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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2017’s Most & Least Educated Cities in America
“College opens many doors. Besides providing invaluable cultural experiences and the opportunity to build lifelong connections, a college education can lead to better job opportunities and increase future earning potential. And the more degree holders earn, the more tax dollars they contribute over time, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
One way to strengthen an economy, the EPI suggests, is to attract well-paying employers “by investing in education and increasing the number of well-educated workers.” In states where workers have the least schooling, for instance, the median wage is $15 an hour compared with $19 to $20 an hour in states where 40 percent or more of the working population hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. Local governments appear to be catching on and maximizing the appeal of their cities to college graduates…”
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Christian Ortiz Gonzalez, UCSB of Paramount, is the recipient of the Jeremy D. Friedman Memorial Award
“…Hello! My name is Christian Ortiz Gonzalez and I am a fourth year majoring in Sociology and German!
Academic year working for Career Services?:
2017-2018
Describe the different types of internship or job experiences that you have been involved with?:
I have worked for UCPD as a CSO, I worked as an RA for the EOP STEP program, I have been working at EOP as a mentor since my second year, I held an internship with UCSB’s Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and now I work for Career Services…”
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Humanity’s Genes Reveal Its Tangled History
…”Reality, it turns out, is more complex and interesting than scientists ever imagined.
In the early 19th century, Jean-Fraconnçois Champollion used the Rosetta Stone to begin the process of deciphering the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt. We already knew Egypt through the Bible and the histories of the Greeks, but even Herodotus wrote 2,000 years after the beginning of the Old Kingdom. With the translation of hieroglyphics, the legend of Egypt came to life. What had been cloudy became clear.
In Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past, David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard’s Medical School and the Broad Institute, introduces us to the 21st-century Rosetta Stone: ancient DNA, which will do more for our understanding of prehistory than radiocarbon dating did. Where the latter allowed archaeologists to create a timeline based on the material objects they excavated, DNA sequencing allows scholars to explore the genetics of the people who created those material cultures. We may never see the face of Agamemnon, but we already have the DNA of the warlords of Mycenaean Greece, and in the future we could reconstruct their features from genes alone…”
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San Francisco colleges fusing social justice topics with advising to boost graduation rates
“Two San Francisco area colleges are experiencing increasing success from a program that fuses social justice topics into college prep curriculum as a part of outreach and development of high school graduates who are low income, first generation or in an unrepresented minority group. Inside Higher Ed profiles the Metro College Success Program, a bridge program offered at San Francisco State University and City College of San Francisco that provides high school students learning tracks in more than 10 academic disciplines to sharpen learning skills while navigating financial aid and academic coaching…”
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Big Businesses Create App-etizing Programs for Hispanic Students by Mary Ann Cooper
For many Hispanics community colleges are the first step in the higher education journey, but the road to a college degree begins long before high school graduation. Although Hispanic college enrollment has been growing over the past decade, Latinos still earn less than 9 percent of bachelor’s degrees among all graduating college students. How can more Hispanic students be funneled into the higher education pipeline, starting with community college? Three high profile corporations have created very different programs to change the minds and hearts of young Hispanics – some as young as middle school student, as well as high school students – and create a passion for pursuing a college education. Here are the stories of what these programs have to offer…”
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Firstgen Center Provides First-generation Students Support Financially and Beyond
“When freshmen step onto a college campus for the first time, they bring a wide range of emotions, from excitement to apprehension. First-generation college students are no exception. But in addition to their range of emotions, first-generation students bring a stigma that’s difficult to shake. The FirstGen Center at Notre Dame College in Euclid, Ohio, offers a support system and strategies to rid them of that stigma…”
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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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Testing the Water
Hydrologist Hugo Loáiciga’s early work on global warming and the hydrologic cycle significantly enhanced today’s grasp of this topic long before there was an appreciation of its impacts.
Now, for his “groundbreaking and eminent contributions to the understanding of the effects of climate processes on the recharge and the safe yield of aquifers and the improvement of groundwater management,” Loáiciga, a professor…Loáiciga received a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from the Universidad de Costa Rica and both a Master of Science and a doctorate in water resources and hydrology from UC Davis. His research interests include planning, design and analysis of water resources systems and theory as well as computational aspects of surface and groundwater hydrology. He served as a member of the city of Santa Barbara’s Water Commission for six years and joined the faculty at UCSB in 1988…”
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Stanford students in the military
“Until you have a certain level of security, you can’t do anything,” says Nicolas Lozano-Landinez, a junior at Stanford, and an ROTC cadet. Security is not a forefront concern for students at Stanford, but it is something Nicolas and Pablo think about daily. “A big part of what I’m fighting for is institutions like this one, where people can just longboard, ride bikes, and be carefree,” Pablo says…”
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Upwardly Mobile
The number of Mexican-born professionals living in the United States has more than doubled since 1995. They’re not the undocumented workers you see in evening-news mug shots or aerial photographs of a littered and barren desert. They’re college graduates — some with multiple degrees — who join their blue-collar counterparts in their journeys north…
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Rising college rates spur Hispanic progress in higher education
But the proportion of Hispanics earning degrees lags the proportion of white
Elycea Almodovar, a junior at Salem State University, was drawn to the school because of its diversity. Photo: Gretchen Ertl for The Hechinger Report
SALEM, Mass. — When Elycea Almodovar was searching for a college three years ago, she had just two criteria: It had to be diverse, and it had to have a record of actually graduating students like her — not just taking their money and letting them drop out…
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Diversity & Inclusive Teaching (Archived)
Both students and faculty at American colleges and universities are becoming increasingly varied in their backgrounds and experiences, reflecting the diversity witnessed in our broader society. The Center for Teaching is committed to supporting diversity at Vanderbilt, particularly as it intersects with the wide range of teaching and learning contexts that occur across the University…
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NAFTA talks focus on low wages for Mexican autoworkers
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has promised to bring auto manufacturing back to the United States from Mexico.
The success of NAFTA negotiations could be determined by how willing the Mexican government is to let him try.
As top officials from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico scramble to come to some sort of deal on the continental free trade pact by next Friday, the overwhelming focus of their discussions is the complicated issue of auto rules…
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Interdisciplinary art installation displays symbiosis of people, nature
The Art | Sci Center gallery replaced paintings and sculptures with mosses, plants and mushrooms Thursday.
The UCLA gallery housed “Vivarium: A Place of Life,” an art installation by graduate design media arts student Maru García. It consisted of two biospheres – one filled with plants and other natural organisms, such as mushrooms and mosses, and another featuring a performer interacting with the ecosystem, demonstrating activities such as drinking water and eating seeds. García said she wanted visitors at the exhibition to gauge the interconnectedness of humanity and the natural world as they walk through…
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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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Global Melodies: Music of Mexico Ensemble preserves, revamps mariachi music
Some musicians may frown upon heckling, but mariachi performers often encourage supportive yelling, or grito, during their concerts.
Grito can often be heard at performances by Mariachi de Uclatlán, a performance branch of UCLA’s Music of Mexico Ensemble. Directed by Grammy award-winning lecturer Jesús Guzmán, the Music of Mexico Ensemble practices traditional mariachi music in a variety of styles, such as son jalisciense from the state of Jalisco, and son jarocho from Veracruz. Guzmán said he began teaching in the ensemble in an effort to preserve the tradition for future generations…
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2018’s Best Cities for Hispanic Entrepreneurs
Expect the Hispanic and Latino community’s contributions to the U.S. economy to be nothing short of monumental in the coming decades. Not only is this demographic expected to make up a more than 25% of the U.S. population by 2050 — translating into large buying power — this group is also creating businesses at 15 times the national rate, according to one report.
The timing, therefore, could not be more appropriate for Hispanic entrepreneurs to make their business ideas a reality. But what places have the best conditions for a Hispanic-owned enterprise? To answer that question, WalletHub compared more than 180 U.S. cities across 23 key indicators of business…
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Museums Turn Their Focus to U.S. Artists of Latin Descent
When Scott Rothkopf, chief curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art, attended the U.S. Latinx Arts Futures Symposium at the Ford Foundation two years ago, the experience had a profound impact.
The organizers “wanted to draw people’s attention to the fact that Latinx artists were falling into neither category — they were not part of the growing interest in Latin American artists but also not seen as American artists,” Mr. Rothkopf said. “I left thinking that it was extremely important that the Whitney expand its thinking in this area and, by virtue of being a museum of the U.S., could do something unique by drawing attention to these artists as U.S. Americans — they could be part of the story.”..
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Gary Soto: Storyteller from the Barrio
Gary Soto came from a hard background by anyone’s reckoning. His young father died in an industrial accident when Gary was only five years old. His Mexican-American family was struggling and lived in a tough neighborhood–next to a junkyard and across from a pickle factory. All through school, he and his family worked at whatever jobs they could get, including picking fruits as migrant laborers.
His grades were never very good, and his family never encouraged reading. That just wasn’t part of their culture, what Gary referred to as the culture of poverty. In high school, he had a D average and was better known for being popular with the girls. Other kids in his place might have gone to prison, but he went to college. He had finally developed a love for books after reading To Sir, with Love, a story about an inner-city teacher…
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The New York Latino Film Festival, Presented by HBO, Celebrates its 15th Edition After Record Breaking Return
NEW YORK, April 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — The New York Latino Film Festival (NYLFF), fresh off its highly anticipated return, is excited to announce that it’s gearing up to kick off its 15th edition this summer and presented by its founding partner, HBO. The festival will once again ignite screens with the best the Latino community has to offer. With the addition of industry partners including AMC Theatres and the Motion Picture Association of America, the move into the summer is a welcome addition to the season’s Latino offerings that will further make New York the place to be for all things Latino. Final dates will be announced soon.
“As we (Latinos) continue to dominate the box office, and the conversation surrounding diversity and inclusion is at the forefront of all things, we are truly proud to be here. NYLFF’s return to celebrate its 15th edition is a testament to how much we’ve heard from the community including the entertainment industry that the festival is vital at this time.”
-Calixto Chinchilla, NYLFF Founder…
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