Every Day is Magic: Ada Limón

In her 2015 collection, Bright Dead Things, a National Book Award finalist for poetry, Ada Limón writes of moving to Kentucky: “Confession: I did not want to live here.” It’s perhaps not a surprising sentiment coming from a coastally oriented person who was raised in Northern California, attended college in Seattle, and then spent over a decade in New York City.

 

But Limón and her husband, Lucas, have been in Lexington for seven years now and the effects of settling into this place are noticeable in her new book, The Carrying (Milkweed, Aug.). It’s a phenomenally lively and attentive collection replete with the trappings of living a little closer to nature. While Bright Dead Things is marked by a preponderance of light, such as images of fireflies and neon signs, The Carrying features numerous appearances by various trees, birds, and beetles. Limón also demonstrates a greater willingness to be explicit in naming colors, particularly green. “It’s crazy green, the whole book,” she says. “Lexington is the greenest place I’ve ever lived.” Similarly, where in Bright Dead Things, Limón tells a lot of stories and anecdotes, in The Carrying she is very present in her thoughts and experiences.

As it turns out, these shifts in focus have another, altogether unexpected source. While putting Bright Dead Things together, Limón was diagnosed with chronic vestibular neuronitis, which can cause bouts of vertigo. “If I’m really having vertigo, it’s pretty intense and I really have to focus,”
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Low Graduate Enrollment For 2014 Continues

By Humberto Gutierrez
Edited by Kristen House

The 2014 American Community Survey shows low enrollment numbers for Mexican American students in the 2014-2015 school year.

In 2013, graduate and/or professional degree achievement rate was 11.2% of the total population but only 2.8% of Mexican Americans. In 2014, the graduate and/or professional degree achievement rate grew to 11.4% of the overall population and 2.9% of Mexican Americans.

Graduate and professional degree achievement has increased slightly between 2013 and 2014. Degree achievement rates among Mexican Americans also increased slightly, from 2.8 to 2.9 percent. This is an improvement from the 2012-2013 rates, which showed a .1% drop in college enrollment among the total population and a .5% drop in Mexican American college enrollment.

In 2013, only 2.8% of Mexican Americans and 1.5% of foreign-born Mexican Americans completed a graduate or professional degree. This number is up .1% since last year’s statistics.

Research has shown that many Mexican Americans are getting their associate’s or bachelor’s degrees, at 21.8% and 7.3% respectively in 2013, but are not moving on to pursue a graduate or professional degree.

References

  • Census Bureau, Selected Population Profile in the United States: 2012 and 2013
  • Census Bureau, Selected Population Profile in the United States: 2013 and 2014
  • United States S0201 and B 05006. Selected population Profile in the United States
  • Population groups: Mexican and Mexico (foreign-born)
  • Data set: American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates for years 2012 and 2013
  • Census Bureau, American Fact Finder, Selected population Profile in the Untied States


  

Poem
“…And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while…”

T.S. Eliot
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Mexican American Proarchive Annual Report for 2022

The American Community Survey is an annual survey administered by the federal government to help local officials and community leaders and businesses understand the changes that take place in their communities. It includes percentages of our population’s graduate school attainment and the employment of Mexican Americans in various occupations.  These important factors influence the allocation of federal resources. Mexican American Proarchives uses the data provided by the American Community Survey to better understand how Mexican Americans compare to the general population.

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