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,”
Read More…
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…
Link to article
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…
Link to biography
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…
Link to oped
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…
Link to article
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 …
Link to book preview
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…”
Link to conversation
The Role of Ethnicity
Counseling LGBTQI + Person of Color…
Link to chapter preview
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…
Link to article
Latino Protestants in America: Growing and Diverse
MT Mulder, AI Ramos, G Martí – 2017 – books.google.com
Latino Protestantism is growing rapidly in the United States. Researchers estimate that by
2030 half of all Latinos in America will be Protestant. This remarkable growth is not just
about numbers. The rise of Latino Protestants will impact the changing nature of American…
Link to book excerpt
This Upcoming Exhibition Highlights the Work of 116 Radical Latina & Latin American Artists
Because the system’s so biased and so restrictive, so much wonderful art has [gone] completely unnoticed.” With these words, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill succinctly described the impetus for an upcoming exhibition – Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985 – at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. The last few decades has seen progress for female artists, but the art world hasn’t reached parity, with men still basking in the limelight far more often than women…
Link to article
Hispanic Homeownership Rate Continues to Rise
The Hispanic homeownership rate rose from 45.6 percent in 2015 to 46 percent in 2016, according to data from the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP). This is the second year in a row that this demographic experienced a homeownership rate increase.
This increase in homeownership is mirrored by a decline in the overall U.S. homeownership rate—a slight dip from 63.7 percent in 2015 to 63.4 percent last year—and reported declines in homeownership among African-Americans and Asian-Americans. NAHREP also reported that Hispanics led in net household formations in 2016, adding a total net increase of 330,000 households…
Link to article
Trump puts U.S. food, farm companies on edge over Mexico trade
By Tom Polansek and Mark Weinraub | CHICAGO
U.S. food producers and shippers are trying to speed up exports to Mexico and line up alternative markets as concerns rise that this lucrative business could be at risk if clashes over trade and immigration between the Trump administration and Mexico City escalate.
Diplomatic relations have soured fast this month, as the new U.S. administration floated a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports and a meeting between the presidents of the two countries was canceled. U.S. President Donald Trump has also pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) trade deal with Mexico and Canada…
Link to article
Valentines for all Seasons
A book of love poems by Humberto(Tito)Gutierrez…
Link to book preview
Success of Food Trucks Draws Hispanics into the Restaurant Trade
LOS ANGELES – Over the past few years, big cities have seen a boom in the food trucks that travel around town offering their fare, a success that has inspired many Hispanic food truckers to take the next step and open traditional restaurants that offer their usual menus to diners in less of a hurry but eager to get the same quality and originality.
“A business on wheels is always difficult – you have to be ready for anything, whether it’s a police complaint or finding a parking place. It’s harder than having an ordinary business,” Zeferino Garcia, now owner of two restaurants in Los Angeles, told EFE…
Link to article
Picturing Childhood: Youth In Transnational Comics
Mexican Director Ernesto Contreras Wins Audience Award at Sundance
LOS ANGELES – Mexican director Ernesto Contreras won the Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic for “Sueño en otro idioma” (I Dream in Another Language) at the Sundance Film Festival.
The film tells the story of the arrival of a linguist in a community that is home to the last two speakers of a millennia-old language who have not spoken in 50 years…
Link to article
Ethnic Humor in a Multicultural Society
L Gogová – Ars Aeterna, 2016
… 22 yellow.” The Mexican child says, “When the phone greens, I pink it up and say yellow.” The
joke is an example of ethnic humour, which uses a minority ethnic group (in this case
Hispanic/Latino Americans) as a target and the aspect of linguistic imperfection as a pivot in …
Link to article PDF
Xavier Becerra formally nominated as California attorney general
Gov. Jerry Brown formally entered his nomination of Rep. Xavier Becerra for California attorney general on Tuesday, setting the 90-day clock for the Legislature to act.
Brown’s selection of Becerra, a Los Angeles Democrat and veteran of federal immigration and health care policy debates, came after the fall elevation of Democrat Kamala Harris to the U.S. Senate. Harris was sworn in Tuesday, after which Brown submitted his pick of Becerra to the Legislature. Their deadline is April 4. In the unlikely event that either the Assembly or Senate votes to reject him by that date, Brown will have to name someone else. If the houses vote to approve him or do not act, he will take office. Meanwhile, the acting attorney general is Kathleen “Kate” Kenealy, the chief deputy…
Link to article
Deported by Marriage: Americans Forced to Choose Between Love and Country
B Caldwell – Brooklyn Law Review, 2016
… Article 1 Fall 12-1-2016 Deported by Marriage: Americans Forced to … For more information, please
contact matilda.garrido@brooklaw.edu. Recommended Citation Beth Caldwell, Deported by
Marriage: Americans Forced to Choose Between Love and Country, 82 Brook. L. Rev. …
Link to article(PDF)
After sending many signals to Latinos in his campaign, Trump sends another: Not in my Cabinet
Republican and Democratic presidents have long nodded to the importance of diversity as they select their Cabinets. Since 1989, every president’s first Cabinet has included at least one Latino.
Not Donald Trump’s…
Link to article
