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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Management

Mario Rodriguez Executive Director

“Mario Rodriguez, an aviation expert with over 29 years of experience in the private and public sectors, was appointed as the executive director of the Indianapolis Airport Authority in 2014. Prior to the Authority, Rodriguez successfully transformed the Long Beach Airport into an award-winning organization with world-class facilities and exceptional financial performance. Rodriguez also served as president of the California Airports Council, and he sits on the board of Airports Council International (ACI). In the past he served at airports..”
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Victoria L Fernandez

“.Mrs. Fernandez will work alongside the firm’s executive and research teams to analyze current market trends and support asset allocation decisions across both equity and fixed income portfolios based on Crossmark’s investment outlook. Mrs. Fernandez joined the firm in 2012 as Managing Director and Head of Fixed Income. In her new role, she will maintain responsibility for managing the fixed income investment team.
“Victoria’s expertise in market analysis and her quantitative-research capabilities have proven to be an invaluable addition to our investment process,” said Crossmark’s President and Chief Executive Officer Michael L. Kern, III, CFA. “At Crossmark, we are dedicated to delivering the best investment strategies to our clients throughout changing market environments. I am confident that with Victoria’s leadership as Chief Market Strategist…”
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Updated U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade agreement maintains NAFTA’s labour mobility rules

“The rules for professional work visas will remain unchanged under Canada’s new free trade deal with the United States and Mexico.
The three countries approved updates to the agreement’s original text on Tuesday, December 10, paving the way for its ratification.
Under the new agreement, the chapter that deals with temporary entry for business persons and professionals, Chapter 16, remains essentially unchanged from the original North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.
Chapter 16 allows employers in Canada, the United States and Mexico to access professional labour from all three countries…”
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A Central American Marshall Plan Won’t Work

“Since late January, thousands of would-be asylum applicants have been held up just outside of the U.S. border with Mexico, where they have been forced to wait their turn to speak to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The growing humanitarian situation—camps for migrants are overcrowded, unhygienic, and dangerous—has renewed focus on Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s call for a Central American Marshall Plan, through which $30 billion would be channeled toward regional development in an effort to ease migration pressures. López Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, has set a goal of funding the plan by May, and U.S. President Donald Trump, eager to halt immigration to the United States, agreed to participate to the tune of $5.8 billion…”
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Asian Americans Are the Least Likely Group in the U.S. to Be Promoted to Management

“Asian Americans are the forgotten minority in the glass ceiling conversation.
This was painfully obvious to us while reading the newly released diversity and inclusion report from a large Silicon Valley company: Its 19 pages never specifically address Asian Americans. Asian men are lumped into a “non-underrepresented” category with white men (we’ll say more about that below); Asian women are assigned to a category that includes women of all races. In contrast, the report addresses Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans as distinct categories. Ironically, the chief diversity and inclusion officer of the company remarked about its efforts, “If you do not intentionally include, you will unintentionally exclude.”
But excluded from the report was the fact that Asian Americans are the least likely racial group to be promoted into Silicon Valley’s management and executive levels, even though they are the most likely to be hired into high-tech jobs. This was a key finding in a 2017 report we coauthored for the Ascend Foundation (“The Illusion of Asian Success”), analyzing EEOC data on Silicon Valley’s management pipeline…”
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NAFTA renegotiation signals little change for HE so far

“…In his United States presidential campaign in 2016, Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and to potentially withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a trilateral agreement between Canada, Mexico and the US which has been in effect since 1994.
Trump kept his promise to end the US’ participation in the TPP and in January 2017 signed an executive order to withdraw from the agreement.
However, in the commercial interests of the major economic industries of the US, he agreed to begin the renegotiation of NAFTA. Talks took place between August 2017 and September 2018. The new agreement, which is to be revised and ratified by the three countries, includes important changes regarding rules of origin, wages, the review or renewal mechanisms, agriculture and e-commerce…”
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Founders of tortilla company hope to eventually sell food to UCLA Dining

“…Ronald Alcazar spent years honing his family’s tortilla recipe with his mother for he and his brother’s new tortilla company. Today, the two UCLA alumni have their own tortilla factory and hope to sell their tortillas to UCLA Dining Services.
Anthony and Ronald Alcazar, who graduated from UCLA in 2006 and 2012 respectively, started their own flour tortilla company, Mr. Tortilla, in 2012. Anthony Alcazar said he urged his brother to start the company during Ronald Alcazar’s senior year of college because they wanted to share their family’s tortilla recipe.
Developing the tortilla recipe was a family endeavor, Ronald Acazar said. He spent over a year creating the formula with his mother and father. He said he prides Mr. Tortilla tortillas on being non-GMO and preservative-free…”

Most Hispanic parents speak Spanish to their children, but this is less the case in later immigrant generations

U.S. Latinos say it’s important for future generations of Hispanics to speak Spanish, and the vast majority speak the language to their children. However, the share of Latino parents who ensure the language lives on with their children declines as their immigrant connections become more distant, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.
Overall, 85% of Latino parents say they speak Spanish to their children, according to the Center’s 2015 National Survey of Latinos. Among immigrant parents, nearly all (97%) say they do this. But the share drops to 71% among U.S.-born second-generation Latino..”
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Being Mexican in NYC with Carlos Menchaca

New York City Councilman Carlos Menchaca became the first Mexican-American elected in the city when he won his Brooklyn seat in 2013. In Sunset Park and Red Hook, many of Menchaca’s constituents are ethnically Mexican as well, making up part of what he says is a majority foreign-born district. To mark the Cinco de Mayo celebration of Mexican culture, Menchaca talked to City & State about spending summers on a farm south of the border, the best Mexican restaurant in the city and how he has to deny working with President Donald Trump…
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People of Higher Ed: Marymount California University CFO Kathleen Ruiz

After reporting a $1.6 million loss for the 2016 academic year, Marymount California University, a small, private Catholic college in Rancho Palos Verdes, needed a big change to stay afloat.
Enter Kathleen Ruiz, who was named Marymount’s chief financial officer in July 2016. In one year, Ruiz, who had a long history in business management in the private sector – including stints with Boeing and Disney – turned the institution’s fortunes around, and Marymount closed its 2017 fiscal year with a $4.7 million profit…
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Challenges Remain for Latino College Presidents October 29, 2017

by Jamal Watson
SAN DIEGO—Dr. Beatriz T. Espinoza had no idea of the challenges that awaited her shortly after she took over as president of Coastal Bend College, a community college located in a rural part of South Texas.
The college was financially strapped and was on the brink of losing its accreditation. There was also a “disconnect” between the college and the majority of Hispanics who reside in the town of 12,000 where the college is situated…
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Autentico: The Definitive Guide to Latino Career Success

R Rodriguez, AT Tapia – 2017
… When Judith Turnock and I wrote Cracking the Corporate Code we were aware that although
the book was about the success of the thirty-two African-Americans we cited, interest in the book
would go far beyond that group. … FRIDA KAHLO, Mexican painter W hy of whom this …
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How I Made It From teen immigrant to vintner, Rolando Herrera has bottled his dream

Rolando Herrera runs Mi Sueño Winery in Napa Valley, which annually produces about 8,000 to 10,000 cases of premium estate Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Petit Verdot and a specialty blend. The family-run operation, Spanish for “My Dream,” has 16 full-time employees and 40 acres of vineyards — with another 23 planned…
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Hispanics see potential for growth in construction industry

Santiago Perez has built a career in construction. His success story, however, wasn’t written overnight.
The owner of Coastline Construction and Renovation in Tulsa left his native Uruguay to come to the United States when he was 18.
“When I got here, I saw the potential to accomplish the American dream,” said Perez, 33. “It wasn’t just a movie thing.”
Perez hung drywall, framed and served as a project manager, and in 2015 he started Coastline, which specializes in out-of-state hotel renovation. His company, which employs about a dozen people full time, currently is in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, razing and converting a 200-room hotel into time shares…
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Trump puts U.S. food, farm companies on edge over Mexico trade

By Tom Polansek and Mark Weinraub | CHICAGO
U.S. food producers and shippers are trying to speed up exports to Mexico and line up alternative markets as concerns rise that this lucrative business could be at risk if clashes over trade and immigration between the Trump administration and Mexico City escalate.
Diplomatic relations have soured fast this month, as the new U.S. administration floated a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports and a meeting between the presidents of the two countries was canceled. U.S. President Donald Trump has also pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) trade deal with Mexico and Canada…
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Black and Latina women pitch tech startups at Demo Day in Atlanta

Showcase is hosted by nationally-recognized, Atlanta-based incubator dedicated to increasing the number of women of color in tech
Startups led by Black and Latina women will make their case for capital at the first-ever demo day hosted by digitalundivided’s BIG Accelerator, the new, nationally-recognized Atlanta-based program dedicated to reversing the lack of diversity in the tech industry.
The BIG Demo Day will showcase live demonstrations by each startup to a select group of investors, corporate executives, and tech leaders, as well as talks by leading national experts from the U.S. Small Business Administration, Capital One, and Kapor Capital. helping women entrepreneurs of color develop sustainable businesses. The Demo Day is the culmination of an intense, 12-week accelerator program that provided each startup founder with coaching on how to scale their ventures, mentorship by top industry leaders, office space for one year, and $20,000 in seed funding from the investment fund Harriet Angels Syndicate…
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New Campaign Launched to Increase Latino Representation and Impact Across Greater Boston: Press Release

BOSTON, MA – The Greater Boston Latino Network (GBLN) today launched a new campaign to increase Latino representation and impact in local government, which will include digital outreach, discussion forums and the release of a new report.
“Latinos are the region’s fastest growing population, contributing billions to our local economy and tax base, but we are largely absent from decision-making positions,” said GBLN Steering Committee Member Alex Oliver-Dávila. “This campaign will help increase the voice, impact and representation of Latinos across Greater Boston.”…
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Hispanic Female-Owned Businesses On The Rise In Arizona

At about 8 o’clock on a recent Tuesday night, 36 small-business owners were working their second shift of the day at the Fuerza Local business accelerator.
The six-month-long program is for Spanish-speaking business-owners and is run by the Local First Arizona Foundation. The program trains small-business owners on the ins and outs of starting and running a business, from finances and budgeting to planning for growth, according to Edgar Olivo, the director of the program.
At the end of the program, each business will receive $1,000 to invest in their growth…
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WeHo’s John Duran Elected Chair of Latino Elected Officials Group

NALEO today announced the election of Duran as chair of its board and of two new members on the 15-member board. They are Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, executive vice president of government and corporate affairs at Univision Communications Inc. and Joseph “Pep” Valdes, executive vice president and director of new business development for Parking Company of America…
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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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