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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Chomsky gives an historical look at immigration and social justice
DULUTH
Our national quarrel over immigration that was reignited during Donald Trump’s campaign is actually older than this nation. Yet, there has been little substantive debate since his inauguration as the dictates two weeks into his administration showed.
His first dictate could not stand up to the rule of law or the Constitution. So he tried again March 6 with a little softer approach that still offended a majority of Americans, judges, and state attorneys’ general.
The nation would have been better served if President Trump would have waited a day and had sat quietly in the College of St. Scholastica’s Mitchell Auditorium March 7 prior to his second dictate. He would have gotten an historical and social justice perspective on immigration from guest lecturer Aviva Chomsky that would have served us better.
Chomsky did not, however, lay the blame on Trump for where he had arrived on the immigration question
“It’s not like we had a generous immigration policy that Trump was trying to displace,” Chomsky told a gathering of over 100 people.
She said we need to radically change the way we see our history otherwise we end up with incorrect assumptions that permeate the way we think.
And so we end up with the mess that is our national quarrel on immigration.
Chomsky is a professor of history and coordinator of Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies at Salem State University in Massachusetts. She was born into a family of scholars who included her father, linguist Noam Chomsky. She worked for the United Farm Workers in 1976 and 1977, an experience that sparked her interest in migrant workers, labor history, and the effect of global economic forces on individuals…
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Mexican-American Biologist Speaks On Science’s Continued Diversity Problem
It wasn’t that long ago that a science professor could easily tell a struggling female student that women just don’t belong in chemistry.
As an undergraduate at the University of Washington in the 1960s, Lydia Villa-Komaroff was determined to be a chemist, but sought help from her advisor.
“Well of course you’re having difficulties,” the professor said, according to Villa-Komaroff. “Women don’t belong in chemistry.”..
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Latino Self Identity
JME de Queirós – Latin America: The Allure and Power of an …, 2017 – books.google.com
Nowadays, whether one lives in Chicago or San Pedro de Macorís, the Dominican Republic,
one has to be careful. The doorbell may ring at any moment, and one could carelessly open
it to find a social scientist at the door asking how one identifies—Black? White? Mestizo?…
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Photographer Captures The Breathtaking Beauty Of Mexico’s Indigenous Communities
“Oaxaca was something that had to happen, it was something that I didn’t look for. It simply occurred.”
That’s how photographer Diego Huerta describes his work in the southern Mexican state, where he has diligently traveled to for the past four years to document its indigenous communities with breathtaking portraits.
The 30-year-old Mexican photographer began working on this project, titled “Inside Oaxaca,” after traveling to Oaxaca and inadvertently witnessing the Guelaguetza, its biggest annual celebration and parade that features traditional dances and customs from the States’ eight regions…
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Mestizos Come Home: Making and Claiming Mexican American Identity
RC Davis-Undiano – 2017 – books.google.com
Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano has described US and Latin American culture as
continually hobbled by amnesia—unable, or unwilling, to remember the influence of
mestizos and indigenous populations. In Mestizos Come Home! author Robert Con Davis…
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America Ferrera talks about her Latino-American identity crisis growing up, says she felt ‘very alone’
But now that’s she’s a full-fledged Hollywood star, Ferrera is finally able to do something about it. In 2015, she launched her own production company, Take Fountain Productions, which is currently developing “Gente-fied,” a show about seven Latin characters living in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights.
“As an actor, what I love about the process is talking to the directors and writers and discovering it,” she said. “It felt natural to parlay that into producing stories I really thought should be told. I feel driven, as a woman of color who has access, to use that to create opportunity for certain stories that other people may not be paying attention to. There isn’t a majority of people out there searching to tell the kinds of stories I’d love to see”…
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Latino Persistence in Education: Finding a Balance
The number of Latinos in higher education is increasing. However, Latinos are the least educated ethnic group in terms of bachelor’s degree completion with only 16 percent attaining a bachelor’s degree or higher.
According to Dr. Linda Castillo’s research, part of the problem may stem from intragroup marginalization. In other words, being teased by family members for not being Latino enough can impact a student’s motivation to continue in college.
Dr. Castillo, professor of counseling psychology, and her research team knew the importance of addressing this because of their own experiences in the education pipeline. Dr. Castillo had many instances where she was treated differently by white students and faculty for being Latino, but it was not until she was in college that she noticed her family’s views start to change. They treated her differently because of the way she spoke and for not being Latino enough…
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University of Texas at El Paso grad founds orchestra in Europe
For Claudio Ordaz, music is something to be pursued, courted like a potential lover, even if it means following it around the world to have it.
For that love, Ordaz first crossed one border as a teenager, then as an adult crossed an ocean. All along, he says, music was calling to him.
“Since I remember, music has been some type of light inside, a voice guiding and explaining, telling me where to go.” Ordaz said during a phone interview from his home in Savonlinna, Finland, where he conducts the Savonlinna Camerata, an orchestra that he founded. “Italians say, ‘Listen to your heart,’ and my heart was speaking music.”…
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Latino Leader Named Head Of City Colleges Of Chicago
In the midst of a controversial overhaul, a Latino community leader has been tapped to take the helm of the City Colleges of Chicago.
Juan Salgado will replace Cheryl Hyman, a former corporate executive, as the head of the state’s largest community college network
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel praised Hyman for improving the City Colleges’ graduation rate and consolidating programs with a focus on linking them to jobs under a plan called Reinvention. She also raised tuition and created a tuition structure that favored full-time students over those taking classes part time.
Those moves were sharply criticized by faculty and some community groups as a top-down initiative that they said limited student access…
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Mexican American Psychology: Social, Cultural and Clinical Perspectives
MA Tovar – 2017 – books.google.com
There are now more than 32 million Mexican Americans living in the United States. As a
result, the odds that a clinician will work with a member of this population—one of the fastest-
growing minority groups in the United States—is extremely high. Understanding the culture…
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How perceptions of an anti-immigrant environment negatively impacts Latino health outcomes
The first 50 days of President Trump’s administration has seen an increase in immigration raids and the rise of hate crimes towards immigrants. This anti-immigrant sentiment is creating fear and stress for immigrants which ultimately lead to negative health outcomes. In our paper recently published in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law we examine how living in an anti-immigrant environment can negatively impact Latina/o health, consistent with recent published research by Dr. Francisco Pedraza. Using nationally representative data from the Latino National Health and Immigration Survey (LNHIS, n=1,493) funded by the RWJF Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico and implemented by Latino Decisions, we examine the relationship between Latino’s perceptions of where they live and their self-reported physical health and mental well-being. Our findings show that 38 percent of Latinos perceived their state’s immigrant policies as unfavorable towards immigrants. While this data collection was conducted in 2015, we believe the current political environment will exacerbate health disparities for an entire generation of Latina/o Americans…
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Prospera joins Clearwater SPARK, nurtures Hispanic businesses
Twenty-five years ago, Prospera — then called the Hispanic Business Initiative Fund — was established in a small West Tampa office.
There was a need to support Hispanic entrepreneurs in the area, says Claudia Johnson, senior business development consultant on the West Coast. Prospera stepped in to fill this void by offering bilingual technical assistance and workshops to Spanish-speaking businesses.
Decades later, the organization has spread to markets in south Florida and as far north as Jacksonville. Additional offices have opened in Miami and Orlando. Over the past 25 years, Prospera has “supported several thousands of people,” Johnson says. “Our objective became to strengthen the state of Florida’s economical sector with Hispanics.”…
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Helping ‘At-Promise’ Students Succeed
UCSB sociologist Victor Rios to discuss how emotional support from authority figures impacts the lives of marginalized students
UCSB sociology professor Victor Rios is among four presenters in PBS series of TED Talks on innovative approaches to education
Research on students who overcome adversity to successfully navigate higher education has shown that emotionally relevant educators often make the difference, by fostering the resilience that makes success possible. No one knows that better than Victor Rios, whose own life was forever altered by a high school teacher who saw his potential and became his mentor…
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Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, M. D., Mexican American Professional
Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa (also known as “Dr. Q”) is a neurosurgeon, author, and researcher. Currently, he is the “William J. and Charles H. Mayo Professor” and Chair of Neurologic Surgery and runs a basic science research lab at the Mayo Clinic Jacksonville in Florida. In recognition of his work, Dr. Quiñones-Hinojosa has received many awards and honors, including being named as one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in the U.S. by Hispanic Business Journal in 2008; as 2014 Neurosurgeon of the Year by Voices Against Brain Cancer, where he was also recognized with the Gary Lichtenstein Humanitarian Award; and by the 2015 Forbes magazine as one of Mexico’s most brilliant minds in the world…
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The Oscars are less white, but where are Latinos?
When black performers were excluded from all acting categories at the Academy Awards for a second year in a row in 2016, the shutout sparked a second year of an impassioned social-media movement: #OscarsSoWhite. You could say the campaign was a success. A week later, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences pledged to phase out senior members and enlist new, diverse voters who would, if all recruiting goals were met, double minority membership by 2020. This morning, for the first time, three black actors were nominated in the same category, best supporting actress: Viola Davis for “Fences,” Naomie Harris for “Moonlight,” and Octavia Spencer for “Hidden Figures.” Denzel Washington was also nominated in the lead actor category for his performance in “Fences,” and Mahershala Ali in the supporting actor category for “Moonlight.”
But Hollywood’s diversity problem isn’t solved. By many measures, it’s still as bad as ever. And the studios’ biggest minority deficit by far involves the very people living and working outside their walls in virtually every direction — Latinos…
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Democrats Elect Thomas Perez, Establishment Favorite, as Party Chairman
ATLANTA — Former Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday, narrowly defeating Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota to take the helm of a still-divided party stunned by President Trump’s victory but hopeful that it can ride the backlash against his presidency to revival…
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Mexico City
AF IMAGINARY – The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and the …, 2017 – books.google.com
It is inevitable when speaking of Mexico City to speak of it as one of the premier
megalopolises of the world, probably second only to Tokyo in the population of its greater
area. 1 That is, one speaks of the federal capital of the country of Mexico—the Distrito …
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Alt.Latino Explores Afro-Latin Music For Black History Month
“I think there is this reclaiming of Afro-Latinidad through culture and through music. And one of the examples I think of is “Africana” by Los Rakas. Los Rakas is an Afro-Panamanian group based out of the Bay Area. They have this fusion called Panabay where they mix Caribbean sounds with hip-hop. And “Africana” is an ode to black women and their beauty…”
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The Role of Ethnicity
Counseling LGBTQI + Person of Color…
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Esther Cepeda: Latino health-outreach program is a reminder that it’s all in the name
If culture can be used as a currency to understand and serve a community, it can also be a trap, if the culture is painted with too broad a brush. We think we “know” the so-called Hispanic community — generalizing to certain tropes about language, love of family, deference to authority figures, etc. — and we rarely stop to question whether our initial assessments still hold true.
For instance, a decade ago, the hot medical news was the emerging use of “promotoras” — Spanish-speaking Latina community volunteers who worked with medical organizations to coordinate health outreach activities in their neighborhoods — as a cutting-edge tactic to produce better outcomes in predominantly Mexican populations suffering from obesity, diabetes and other ailments…
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