We take our title from a book called "City of Quartz" by native Angeleno historian Mike Davis. It's the idea that, as overwhelming as our current crisis feels, humanity has been here before. And many times, out of crisis arises something better. Last year, in the middle of the deadliest pandemic in modern history, we asked writers, scholars, and activists to explain where we were at, where we're headed — and to sift through the past to figure out what or what not to do to get to that better place.
"Excavating the Future" is hosted and written by Rubén Martínez and produced and directed by Marco Amador for Capital & Main, an award-winning news publication that reports on inequality, climate change and other issues.
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Rossana Pérez, healer and activist in the Salvadoran community of Los Angeles, talks about the transgenerational trauma among L.A.-based Central Americans that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed.
Natalia Molina, historian, author and MacArthur fellow, discusses gentrification and her family’s history of nurturing community as she attempts to highlight under-documented L.A. with her book, "A Place at the Nayarit."
Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, talks about the surge in anti-Asian harassment and violence during the pandemic and the communities that are pushing back.
Reflecting on the changes that have occurred during the pandemic, Dr. Manuel Pastor discusses how society can reverse the bad and build on the good. The future is forged through our every day actions.
Roberto Flores, co-founder of the Eastside Café, saw a potential solution to the housing crisis in the vacant state-owned homes of El Sereno. He draws on lessons from Indigenous communities in Chiapas to organize for community control and stable, dignified housing.
In the personal essay below, Rubén Martínez, host of Excavating the Future, reflects on individual and collective experiences over the past two years since the World Health Organization declared COVID a global pandemic on March 11, 2020.
Odilia Romero, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Comunidades Indigenas en Liderazgo (CIELO), talks about how traditions of mutual aid have helped Indigenous immigrant communities survive the pandemic.
Erin Aubry Kaplan explains how historically Black L.A. neighborhoods are pushing back against gentrification. She envisions using the pandemic's "pause" to shape a better future.
Black Lives Matter co-founder Melina Abdullah shares how the past can inform efforts to reshape public safety.
MacArthur Fellow Cristina Rivera Garza spoke to us from her home in San Diego to contemplate the U.S.-Mexico border, something first conceived in the imagination — which means that the imagination can also be erase it.