Zócalo Public Square

The Republican Party should be the dominant force in American politics. GOP politicians now control the White House, 33 governorships, and hold majorities in the U.S. House, Senate and 32 state legislatures. But in spite of the party’s electoral success, the rise of Donald Trump has raised difficult questions about the party’s long-term future. Does Trump’s flirtation with white nationalism threaten to taint the party of Lincoln and permanently alienate younger and more diverse generations of Americans? Can the GOP survive the rise of anti-establishment forces on the right that reject old-guard conservatives who remain its financial base? Moderator Christina Bellantoni, Assistant Managing Editor, Politics, for the Los Angeles Times, was joined by Mike Madrid, a Sacramento GOP political consultant and partner at GrassrootsLab, Cassandra Pye, a public affairs strategist and founder of 3.14 Communications, and Leslie Graves, publisher of Ballotpedia, to consider whether the Republican Party is stronger or weaker

Donald Trump has said that many immigrants are criminals and security risks, and that in response he is pursuing an “America First” agenda of deporting and banning those migrants whom he claims could pose threats to public safety. What does that mean for Los Angeles County, where more than one-third of residents were born in another country? How has life changed for L.A. immigrants—from the undocumented, to green card holders, to longtime naturalized citizens—as a result of Trump’s rhetoric and policies? These questions took center stage at a Zócalo/The California Wellness Foundation event titled “What Does Trump Mean for Immigrant L.A.?” at The National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles. Moderator Jennifer Medina, a reporter for The New York Times, was joined by Roberto Suro, director of USC’s Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, James McDonnell, the Los Angeles County Sheriff, Stephen Cheung, the president of World Trade Center Los Angeles, and Cinday Carcamo, who co

Hawaii’s geographic isolation, unique volcanic topography, complex colonial past, and vibrant ethnic mix keep it at a certain distance from the broader American historical experience. How does Hawaii's fierce sense of exceptionalism influence its place in American culture? What’s happening to this sense of identity as more Hawaii residents leave and integrate with the world beyond its shores? Those were among the key questions taken up at a Smithsonian/Zócalo “What It Means to Be American” event titled “Does Hawaii Have America’s Strongest Identity?” before a packed house at Artistry Honolulu in Honolulu. Moderator Lee Cataluna, a metro columnist for The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, was joined by Jasmine Trias, singer and American Idol finalist, Kurt Osaki, graphic designer and founder of Osaki Creative Group, Lawrence Downes, journalist and former editorial board member of The New York Times, and comedian Augie T to discuss the 50th state’s strong, but rapidly evolving, sense of itself.

Some studies consistently have shown that attendance is declining for “benchmark” arts events, the kind that take place in concert halls and formal theaters and don’t ask audiences to do much more than show up, watch and listen, and applaud on cue. But, at the same time, a profusion of relatively inexpensive DIY digital technology is allowing millions of people to participate in the arts in new ways, by creating and curating their own cultural experiences. Will the net result encourage arts engagement or hinder it in the long run? Those and other questions were taken up by Steven Tepper dean of Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, and the author of Not Here, Not Now, Not That! Protest Over Art and Culture in America, during a Zócalo Public Sauare Conference titled “What Can the World Teach California About Arts Engagement?” on June 25, 2017 in downtown Los Angeles.

Arts organizations have crunched much data and spent many fortunes in search of new ways to engage younger people and those who previously did not spend much time at concerts or in galleries. Their cutting-edge strategies are about meeting people where they are, and delivering more of the arts they want. But does the public even know what it wants? Have all the investments in outreach, digital displays and technology produced results? Or are we learning that attracting audiences is itself less a science and more an art? These were some questions posed at a panel discussion, “What Does the Public Want From the Arts?” at a Zócalo /Irvine Foundation conference, “What Can the World Teach California About Arts Engagement?” Speakers on the panel included moderator Chris Jones, the chief theater critic for the Chicago Tribune; Randi Korn, founding director of museum planning specialists Randi Korn & Associates, Mexico City-based performing arts curator and consultant Cristina King Miranda, and Japanese American Cult

The abstract, everywhere-and-nowhere space of the global art world actually consists of thousands of local artists and local arts organizations that are building bridges with other localities by tapping into common human experiences. How can local artists and arts organizations, especially those with limited budgets, create these types of connections with localities both near and far-flung? This was a crucial question of a keynote speech, How Do the Arts Appeal to Local Crowds in a Globalized World? delivered by The Asia Society’s vice president for global arts programming Boon Hui Tan at Zócalo/Irvine Foundation conference, What Can the World Teach California About Arts Engagement? on June 25, 2017 at the Omni Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

What is the nature of the relationship between embracing the arts and participating in the life of a community? When and under what circumstances do the arts bind people and places together—and when do they divide us? And what do we need from the arts at a moment when many people are more isolated, and our civic life more polarized? These questions were discussed during a panel, “Does Art Really Make Us Better Citizens?” at a Zócalo/Irvine Foundation conference, “What Can the World Teach California About Arts Engagement?” moderated by Suse Anderson, co-host of Museopunks and Assistant Professor of museum studies at George Washington University. The speakers included Middle East Institute Arts & Culture Program director Lyne Sneige; Arts and Humanities chair of Mexico’s Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Lerma, Luz María Sánchez; global arts consultant Gail Dexter Lord; and cultural historian and chair of Theatre at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte Lynne Conner.

Where are the most creative ideas for pulling people into the arts, and into the lives of their nations, their cities and their neighborhoods? Which specific programs have attracted new audiences? Those questions were raised in a panel discussion on “How Is the Art World Innovating to Reach Broader Audiences?” at a Zócalo Public Square Conference titled “What Can the World Teach California About Arts Engagement?” on June 25, 2017 in downtown Los Angeles. Moderator Seth Porges, a technology writer and television personality, led the panel comprising New Orleans-based visual artist Brandan “BMike” Odums; Rosa Ferré, exhibitions chief at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona; and Berlin-based opera director Lydia Steier.

Even as digital technology has grown more sophisticated, accessible, and integral to our lives, social inequality has cast a deeper shadow across the United States in recent decades. Getting a quality education has become ever more essential for individual success and fulfillment. But can tech-enhanced education help break down—or perhaps even erase—our widening social divisions? That question was unpacked by a panel at a Zócalo/Arizona State University event titled “Can Digital Learning Dismantle the American Class System?” at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles. Moderator Goldie Blumenstyk, senior writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education, was joined by retired superintendent of the Coachella Valley Unified School District Darryl Adams, college provost at the University of Maryland University College Marie Cini, Arizona State University president Michael Crow, and Google chief education evangelist Jaime Casap to discuss how digital education can c

Much like our 21-century global village, the ancient world wrestled over issues of free trade, self-aggrandizing elites, destabilizing religious conflict, and how to treat refugees fleeing wars and unstable environments. What can antique societies teach us today about how to cope with such challenges? This was the fundamental question in a lively Zócalo/ Getty “Open Art” event titled “What Can the Ancient World Teach Us About Globalization?” Moderator Margot Roosevelt, economy reporter for the Orange County Register, was joined by Roger Bagnall, a classics scholar at New York University, Grant Parker, a classical philologist at Stanford University, and Jan Nederveen Pieterse, a scholar of globalization, development and cultural anthropology at the University of California Santa Barbara, to discuss globalization’s benefits and discontents, in the distant past and in our own pressing time.

What Does Blue Mean?

Princeton University sociologist Mitchell Duneier visited Zócalo at MOCA Grand Avenue to discuss how the ghetto was invented as a place and an idea. The story stretches from 16th-century Venice, Italy, to contemporary urban America, with stops in between in Nazi Germany and among mid-century University of Chicago social scientists. Dueneier is the author of Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea, winner of the seventh annual Zócalo Public Square Book Prize, which is awarded to the year’s nonfiction book that most enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion.

Americans talk a lot about the importance of good citizenship. But what does it mean to be a good citizen? By many measures, we may be falling short. American voter turnout is low compared to other nations, and in online discussion we’re quick to attack others who disagree with our point of view. How have Americans defined and lived citizenship, past and present? Are we really less civil now than we were in previous eras? The Washington Post “Civilities” columnist Steven Petrow, Texas A&M University historian of American political rhetoric Jennifer Mercieca, Western Washington University historian of civil society and author of Creating a Nation of Joiners Johann N. Neem, and former Oklahoma Congressman Mickey Edwards discuss whether it’s possible—and if, so, how—to raise American standards of citizenship.

Virtually every U.S. President in the modern era has tried in some way to assert executive authority over Congress and the courts, the other two branches of government. But is the White House’s growing clout upsetting our system of checks and balances? This was the question at the heart of a lively Zócalo/UCLA event entitled “Does the Expansion of Presidential Power Threaten the Constitution?” before a packed house at the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Los Angeles. Moderator Ronald Brownstein, senior editor of The Atlantic and a CNN senior political analyst, was joined by John T. Woolley, a University of California at Santa Barbara political scientist and co-director of the American Presidency Project website, Joel Aberbach, director of UCLA’s Center for American Politics and Public Policy, UCLA political scientist Lynn Vavreck, and UCLA constitutional law scholar Adam Winkler, to discuss how and why recent presidents have done end-runs around other government branches.

David Simon, the author, former Baltimore Sun journalist, screenwriter and producer known for such acclaimed TV series as The Wire and Treme talks about the relationship between journalism and popular culture, and how his own career transitioned from newspapers to television screenwriting. Simon was speaking on a panel at a Zócalo/Getty “Open Art” panel discussion, “Does Art Capture Reality Better Than the News?” at The Getty Center in Los Angeles.

Why is globalization disparaged as a boon to very few, at the expense of most? This was the question at the heart of a lively Zócalo/UCLA event entitled “Does Globalization Only Serve Elites?” before a packed house at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. Moderator Steven Greenhouse, former New York Times labor reporter and author of The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, was joined by UCLA Anderson economist Jerry Nickelsburg, business and policy entrepreneur Kati Suominen, UCLA legal scholar and labor policy expert Katherine Stone, and Los Angeles World Trade Center President Stephen Cheung in discussing who wins and who loses in globalization.

"Can television bring America together?” was the question tackled by several writers and creators of television shows that have challenged traditional cultural and social boundaries before a full house at a Smithsonian/Zócalo “What It Means to Be American” event at the Landmark Theaters in Los Angeles. Moderator John Bowman was joined by creator and writer of Martin, was joined by Jennie Snyder Urman, Jane the Virgin showrunner, Dan O’Shannon, former executive producer of Modern Family, Gloria Calderón Kellett, co-showrunner and executive producer of Netflix’s One Day at a Time.

California’s Central Valley is widely regarded as rural and agricultural, even by those who live there. But its reality and future are profoundly urban. The valley’s cities appear small only in comparison with the mega-metropolitan regions along the California coast. After struggling to build infrastructure equal to their growing size and importance, valley cities finally seem to be catching up with their urban needs—adding more cultural venues, revamping downtowns, and developing new transit and water systems. The Sacramento Bee editorial page editor Dan Morain, Fresno State president Joseph I. Castro, Valley Vision managing director Meg Arnold, Davis City Manager Dirk Brazil, and Placer County Schools superintendent Gayle Garbolino-Mojica examined those questions at a Feb. 15 Zócalo/The California Wellness Foundation event at the Capitol Event Center in downtown Sacramento.

The possibility that a Donald Trump administration might restrict Muslim immigration and compile a registry of Muslim Americans has raised alarms among ethnic and religious groups, civil libertarians, and others. Ann Burroughs, interim president and CEO of the Japanese American National Museum and chair of the board of directors of Amnesty International USA, moderated a Zócalo/UCLA panel, in partnership with the Japanese American National Museum, on how the mass internment of Japanese Americans during World War II provides a case study of what could happen if a tragic incident were to trigger a federal crackdown against a particular religious or ethnic group. She was joined by Hiroshi Motomura, a scholar of immigration and citizenship law at the UCLA School of Law; Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, a sociocultural anthropologist in UCLA’s Department of Asian American Studies; and Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum.

Many foodies and sustainability activists don’t like genetically-modified organisms, or GMOs.  But are their concerns a matter of style or substance?  A recent Zócalo/UCLA panel, held at MOCA Grand Avenue in downtown L.A. and moderated by KCRW Good Food host Evan Kleiman, explored concerns about GMO products. UCLA molecular biologist Bob Goldberg joined longtime Los Angeles Times food editor Russ Parsons and Edward Parson, a co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA, in a wide-ranging discussion that touched on food safety, environmental regulation, corporate monopolies and what foods the panelists like to cook, buy, and eat.