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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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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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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