Zócalo Public Square (Audio)

Work is universal. We spend most of our lives at work -- in offices and factories, warehouses and ports, rocket launch pads and power stations -- rarely discussing what exactly we do and why. After exploring the working worlds of occupations both familiar and unfamiliar, Alain de Botton, author of How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Art of Travel, and The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, visited Zócalo to discuss work and what it all means.

From sleek laptops to shiny new cars, objects enthrall us. Objects seem capable of manipulation and seduction, building and sustaining a desire for design, even over performance, function and a fair price. Deyan Sudjic, Director of the Design Museum London and author of The Language of Things: Understanding the World of Desirable Objects, visits Zócalo to explore the power of design and what it means for art and commerce.

Swine flu, a contracting economy, rising unemployment, a wild and bloody conflict with drug traffickers, the constant threat of natural disasters and ransom kidnappings—Mexico faces several serious challenges. Since the contested 2006 presidential election there, the country has suffered crisis after crisis, constantly testing the Mexican people’s ability to realign their everyday lives. Some seek economic refuge in the United States, but most remain home, adapting, tuning out, dancing with Death. Daniel Hernandez, a former Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly writer who has spent the past 18 months blogging Mexico City, visits Zócalo to share his insights on that sprawling capital, its youth culture, and the alternately defiant and detached, resigned and resistant approaches of Mexican people to threats always looming.

Mexico and the United States share a centuries-long history, a dynamic border region and a vibrant economic relationship. The interconnectedness of the U.S. and Mexican economies is undeniable. When the North American Free Trade Agreement was implemented on January 1, 1994, the two neighbors, along with Canada, created one of the world's richest and largest trading blocs. Mexican-Americans are an influential and prominent part of U.S. society and presidents of both countries have encouraged good neighborly relations. But the flow of undocumented immigrants from Mexico has provoked sharp controversy, prompting the U.S. to fortify its southern border and crack down on workers and employers as lawmakers in Washington stalemate on comprehensive immigration reform. Unprecedented bilateral cooperation on border security and intelligence since 9/11 has been overshadowed by the struggle both countries are waging against drug-related crime as Mexico in particular leads an intense fight against organized crime. In the early 21st century, Mexico and U.S. are as important to one another as ever before. At a time when greater collaboration is vital, Arturo Sarukhán, Ambassador of Mexico, visits Zócalo to examine this unique relationship and discuss shared challenges and opportunities of the future.  

Pete Wilson’s California wasn’t too different from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s. The state’s education system lagged behind the rest of the country, interest groups had a tight grip on Sacramento, healthcare costs were rising, and the economy was the worst it had been since the Great Depression. While Wilson may be best remembered for his more controversial stances—like supporting Proposition 187, which sought to refuse services to illegal immigrants—he also managed to pass budgets and break partisan stalemates, ultimately leaving his successor a budget surplus. Ten years after he left office, at a time when many claim California is ungovernable, Pete Wilsonvisited Zócalo to chat with moderator Joe Mathews about budgets, interest groups, and how he might address the problems the state faces today.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has called California’s looming budget crisis a fiscal armageddon waiting to strike. Now, as major cuts are inevitable, doomsday seems to have come to California, particularly to its poorest. The one-million-plus Californians on CalWorks, the state’s main welfare program, could lose monthly income. Support for those who care for disabled Californians is set to be slashed. MediCal programs, children’s welfare payments, and student financial aid have all been proposed targets for cuts, severely impacting Californians who were struggling even before the recession hit. Zócalo invites a panel of experts -- including journalist Marta Russell, Mike Herald of the Western Center on Law & Poverty, Michelle Wolf, a parent of disabled child,Gloria Rodriguez, president and CEO of the Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles County, and State Senator Gil Cedillo -- to discuss with moderator Joe Mathews the long-term effects of the Armageddon budget cuts on the neediest Californians, and on the state’s overall health.

It could be said that Los Angeles has too little history and Berlin has too much. Los Angeles sits on the western edge of the New World, barely inhabited until a population boom this century, but the historical home to a series of seekers — from colonizers to immigrants to would-be movie stars and oil prospectors — who made homes in the city as they erased its past, particularly its Mexican roots. Berlin sits in the center of the Old World, the site of centuries of conflict, the most recent of which left the city divided, in ruins. But both cities today are in a moment of transition. Berlin is still being built, or rebuilt, after reunification two decades ago as the center of a newly united Europe. Los Angeles has recently faced a major wave of immigration, a sprawling eastward expansion and downtown renaissance, and a severe economic bust. How should Berlin and Los Angeles — where residents daily encounter and interact with the vestiges of history, the ghostly sites of demolition, and the clatter of construction — build for the future? Zócalo hosted a panel of historians and architects — including moderator Peter Tokofsky of the Getty Museum, Roger Sherman of Roger Sherman Architecture & Urban Design; urban historian Greg Hise; GRAFT Architects Founding Partner Wolfram Putz; Dorothee Brantz of the Technische Universität; and Niklas Maak, architecture critic for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung — to discuss what to preserve of the past, what to pave over, and how to plan and build civic identities for two notoriously changing cities. This event was made possible by a generous grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation of Los Angeles.

As healthcare costs rise and job losses leave many uninsured, Americans turn abroad for medical care. Is globalized medicine an efficient way to provide care at lower costs? And what does the trend say about our healthcare system, and how it might improve quality while increasing affordability? Zócalo hosted a panel of experts—including Arnold Milstein, U.S. Health Care Thought Leader, Mercer, John A Gillean, senior vice president and chief medical officer of CHRISTUS Health, Elizabeth A. Martinez, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Peter Hayes, health benefits strategist at Hannaford Bros. Co—to discuss the future of medical tourism. This event was made possible by a generous grant from the California HealthCare Foundation.

As an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court, Carlos R. Moreno sits on one of the country’s most innovative and followed state courts. Appointed in 2001, Moreno, the court’s only Democrat and a son of immigrants, has, as The New York Times put it, carved out principled yet empathetic positions that have won him high regard on the left and the right. He has upheld the right of counties to ban gun shows on county property, the right of consumers to sue corporations, and he has confirmed sentences in most death penalty appeals. And only days after he was being considered a candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court, Moreno issued the lone dissent in the Court’s decision to uphold Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage. Moreno visits Zócalo to discuss with UCI School of Law professor Henry Weinstein his work on the court, his advocacy on behalf of foster children, and his rise from the Solano Avenue neighborhood to the highest court in the state.

 Traffic can seem like a law of the universe: an ever-present, incontrovertible, inexplicable force. Back-ups simply happen, the other lanes always move faster, and nearby drivers are consistently inept. But traffic has a comprehensible logic — particular physical dynamics rule the flow of cars; psychology governs drivers’ assumptions and actions; and laws and technology underpin attempts at efficiency and safety on the road. Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do and What It Says About Us, visits Zócalo to explore how human nature, our relationship to our built urban environment, and a host of other complex physical, psychological, and social interactions create the phenomenon of traffic.

Since the 1960s, the U.S. prison population has increased fivefold. Prisons today hold one inmate for every one hundred adults — a record rate in American history, and one unmatched by any other country. But despite the high prison population, crime has stopped falling. Punishments can seem random in their severity and implementation, minorities and the poor still disproportionately become victims and inmates, and enforcement — particularly of probation and parole — is haphazard. How can crime be controlled? UCLA Public Policy professorMark Kleiman, author of When Brute Force Fails, visited Zócalo to offer a new strategy for cutting crime, reducing the prison population, and still enacting swift, certain, and fair punishment.  

Every unhappy oil-producing nation is unhappy in its own way. But each is touched by what’s known as the resource curse — the power of oil to harm rather than help the countries that possess it. Around the world oil vastly enriches small ruling classes, degrades the environment, and destabilizes political and economic institutions as prices fluctuate. Peter Maass, New York Times Magazine writer and author of Crude World, visits Zócalo to explore the consequences of gas-guzzling, the paradox of plenty, and how to cure our addiction to oil.

Jonathan Gold chats with Cedd Moses of 213 Downtown, Providence chef Michael Cimarusti, Copa D’Oro bartender Vincenzo Marianella, and the Varnish’s Eric Alperin about the uniquely American art of the cocktail.

Before the massive demographic shift prompted by Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was a black and white city with an African-American majority city council. Across the country, with Latino immigrants increasing in numbers and making up a key swing population, Zócalo’s panel — including University of New Orleans professor Andre Perry, Syracuse’s Jamie Winders, Stanford’s Laura López-Sanders, and urban and population geographer Anita Drever— considers whether the nation’s newest residents upset the black-white balance and what it means for the country. This is the second panel from Zócalo’s conference on Race and Immigration in Post-Katrina America, generously sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

News media around the country have scrutinized the relationship between African Americans and Latinos, particularly hints of economic competition and racial tension and violence. Zócalo invited a panel — including journalist Oscar Garza, Duke political science and African American studies professor Paula McClain, Betina Cutaia Wilkinson of Louisiana State University, and USC Annenberg professor and immigration expert Roberto Suro — to focus on the relationship between the groups to see exactly where tensions lie, where cooperation exists, and how it’s changing race in America. This is the first panel from Zócalo’s conference on Race and Immigration in Post-Katrina America, generously sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.