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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Architecture

TUROMAS is back at Glasstech, the professional Glass Technology EXPO in Mexico City

“…Glasstech Mexico is the perfect platform where the glass, door and window industries communicate and meet with suppliers from all over the world and Latin American buyers…”

https://www.glassonweb.com/news/turomas-back-glasstech-professional-glass-technology-expo-mexico-city

‘Calculating Brilliance’ Book reveals new insights into astronomy and politics of the Maya Terminal Classic period

Austin: Design Team for City’s Mexican American Cultural Center Provides Update

“…Austin (Travis County) — The Mexican American Cultural Center (MACC) recently held a meeting, in which they detailed the expansion that will nearly double the footprint for Phase II of the city’s Emma S. Barrientos-MACC improvement project…

…Juan Miro said that they envision extending the semicircular cultural center with more classrooms for children and adults, a new gallery and performance space, along with other improvements…”

https://www.virtualbx.com/construction-preview/austin-design-team-for-citys-mexican-american-cultural-center-provides-update/

White House Seeks To Lower Farmworker Pay To Help Agriculture Industry

“…Last month, the U.S. State Department said it will start processing more applicants seeking H-2A temporary guest worker visas to ensure U.S. farmers have foreign workers in time for spring planting.The most recent push to lower wage rates for workers on H-2A visas has drawn pushback from some strange bedfellows: immigrant-rights advocates and immigration hard-liners usually aligned with Trump.Erik Nicholson, national vice president for the United Farm Workers, says people who have worked in agriculture for decades are concerned they are going to lose their jobs. And he said vulnerable guest workers are not being provided proper hand-washing facilities and still being forced to live in cramped housing…”

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/10/832076074/white-house-seeks-to-lower-farmworker-pay-to-help-agriculture-industry

Mexican American Proarchive: Annual Report on Mexican American Professionals

News from the census American Community Survey is generally good for the 2015 year. Mexican American college enrollment was up from 18.7% to 18.9% in the 2014 and 2015 years. Graduate or professional degree attainment was also up from 2.9% to 3.0%. The number of bachelor’s degrees granted to Mexican American students rose from 7.6% in 2014 to 7.8% in 2015.

2012-2015 College Enrollment

2012-2015 Educational Attainment

In spite of these gains, Mexican Americans still remain at the bottom of the ladder when it comes to earning a bachelor’s degree. Even after broadening the group to Latinos or Hispanics, this group still lags behind. According to the Pew Hispanic Center: “As of 2014, among Hispanics ages 25 to 29, just 15% of Hispanics have a bachelor’s degree or higher. By comparison, among the same age group, about 41% of whites have a bachelor’s degree or higher (as do 22% of blacks and 63% of Asians).” Pew reports that the main reasons for this low graduation rate is that Hispanics are less likely “to enroll in a four-year college, attend an academically selective college and enroll full-time.”

College Enrollment by Race and Ethnicity

Also in the good news column, the University of California will continue to push for a greater number of underrepresented minorities; namely, Chicano/Latino students whose resident freshmen numbers rose from 2.7% to 32.3% of admitted California freshmen. In other good news, the proportion of Chicano/Latino students transferring from community colleges increased to 29.3% from 26.8% for 2015.

University of California 2015 and prior

Occupations, including those in management, business, science, and art, fared better for Mexican Americans. The number of Mexican Americans filling these occupations rose from 17.4% in 2014 to 17.5% in 2015.

2012-2015 Occupations

The total number of Hispanics filling these occupations was 16.1% in 2015, a bit lower than Mexican Americans specifically.

Hispanic or Latino Employment by Industry

The report shows that industrial employment for Mexican Americans remained the same for 2014 and 2015 at 10.2%.

2012-2015 Industry

The figures for Hispanic or Latino employment for 2015 and 2016 show a healthy increase.

According to the Pew Hispanic center, “Construction, professional and business services, health services, financial services and food services…showed healthy gains.” Most of the jobs gained by native-born Hispanic workers were in manufacturing, mostly durable goods (82,000 Hispanic workers in this industry), followed by wholesale and retail trade (79,000), publishing, broadcasting, communication and information services (55,000), and construction (54,000).

Foreign-born Hispanics had the most job gains in construction (417,000), followed by business and professional services (179,000). Together, those two industries accounted for almost three-quarters (74%) of all jobs gained by foreign-born Latinos between 2005 and 2006.

The business and professional services sector, which ranges from management and technical services to janitorial, landscaping, and waste management services, is also a key employer for non-Hispanic workers. Of the total increase in employment in 2005-06, non-Hispanic workers accounted for 410,000 employees in the industry, native-born workers 327,000, and foreign-born workers 83,000.

Gains In Employment for Native and Foreign-born Workers

Sources

  • Census Bureau, Selected Population Profile in the United States: 2015
  • Pew Research Center
  • University of California
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics

United States, Canada and Mexico to recognize each other’s arquitects

Architectural licensing bodies in the United States, Canada and Mexico have forged an agreement to allow architects to work across North American borders.
Following a decade of negotiations, the Canadian Architectural Licensing Authorities (CALA), the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) in the US and the Federacion de Colegios de Arquitectos de la Republica Mexicana (FCARM) have finalised an agreement that will allow registered architects to work across all three countries.
Currently, individuals have to register with the governing body of each country to be able to legally call themselves architects when working abroad…
Link to article

Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists

MAES was founded in Los Angeles in 1974 to increase the number of Mexican Americans and other Hispanics in the technical and scientific fields.

The idea to establish a professional society for Mexican American engineers originated with Robert Von Hatten, an aerospace electronics engineer with TRW Defense Space Systems in Redondo Beach, California. Mr. Von Hatten had for several years served as volunteer for programs directed at combating the alarming number of high school dropouts. He envisioned a national organization that would serve as a source for role models, address of the needs of its members, and become a resource for industry
Link to article


  

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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