva and Martin Jacobs.

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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 generous support from Akieva and Martin Jacobs and Supervisor Holly Mitchell.

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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 similar efforts are scoring big. This discussion is moderated by Khalil Kinsey, curator of the Kinsey African American Art & History Collection.