HUMBERTO'S BOOKS NEWS AND INFORMATION M.A. PROARCHIVE ANNUAL REPORTS M.A. PROFESSIONALS BIOS POLITICAL SCIENCE PRESS RELEASES

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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Dragging the State Board into the Present

Published June 22, 2015 | By admin

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When Houston author and activist Tony Diaz lit a cultural fire at the State Board of Education last year by demanding that Texas honor its majority Hispanic student body with a high school course in Mexican-American studies, the board did what it does best: It burned.
Board member David Bradley (R-Beaumont), perhaps as a sort of thought exercise, proposed adding a course in Irish-American studies to honor his heritage. Board member Pat Hardy (R-Weatherford) deemed the course wholly unnecessary. “We’re citizens of the United States, not citizens of Mexico,” she said.
Diaz asked, “Who will walk with us into this new America, and who will turn their backs on us?”
MerryLynn Gerstenschlager of the Texas Eagle Forum wondered aloud what sort of “new America” Diaz had in mind and why the Founding Fathers weren’t good enough for him…
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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.