New at Zócalo

  • Culture Class

    Cowboy Boots Were Made for Everyone

    For Over a Century and Half, the Footwear Has Carried the Story of a Nation

    by Jackie Mansky |

    “In these anxious days,” wrote Aaron Latham in the original Esquire article that inspired the movie Urban Cowboy, “some Americans have turned for salvation to God, others have turned to …

  • Glimpses

    Don’t Close the Curtains on Kenya’s Acrobats

    They Fly Through the Air and Build Human Pyramids to Tourists’ Delight. But the Performers Struggle for Recognition and Financial Stability

    by Nina Berman and Micha Espinosa; photographs by Sabine Skiba |

    It’s showtime at one of Kenya’s five-star resort hotels.

    Tourists from around the world move in small groups to the performance area next to the pool to see the evening’s headliner: …

  • Essay

    The Black Songwriter Who Took Nashville by Storm

    Before Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” Won Song of the Year at the CMAs, Hit Maker Ted Jarrett’s Music Topped the Country Charts

    by Robert M. Marovich |

    Singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman made history last year when she became the first Black artist to receive the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year Award, after Luke Combs remade a …

  • Connecting California

    The Road to Climate Hell Is Downhill—and Scenic

    Death Valley’s Present Is a Window Into the Future

    by Joe Mathews |

    If the world really is going to hell, you should get your brakes checked. The ride is going to be very downhill.

    I learned that lesson, among others, after my own …

  • Essay

    Raging Against the Political Machine

    The 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles Tells the Story of a City—and Nation—in Transition

    by Ben Austin |

    In 2000, I ended up in a cage outside the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in downtown Los Angeles wearing a dark suit, swimming against the current in a sea of …

  • The Takeaway

    Life After Incarceration Starts in Community

    “‘What Is a Good Job Now?’ For the Formerly Incarcerated” Reveals the Hard, Long Work of Building Careers for People Reentering Society

    by Talib Jabbar |

    What is a good job now?

    That has been the guiding question for Zócalo’s ongoing series investigating low-wage work across sectors in California—supported by The James Irvine Foundation. Thus far, we’ve …

  • Poetry

    by Rosamund Taylor

     

    We want to weigh 150 tonnes
    and be covered in grey-blue skin
    smooth as oil. We want our lungs
    to deflate into our chests
    when we hunt
    the midnight zone