New at Zócalo

  • Essay

    How San Francisco Became a Labor Enforcement Laboratory

    Community Partners Are Helping Local Government Protect and Empower Low-Wage Workers

    by Seema N. Patel |

    In the U.S., there is a chasm between what the labor laws say and what workers experience as their everyday realities. That’s because employment here is based on private contractual …

  • Democracy Local

    America’s Judges Are Bungling the 2024 Election

    Does Our Democracy Need a Separate Court System?

    by Joe Mathews |

    Last year, while organizing a global democracy forum in Mexico, a member of that country’s national electoral court requested I add a speaker to our program: an American …

  • Election Letters

    In Ukraine, No Election Doesn’t Mean the Electorate Is Happy

    President Zelensky Is an International Star. At Home, It’s More Complicated

    by Daria Badior |

    Regular presidential elections should have taken place in Ukraine this month.

    But on day one of Russia’s full-scale invasion of our country, Ukraine’s government introduced martial law, under which …

  • Poetry

    by Mario Martz, translated by Aldo Amparán

    I
    What’s so good about the night
    that sleeps inside the body
    of someone who learns to love
    with their fingers
    when everyone else sleeps.
    (Quiet! The sea is dreaming!)

    You …

  • Essay

    My Father, the Madrasah, and Me

    In Nigeria, Where Western Education Is King, an Arabic Studies Legacy Lives On

    by Ahmad Adedimeji Amobi |

    On a phone call the other day with a new friend, Zay, we ended up on the topic of religion. “Did you attend madrasah?” I asked her, referring to the …

  • Connecting California

    California’s High-Speed Rail Dreams Could Go “Whoosh”

    The Golden State Seems Primed to Repeat the Mistakes and Miscalculations of Indonesia’s New Bullet Train

    by Joe Mathews |

    The good news is that California will almost certainly have a high-speed rail line someday.

    The bad news is that it may look a lot like “Whoosh.”

    Whoosh is the name of …

  • Election Letters

    Seeking a Politics of Solidarity in Putin’s Russia

    In a Country Where Nothing Changes, a 23-Year-Old Finds Hope Outside the Electoral System

    by Shura Gulyaeva |

    In 2013, when I was 13, one of the oldest comedy TV programs in Russia released a sketch in which a group of musicians performed a version of Queen’s “I …