Zócalo Admin, Author at What It Means to Be American

The Japanese-American Flower Growers Who Made Phoenix Bloom

Post-WWII Gardens Like My Family’s Found Beauty in Stony Ground

By Kathy Nakagawa
January 14, 2016

When my high school orchestra teacher found out my family owned a Japanese flower garden in Phoenix, Arizona, he made a confession: He had once snuck into those fields. He stole flowers to propose to his wife. To this day, I meet other people who share with me equally vivid memories of the farms. One friend told me: “I would drive my mom there every weekend!” Although all of the flower fields are gone now, they’re still an important part …

What the First First Couple Bequeathed America

George and Martha Washington’s Close Partnership Helped Them Through Rebellion, War, and Even the Presidency

By Flora Fraser
January 12, 2016

One of the most revealing spaces at Mount Vernon, George and Martha Washington’s home in Virginia, is a bare attic bedroom. Martha retreated here after George’s death in 1799. Without him, she would not occupy the elegant bedchamber they had so long shared. Grief made this tough, capable woman give up her will to live. She died, still in that attic retreat, a few years later.

Standing at the threshold of that little room, 10 years ago, I wondered at the …

How to Drink Like a Gangster

Four Cocktails to Die for, Courtesy of America’s Underworld

By Scott M. Deitche
January 8, 2016

For his brief reign atop the Gambino crime family, in the late 1980s, John Gotti, the “Teflon Don,” was the heir apparent to Al Capone as America’s top mob boss. Gotti was as extravagant as he was charismatic, with a larger-than-life persona that extended to his taste for the finer things, including drink. As gifts, he liked to give his loyal underlings bottles of Rémy Martin Louis XIII Cognac, which can run in the thousands.

After Gotti was sentenced to …

The Native Americans Who Drew the French and British Into War

The Anishinaabeg Played an Outsized Role in World Affairs

By Michael A. McDonnell
January 5, 2016

When a young George Washington approached the forks of the Ohio River in the spring of 1754, he was nervous. The previous year, as he scouted the area that would become Pittsburgh to contest French claims to the region, he came across seven scalped settlers. His escorts told him it was the work of a group of Indians allied with the French. Returning to the area a year later, he heard that hundreds of those same Native Americans were on …

How Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse Elevated the Everyman

The Disneyfication of American History Began Long Before the Theme Parks

By Bethanee Bemis
January 3, 2016

There are few symbols of pure Americana more potent than the Disney theme parks. To walk down any of the destinations’ manicured Main Streets, U.S.A.—as hundreds of thousands of visitors do each day—is to walk though a particular vision of America’s collective memory. It’s small-town values. It’s optimism. It’s energy. It’s innovation. It’s a certain kind of innocence. It is by design, the story of the “American Way”—and one that has played a dominant role in shaping the collective memory …

Do Beautiful Parks Strengthen Democracy?

To Frederick Law Olmsted, Designer of Many of America’s Most Iconic Landscapes, Common Spaces Are Key to Getting Beyond Our Own Narrow Individualism

By Garrett Dash Nelson
December 17, 2015

In 1846, shortly after his 24th birthday, Frederick Law Olmsted wrote to a friend, full of dismay about the prospect of finding a purpose in life. “I want to make myself useful to the world—to make happy—to help to advance the condition of Society and hasten the preparation for the Millennium—as well as other things too numerous to mention,” he fretted. “Now, how shall I prepare myself to exercise the greatest and best influence in the situation of life I …

When Louisiana Creoles Arrived in Texas, Were They Black or White?

Mixed-Race Migrants Came to Houston for Jobs and Ended Up Challenging Definitions of Race

By Tyina Steptoe
December 15, 2015

Actor Taye Diggs recently raised eyebrows by declaring that he hopes his young son—who has a white mother of Portuguese descent—identifies as “mixed” instead of black. Diggs, who is African-American, also included President Barack Obama in his statement. “Everybody refers to him as the first black president. I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m just saying that it’s interesting. It would be great if it didn’t matter and that people could call him mixed. We’re still choosing to make that decision, …

How a Refugee from the Nazis Became the Father of Video Games

Ralph Baer's Life Is a Classic Tale of Scrappiness and Perseverance

By Arthur Molella
December 11, 2015

It’s perhaps fitting that the man recognized as the father of the video game, that quintessential American invention, was a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, whose personal story converged with America’s at a critical time in the nation’s history.

“I had the misfortune of being born in a horrendous situation,” Ralph Baer told the Computer History Museum, of his birth to Jewish parents in 1922 in southwestern Germany. When the Nazis came to power, Baer was still a young child. They …

How One of Nixon’s Greatest Critics Changed Journalism

Mary McGrory Opened the Door for Women in the Political Newsroom—and Angered Plenty of People in the Process

By John Norris
December 8, 2015

In 1973, when the Watergate hearings were at full pitch, word leaked to reporters that Richard Nixon’s White House counsel was going to release the president’s now-infamous “Enemies List”—an index of his 20 greatest political opponents.

Barry Kalb, who was covering the hearings for the Washington Star, contacted the lawyer representing the White House counsel. “I will never tell anybody where I got it,” Kalb pestered, “Have we got anybody on the list?”

The lawyer’s response was brief: “Mary McGrory.” Her name …

Why Abolitionist Frederick Douglass Loved the Photograph

He Considered It the Most Democratic of Arts and a Crucial Aid in the Quest to End Slavery and Achieve Civil Rights

By John Stauffer
December 4, 2015

Suddenly, it seems, the camera has become a potent weapon in what many see as the beginning of a new civil rights movement. It’s become a familiar tale: Increasingly, blacks won’t leave home without a camera, and, according to F.B.I. Director James B. Comey, more police officers are thinking twice about questioning minorities, for fear of having the resulting film footage go viral.

But the link between photography (or film) and civil rights dates back to Frederick Douglass, the famous …

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