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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Against Trump’s wishes, Mexican professionals keep visas in new trade deal
By Anita Kumar And Franco Ordoñez
August 28, 2018 04:35 PM
Updated August 28, 2018 11:12 PM
WASHINGTON
Tens of thousands of Mexican professionals who come to work in the United States will be able to keep their visas as part of the new U.S.-Mexico trade agreement, the Mexican government says, delivering a political loss to the Trump administration who sought to slash the number of visas as part of NAFTA re-negotiations.
The Mexican Economy Ministry told McClatchy that…”
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Dr. Ellen Ochoa, first Hispanic woman in space, to keynote 2018 SACNAS – The National Diversity in STEM Conference
“…Ellen Ochoa
SACNAS is excited to announce that trailblazer Dr. Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic woman ever to go to space will keynote 2018 SACNAS – The National Diversity in STEM Conference. Dr. Ochoa is also only the second female Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center—where she led the human space flight enterprise for the nation from 2013 to 2018…”
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Facts on US Latinos in 2015
“…Educational Attainment and Enrollment (highest degree completed, ages 25 and older)
1980 1990 2000 2010 2015
High school graduate or less 78.4% 71.7% 69.6% 64.1% 61.4%
Two-year degree/Some college 13.9% 19.2% 19.9% 22.8% 23.6%
Bachelor’s degree or more 7.7% 9.1% 10.5% 13.1% 15.0%…”
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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…”
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The Demands for Diversity Hiring Requires a “Pipeline” August 21, 2018 : by Armando Bengochea
“…As the summer closes and college campuses across the country come roaring back to life, the demands for an academy that better reflects the full diversity of the student body and their own experiences will no doubt come center stage once again. Atop the list of pressing demands are calls for a more racially and ethnically diverse faculty. In the current political climate, where battles over identity and American culture have taken deep root, these demands cannot be easily dismissed and student impatience on the matter is only growing. Students, and the allies they have developed both on and off campus, do not intend to let allow administrative and academic leaders off the hook. The demands for a diverse faculty are growing and will further create division between the student body and university administration if they are not addressed in a more urgent manner…”
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The Making of a Mexican American Mayor: Raymond L. Telles of El Paso and the Origins of Latino Political Power
MT García – 2018 – books.google.com
Raymond L. Telles was the first Mexican American mayor of a major US city. Elected mayor
of El Paso in 1957 and serving for two terms, he went on to become the first Mexican
American ambassador in US history, heading the US delegation to Costa Rica. Historian …
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Young Texas Latinos are an untapped voting goldmine
“…Nearly half of Texans under 18 are Latino and 95 percent of them are U.S. citizens — meaning they will be eligible to vote once they turn 18. Will they?…”
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A journalist’s journey, guided by curiosity for her father’s illness
“…Now the story of a daughter who grew up on the border between the United States and Mexico. She searches for herself, while also coming to grips with her father’s mental illness.
Amna Nawaz has the latest selection from the “NewsHour” Bookshelf…”
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Incoming student rises above personal adversity in debut song “Broken Wings”
“…Izzy Escobar flies with broken wings every day.
The incoming first-year musical theater student released her debut song “Broken Wings” on June 25, stemming from her experience of abuse from a stepparent, which she turned into inspiration for her music at a young age. The four-minute pop song, accompanied by an original music video, celebrates overcoming difficult situations in life and ultimately learning to let go and grow from them, Escobar said…”
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How to best serve Latino students
“…The University of California has received criticism for not adequately serving Latinos, the state’s largest ethnic group, since affirmative action measures were banned from use in admissions decisions in California’s public institutions in 1996, The New York Times reports.
The university system’s newest campus, UC Merced, most closely resembles the diversity of California with an undergraduate Latino population of 53%. UCLA and UC Berkeley, the system’s flagship campuses, serve Latino populations of 21% and 13%, respectively…”
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Diversity in teacher degree programs lags nationwide
“…The report showed that at Central Washington University, which graduates the most teachers in the state each year, the number of minority students was very close to their ratio in the population — including about 12% Hispanic, the largest minority. Other Washington colleges did similarly well in matching the state breakdown…”
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Minority youth will keep America great, white anxiety will not
“The Census Bureau reported last month that the nation’s white population declined for the first time. This dip was previously not projected to begin until the next decade, though it will continue for much of this century.
Many white supporters of President Trump will view this as yet another sign of the end of the America they know, as the country inches toward “majority-minority” status. To them, this means relinquishing dominance and privileged status to browner and newer Americans, whom they perceive as competing with them for jobs and government resources, while distorting their way of life. This “white anxiety” underlies many proposals from Trump, such as the Mexican border wall and Muslim ban..”
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Positioning Ourselves to Support College Success for Males of Color
“…my colleagues Jelisa S. Clark at Fayetteville State University and Matthew Smith at California State University Dominguez Hills, our recently published book, Empowering Men of Color on Campus: Building Student Community in Higher Education, takes an in-depth look at the collegiate experiences of males of color at a Hispanic serving institution in the southwest region of the U.S.
Our main objective in writing this book, published by Rutgers University Press, was to investigate how a select group of students, all of whom were engaged in a male success program on campus, narrated their educational experience,s including their pathways to and experiences during college. We wanted to know how these students thought about themselves, built relationships with their male peers, made meaning of their engagement experiences and aspired to success. We argue that despite the overly projected deficit narrative about males of color, there is much to learn from their meanings, associations, engagements and efforts, as well as their connections to and uses of community…”
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New Chicago college opens for Latino students
“…Latino students with limited English skills and lacking a high school diploma will be able to attend a new, private two-year college in Chicago this fall that will help them get middle income jobs, according to Inside Higher Education…”
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Borders, mobility and belonging
M Gilmartin, P Wood – 2018 – books.google.com
Questions of migration and citizenship are at the heart of global political debate with Brexit
and the election of Donald Trump having ripple effects around the world. Providing new
insights into the politics of migration and citizenship in the UK and the US, this book …”
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California college students can take free online course from any state institution
“…The California State University system is more broadly promoting an initiative that will allow its residential students to access online courses at any of its 23 campuses through a new database launched this week, Inside Higher Education reported. Students will be able to take one free online course each semester…”
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Six CSU Campuses Top Producers of Latino Doctorate Recipients
“…According to data recently compiled by the National Science Foundation (NSF), six CSU campuses are among the top in the nation for graduating Latino students who go on to earn a Ph.D. in the sciences.
Long Beach, Los Angeles, Northridge, Pomona, San Diego and San Francisco are among the nation’s top 55 U.S. bachelor’s and master’s granting institutions for producing Latino doctorates in areas such as chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer sciences and biological sciences…”
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UC admits record number of transfer students for fall
“…The University of California offered admission this fall to more transfer students than it has at any point in its history, officials announced Wednesday.More than 137,000 students were offered spots at one of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses, including roughly 28,750 transfer applicants, according to UC.California residents comprise the majority of the newly admitted students, making up 71,086 freshmen and 24,568 transfer students. The California freshman admission numbers rose by 1,114 students compared with last year’s numbers…
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To meet state attainment goals, higher ed will have to get explicit about race
“…Nearly every state has set, revised or adopted a degree attainment goal in the last few years, fueled primarily by projections that 65% of job vacancies will require some type of post-secondary training by 2020.
In most cases, however, these degree attainment goals do not focus on the various racial and ethnic sub-populations in each state, which the Education Trust’s senior director of Higher Education Research and Data Analytics, Andrew Nichols, said is problematic, particularly as the nation’s demographics continue to shift toward a browner population…
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Study: Key to boosting student outcomes might be emphasis on cultural learning
“…Preliminary data from a San Francisco State University evaluation study demonstrates that students in ethnic studies majors graduate at approximately 20% higher rates than nonmajors. At the same time, students enrolled in at least one ethnic studies class also graduated at a higher rate than students not taking the class. According to a press release from the university, ethnic studies majors maintained a six-year graduation rate of 77.3% compared with a rate of 52.3% for nonmajors…”
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