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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There Are Literally No Asians Or Latinos Nominated For Acting Oscars This Year
Headlines touted the nominations as “diverse,” as several black actors received well-deserved recognition. However, no Asian or Latino actors snagged any nods for their acting this year.
Many actors of color and social media users, including Gina Rodriguez and Constance Wu, were not pleased, and called the Academy out on its lack of representation.
This will be the sixth consecutive year that no Latino actors have been nominated for an acting Academy Award. Last year, Dev Patel was the sole actor of Asian descent who received a nod..
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To attract more blacks and Hispanics to STEM, universities must address racial issues on campus
ROY, N.Y. — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was not Tiana Young’s first choice for college, even though Young wants to dual major in aeronautical and mechanical engineering, and the private university is one the top schools in the country for science, technology, math and engineering.
The school had one big drawback: Rensselaer’s student body is more than two-thirds white and Asian, according to federal data. For Young, who is black and whose high school in Spring Valley, New York was almost entirely African-American and Hispanic, “the lack of diversity was a very big concern,” says the freshman…
Colleges Scramble to Help Undocumented Students as Hopes for a DACA Deal Fade
On Wednesday afternoon, after House Democrats met with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, the spirit in Washington was one of stalemate. There was little progress toward a bipartisan deal to protect the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which prevents the deportation of undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, in exchange for Democrats’ votes to prevent a government shutdown by January 19.
But across the country in Sacramento, at a press conference held by University of California system president Janet Napolitano, the mood was one of urgency. Flanked by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and two other UC system officials, she urged the system’s 4,000 undocumented students to hurry to take advantage of the recent court ruling that reinstated DACA renewals after the Trump administration ended them last fall—a ruling the Trump administration has already asked the Supreme Court to review. The University of California is waging its own court battle to protect DACA: In September, Napolitano—who carried out the initial implementation of DACA as President Barack Obama’s homeland security secretary—filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration after the administration announced the program’s repeal…
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New Latino Caucus launches in Virginia
RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — There’s a new group in the General Assembly. The Latino Caucus held its first meeting Thursday.
The group was formed by Del. Alfonso Lopez (D-Arlington).
It’s been a goal of his since he started serving in 2012.
“My dream when I first came to the House of Delegates was, just like the Black Caucus, just like Latino caucuses in other states, we would have a Latino Caucus here in Virginia,” he said.
Lopez said some of the topics the caucus will cover are drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants, health care and the Dream Act.
Since nearly one in every 10 Virginians is Latino, Lopez said representation matters…
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Latino Artists Are Taking Over the Stage at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards
Mark your calendars everyone! Latino celebrities are taking over the stage this year at the Grammys which include performances from Cardi B, Bruno Mars, Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and more.
On Wednesday, the Grammys list announced the list of artists and Latino were found everywhere. Looks like music’s biggest night will have some extra flavor this year with tunes like Cardi’s Bodak Yellow, Fonsi summer hit Despacito, along with the funky R&B vibes of 24K Magic…
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Among U.S. Latinos, the internet now rivals television as a source for news
On a typical weekday, three-quarters of U.S. Latinos get their news from internet sources, nearly equal to the share who do so from television, according to a 2016 survey of Latino adults by Pew Research Center…
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Report examines Latino student success rates
The author of a new report that analyzes success rates of Latino students stresses that there is no “magic bullet” for colleges and universities to use to improve their own metrics, and what works at one school may not be applicable for all. However, institutions that prioritize equity and make efforts to measure their progress usually yield positive results…
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Arm Your Mind With 2017’s Best Latino/Latin American History Books
Every year, university presses across the United States publish dozens of books documenting the Chicano-Latino experience through history, culture, music, immigration, biography, race, and so much more. Unfortunately, most of them – while tackling important and fascinating subjects – get next-to-no mainstream attention because they’re written for an academic audience, which means high prices, a bunch of egghead gobbledygook, and stilted writing that makes reading them a chore few people bother to undertake…
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Starting From the Bottom: Why Mexicans are the Most Successful Immigrants in America
“…according to a study by University of California, Irvine, Sociology Professor Jennifer Lee and UCLA Sociology Professor Min Zhou, contrary to stereotypes, Mexican-Americans are the most successful second-generation group in the country. The reason is simple: The study considered not just where people finished, but from where they started…”
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Identity and Race: Millions of Latinos No Longer Think Of Themselves As Latinos, Study Finds
There are some 43 million people in the United States with Hispanic ancestry. Almost 90 percent of them identify as Latino or Hispanic, making it the nation’s second-largest racial or ethnic group.
But according to an analysis of two national surveys by the Pew Research Center, around 11 percent of all people with Hispanic ancestry—5 million people—don’t identify as either…
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Reality Mini-Series Chronicling the Lives of Blended Mexican-American Millionaire Family Debuts on YouTube
NEW YORK, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Meet Los Henrys, a blended Mexican-American family from San Antonio, Texas. Their mini-series reality show, “Hangin with Los Henrys” debuted on YouTube on December 13, 2017. The show centers around Thomas “Tom” and Azteca Henry and their two children, Thomas Jr. and model/actress Maya Henry. Also featured is “Abuelita,” Teresa Crawford, who lives with the family in their San Antonio mansion…
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Mexican American Proarchive : Annual Report on Mexican American Professionals
It is of utmost importance to discuss why Mexican Americans have trailed most minority groups in educational achievement. The Atlantic recently published a Feb. 8, 2017 article titled “The Myth of Immigrants’ Educational Attainment,” in which new research from sociologist Cynthia Feliciano, a professor at the University of California at Irvine, “found that the reason immigrant families appear so successful is not upward mobility, but the ability to work their way into the same class they occupied in their native country.”
This is an interesting new theory that shines the light on groups such as Cubans that excel far beyond all other Hispanic groups in educational attainment.
The good news is that in spite of many explanations to the inequality between the educational attainment of Mexican Americans and the larger population in the United Sates, numbers in this educational achievement gap keep rising.
News from the American Community Census is better than last year’s. Mexican American college enrollment in the US rose from 18.9% in 2015 to 19.3% in 2016, in spite of the total college enrollment falling from 27.8% in 2015 to 27.7% in 2016.
Mexico, Music And Family Take Center Stage In ‘Coco’
Pixar’s newest animated movie, Coco, is meant to be a love letter to Mexico. The movie has a Latino cast. It’s full of Mexican music, culture and folklore — including some of the traditions around the Day of the Dead. And it premiered in Mexico, where it’s gone on to become the No. 1 film of all time. Now, audiences in the U.S. can see it…
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7 Latino Playwrights Bringing Our Stories to the Stage
In the last three years, Lin-Manuel Miranda has taken the theater world by storm with his multi-Tony Award-winning musical about Alexander Hamilton and the founding fathers. As Broadway’s hottest ticket – you literally could not buy tickets for months after it made its debut – Hamilton became as inescapable as the Kardashians, permeating pop culture in ways other shows could only dream of. The musical helped him become a household name and propelled his Hollywood career forward. (Lin-Miranda wrote the music for Disney’s Moana, and landed a role in the upcoming Mary Poppins movie.) While Miranda deserves all the success that has come his way, he’s hardly the only Latino making strides in the theater world.Behind the scenes, there are many more Latino playwrights, composers, and lyricists making the theater world richer and giving our stories a platform. They may not be as big as Lin-Manuel Miranda (yet), but you’ll want to keep an eye on them…
El Pasoans complete grueling Stanford program
A new entrepreneurial program at Stanford University focused on developing Latino businesses has graduated 12 business owners from El Paso since it was launched two years ago.And on Saturday, Dec. 2, four Latino El Pasoans joined a growing list of business owners who have graduated from the Latino Business Action Network, which is part of the Stanford Graduate School of Business in CaliforniaThere are now 12 El Paso CEOs who have graduated from the program and are part of a network of more than 360 Latino executives around the country…
Mexican American Pro Archive : Annual Report on Mexican American Professionals
It is of utmost importance to discuss why Mexican Americans have trailed most minority groups in educational achievement. The Atlantic recently published a Feb. 8, 2017 article titled “The Myth of Immigrants’ Educational Attainment,” in which new research from sociologist Cynthia Feliciano, a professor at the University of California at Irvine, “found that the reason immigrant families appear so successful is not upward mobility, but the ability to work their way into the same class they occupied in their native country.”
This is an interesting new theory that shines the light on groups such as Cubans that excel far beyond all other Hispanic groups in educational attainment. Continue reading
Understanding Latino History
PR Mitchell – 2017 – books.google.com
Latinos make up a vibrant, expanding, and extremely diverse population with a history of
being in the Americas that dates back to the early 16th century. Today, Latinos represent the
largest ethnic minority group in the United States, yet the history of Latinos is largely …
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Even With Affirmative Action, Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago
Even after decades of affirmative action, black and Hispanic students are more underrepresented at the nation’s top colleges and universities than they were 35 years ago, according to a New York Times analysis.
The share of black freshmen at elite schools is virtually unchanged since 1980. Black students are just 6 percent of freshmen but 15 percent of college-age Americans, as the chart below shows…
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The Jewish-American Writer Who Transformed U.S.-Mexico Relations
The Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles is currently highlighting the life and writing of Anita Brenner, a Mexican-born, American Jewish writer. Brenner was born in 1905 in Aguascalientes, and spent the majority of her life writing about the art and culture of Mexico, trying to bridge the gap between the U.S. and Mexico…
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The Making of America’s Culture Regions
RL Nostrand – 2018 – books.google.com
This outstanding text provides students with the essential foundation in the historical
geography of the United States. Distinguished scholar Richard L. Nostrand skillfully
synthesizes decades of historical geography research in an engaging and thought…
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