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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From minor to major
One American in six is now Hispanic, up from a small minority two generations ago. By mid-century it will be more than one in four. David Rennie explains what that means for America
IN THREE TERMS representing Colorado in Congress, John Salazar got used to angry voters calling him a Mexican and not a proper American. During fights over the Obamacare health-insurance law, a constituent told him to “go back where you came from”. The attacks were misplaced. Mr Salazar is proud of his Hispanic heritage, but he comes from a place with deeper American roots than the United States. One of his ancestors, Juan de Oñate y Salazar, co-founded the city of Santa Fe in New Mexico…
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Mexican and Central American Immigrant Rights: Local Justice Struggles in a Global City
C Kovic – 2015
… inequalities. Global cities are highly stratified sites which require both high-level, well paid
professionals and low-paid service sector workers, employed as domestic workers, in food industry,
and as janitors (Sassen 1991). … 7 term Mexican American, Chicano, or Hispanic. …
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Cockroach Dreams: Oscar Zeta Acosta, Legal Services, and the Great Society Coalition
Early in Oscar Zeta Acosta’s 1972 novel, The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, his protagonist, Oscar Acosta, quits his job as a War on Poverty-funded Legal Services lawyer in East Oakland, California, dumping his law license in the wastepaper basket. His resignation precipitates his search for racial identity in Autobiography and eventual transformation into Buffalo Zeta Brown, the activist Chicano lawyer in Acosta’s sequel, The Revolt of the Cockroach People (1973). (1) Oscar’s abrupt departure enacts a double rejection. First, he rejects the liberalism that led him to take on “the enemy our president [Lyndon Johnson] so clearly described in his first State of the Union address” (Autobiography 22). Instead, especially in Revolt, Oscar/ Brown adopts a militant Chicano/a Cultural Nationalism at odds with the politics of integrationist Mexican American leaders affiliated with the Democratic Party. (2) Second, he rejects the professional aspirations…
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City Election Sea Change Santa Barbara to Initiate New District System This November
Although a few “i”s remain to be dotted and few “t”s to be crossed, the Santa Barbara City Council voted 6-0 to settle a lawsuit charging that the at-large elections City Hall has conducted since 1971 have yielded “racially polarized” results as defined by the California Voting Rights Act. The five plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit pointed out that only one Latino — Cathy Murillo — had been elected to the council since 2000 even though Latinos make up 38 percent of the population and 24 percent of eligible voters. As part of the settlement, the council agreed to begin holding district elections this November, when three seats come up for grabs…
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El Movimiento Chicano in Colorado
On Saturday February, 7 the Colorado History Museum opened an exhibit of El Movimiento – The Chicano Movement in Colorado that attempts to offer a picture of over a decade of explosive activities that described the drive for social and political justice for Latinos. Among the founders of the exhibit is Ricardo LaFore who talks of it as immersing the visitor “in the urgency, passion and vitality of one of Colorado’s most important social movements as activists fought to end discrimination and to gain social and political power through education, culture and the arts.” …
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The Mexican morass
A president who doesn’t get that he doesn’t get it
Jan 24th 2015
IN A new year message Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, promised to work to “liberate” his country from crime, corruption and impunity. His cabinet has duly set these as its priorities. The message is the right one. But unfortunately for Mr Peña, Mexicans are increasingly cynical about the…
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Cecilia Abbott becomes state’s first Hispanic first lady
AUSTIN, Texas
The swearing in of new Texas Gov. Greg Abbott makes his wife the state’s first Hispanic first lady.
Cecilia Abbott is the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants and was raised in San Antonio.
Delivering his inaugural address on the steps of the state Capitol on Tuesday, the new governor said his wife embodies Texas.
He said the state “has been the blending of cultures from across the globe even before we became our own nation.”…
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CHCI Swearing-In Ceremony Welcomes New Chair Rep. Linda Sanchez and Hispanic Members of the 114th Congress
Government Fri, January 09, 2015 12:01 PM
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In an historic night for the Hispanic community, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI), the nation’s premier Latino youth leadership development and educational organization, welcomed the Hispanic members of the 114th Congress at a ceremonial swearing-in on Tuesday, January 6, 2015, at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C. More than 400 people turned out to see seventeen Hispanic members, including newly-elected CHCI Chair Rep. Linda Sanchez, stand shoulder to shoulder and be sworn in as leaders of their communities by the Honorable Judge Terry J. Hatter, Jr., Chief Judge, Central District of California.
“My goal for CHCI is simple: empower the next generation to realize their potential and to lead,” said Sanchez. “There are so many talented Latino youth that only need a door of opportunity to open for them. CHCI opens that door. I’ve been fortunate to have had great mentors, like Judge Hatter, who taught me not to accept others’ limited expectations for what I could be or achieve. CHCI does the same thing…
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In With the New: Meet Congress’ Latino Newcomers
The total number of Latinos in Congress rose by one, to 29, after the midterm elections, a new high, according to tallies kept by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Here are the newcomers who will be sworn in after the 114th Congress convenes Jan. 7…
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The Election of Pete Chacón: Latino Hope, Pride and a New Belief in the System
By Maria E. Garcia
Peter “Pete” Chacón
The general public knew Peter Chacón as a California State Assemblyman who served from 1970-1992. Very few know or understand what Pete’s election meant to the Latino community.
From the time I was a small child I remember my parents going inside a building to vote. They would take turns voting as we sat in the car. One parent would go inside to vote while the other parent would care for us. Then the reverse would occur. Voting was always a special activity and in many ways a mystery…
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George I. Sánchez : the long fight for Mexican American integration
“George I. Sánchez was a reformer, activist, and intellectual, and one of the most influential members of the ‘Mexican American Generation’ (1930-1960). A professor of education at the University of Texas from the beginning of World War II until the early 1970s, Sánchez was an outspoken proponent of integration and assimilation. He spent his life combating racial prejudice while working with such organizations as Read more..
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The next Mexican Revolution?
The Mexican Revolution, which launched on Nov. 20, 1910, was the first major political and social revolution of the 20th century. It brought an end to Porfirio Díaz’s 34-year dictatorship and transformed Mexico through land reform, the implementation of presidential term limits and the nationalization of natural resources.
Today, on the 104th anniversary of the revolution, Mexico faces another defining moment…
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Jupiter’s El Sol wins grant from Mexico to enhance education programs
The Mexican Consulate on Tuesday awarded the El Sol Neighborhood Resource Center a $9,000 educational grant known as IME Becas to support and enhance their adult education programs at the center at the southwest corner of Indiantown Road and Military Trail.The IME Becas program began in 2005 to raise the education levels of the Mexican population living in the United States.“We are thrilled to have been selected by the Mexican Consulate to further our education mission with this tremendous grant,” said Dora Valdivia, Associate Director of El Sol. “Our students become empowered by creating a solid foothold with their literacy, which allows them to aspire towards increased educational goals that becomes the gateway to opportunity.”…
40 Under 40: Latinos in American Politics
A new generation of Latinos continues to move up in American politics. Some are immigrants, others are homegrown; most are progressive, but conservatives have elevated serious talent as well. Last year’s list of excellent Latinos in politics focused on Capitol Hill. This year’s looks further, to Latinos in key roles across the spectrum of American politics.
In 2014, the Obama administration…
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Young Latino Mayor Pete Aguilar Could Turn a Red House Seat Blue
Long before he aspired to be in Congress, Democrat Pete Aguilar’s dream was to be like his father who worked for the local utility.
“My mother tells the story that she made me a little uniform just like his and I think she has baby books that she shows …He worked for the local gas company for 37 years,” Aguilar said.
But he didn’t fill his father’s shoes. Instead, at age 26 he set his own path and became the youngest city council member in the California city of Redlands’ 126-year history when five council members, Democrat and Republican, picked him out of 11 candidates to fill an open seat. He was elected to the seat a year later, his first election. Then his colleagues appointed him mayor in 2010 and again in 2012.
Today Aguilar’s going after another vacancy, the U.S. House seat for California’s 31st Congressional District. The incumbent, Republican Rep. Gary Miller was in for a bruising race as the Democrats’ No. 1 target. He chose to retire. Aguilar, a Democrat, and his opponent Republican Paul Chabot will face off in November…
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The United States and Mexico: Forging a Special Relationship
Should the United States and Mexico establish a “special relationship,” similar to those the US maintains with Great Britain and Israel? For Samir Tata, an increasingly self-confident and politically active Mexican – American population means that the historical, geographical, demographic and economic case has never been more compelling…
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Mexican-American To Coordinate Care Immigrants, Undocumented Children In Chicago
Mexican-American Tonantzin Carmona, 24, has assumed the management of the Office of New Americans at Chicago City Hall, which provides needed aid to immigrants and will coordinate shelter in this city for 1,000 undocumented Central American children.
The young woman replaces another Mexican, Adolfo Hernandez, who was the first director of this office, founded by Mayor Rahm Emanuel soon after he was elected, with the mission of making Chicago the best city in the world…
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Hispanics Are Forgotten in Civil Rights History
Whenever civil rights has been covered in history class, or when I’ve seen a documentary or read an article concerning such, I have always been very aware of what is missing, and it is something that I am interested in and looking for. As an American of Hispanic descent, I never see any information related to my ethnicity’s cause for civil rights. Where is the plight of Hispanics represented in the civil rights discussion and history of the United States…
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Millions of Americans changed their racial or ethnic identity from one census to the next
Millions of Americans counted in the 2000 census changed their race or Hispanic-origin categories when they filled out their 2010 census forms, according to new research presented at the annual Population Association of America meeting last week. Hispanics, Americans of mixed race, American Indians and Pacific Islanders were among those most likely to check different boxes from one census to the next…
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Ruben Salazar questioned his own Chicano identity
By Zita Arocha
During a television interview shortly before newsman Ruben Salazar was killed by cops during a 1970 Chicano Anti-War march in Los Angeles, the now legendary Mexican-American journalist asked: “Why do I always have to apologize to Americans for Mexicans and to Mexicans for Americans?”
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