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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Arizona moves to expand trade with Mexico
“…PHOENIX, Ariz. (Border Report) — When Americans order a product online, they take it for granted it’ll get to them on time. But when Mexican residents order merchandise from a U.S. company, they traditionally face week-long waits for Mexican customs to clear the package.
That is about to change as an Arizona airport becomes the first in the United States to pre-clear items shipped to anywhere in Mexico. Under the SkyBridge Arizona project, Mexican customs inspectors will be based at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport and approve items for immediate delivery to any Mexican city, Arizona officials say.
The implications of the program go well beyond young Mexican professionals being able to receive electronic gadgets before their popularity fades, airport officials …”
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Editorial: Diversity and support for minorities deserve more attention from university
“…Outreach efforts made in attempts to diversify campuses have clearly worked to an extent – the percentage of underrepresented minorities enrolled at the UC has increased by 11% in the past two decades.
However, a systemwide increase in underrepresented minority enrollment overlooks specific population statistics at every campus. Since Proposition 209’s passage, African American enrollment at UCLA has plummeted despite increased enrollment across the UC as a whole.
It seems as though the UC’s top schools are building even higher walls for admissions of some underrepresented communities. According to a 2016 report, a student said she feels standards for UC admissions have increased exponentially, thereby alienating most of the student population…”
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Athletics Director Dan Guerrero to retire after contract extended to June 30, 2020
“…Dan Guerrero’s time in Westwood is officially ticking toward its end.
The UC Regents voted unanimously Thursday morning to extend the UCLA Athletics director’s contract from Dec. 31 to June 30, 2020, the Los Angeles Times reported. Guerrero agreed at Wednesday’s UC Regents meeting that he will end his tenure with the Bruins at the end of the 2019-2020 academic year.
UCLA Athletics released a statement Thursday claiming it would utilize a professional firm to conduct a nationwide search for Guerrero’s replacement this fall. UCLA Chancellor Gene Block requested Guerrero’s contract be extended from December to June in order to maintain continuity and ample time to conduct the search for his replacement.
Guerrero said his two reasons for retiring were to spend more time with his wife and newborn granddaughter and to take time to recover after an ultimately successful battle with cancer over the last 18 months…”
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Race, income may impact U.S. oral cancer screening rates
“…Only about 1 in 3 U.S. adults say a dentist has ever examined them for oral cancer – and most of those who remember getting such exams are non-Hispanic whites, a new study suggests.
The American Dental Association says dentists should routinely look for oral cancer. But the study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found that screening rates were low overall and that racial and ethnic minorities, and people with lower income and education, were less likely to report receiving oral cancer screening during a clinic visit.
“We promise health care to all, but some sections report not getting the quality others do,” lead author Avni Gupta from the Center for Surgery and Public Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston told Reuters Health by telephone…”
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UNR Med students mentor next generation of bilingual health care providers
“…Growing up Mexican-American, Diana Padilla did not know any physicians who shared her cultural background.
Now entering her fourth year at the University of Nevada, Reno, School of Medicine, Padilla and fellow UNR Med students and members of the Latino Medical Student Association are helping to bridge that gap by mentoring bilingual northern Nevada high school students exploring careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) health care.
“I’m a Mexican-American, first-generation college graduate and will be the first doctor in my family,” Padilla said. “Before medical school, I did not know a single Latino physician. I loved helping with this program because I wanted these kids to see that people who look like them do make it in this field and they can…”
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Rushdie creates modern Don Quixote for tale of love, family
“…Good news! You don’t have to read Cervantes’ masterwork to enjoy Salman Rushdie’s modern reinvention. You’ll probably pick up on hundreds of additional references and inside jokes if you have, but Rushdie has created something that feels wholly original even if you’ve never heard of the hopelessly romantic Spanish knight-errant who sees danger in windmills.
It does help to have an open mind, however. Rushdie’s so-called “magical realism” (that’s lit-crit for “making stuff up in an otherwise mostly real setting”) is on full display here. There are mastodons in New Jersey, a talking cricket (“you can call me Jiminy”) and even Oprah Winfrey has a legitimate talk- show competitor…”
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Meet California’s Most Unlikely Philanthropist: 18-Year-Old Fabiola
“This spring — as federal prosecutors announced charges against wealthy Californians, who paid bribes to get their kids into elite universities — a poor kid from a poor California town faced her own dilemma: How could she help others go to college?
Fabiola Moreno Ruelas, an 18-year-old from the Salinas Valley town of Gonzales, was perhaps California’s most unlikely philanthropist. She had suffered much of the worst of California, from the deportation of her father, to an auto accident, to her family’s eviction from their home.Fabiola received $29,000 on her 18th birthday, she knew she didn’t want to spend it on herself.
This is a simple story about a small, new scholarship program. It’s also a timely fable about the real meaning of poverty and community, and the abundance of spirit that can spin bad luck into good. It might even be considered an updating of another Salinas Valley child, John Steinbeck, who advised: “If you’re in trouble or hurt or need—go to poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help—the only ones.”..”
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Why Do So Many Californians Choose NOT to Vote?
“…Likely voters do not represent the diversity of the state’s population. They are disproportionately white and tend to have incomes and levels of education that are notably higher than the state’s average. A recent Public Policy Institute of California study found that:
Non-Hispanic whites constitute only 44 percent of California’s adult population but make up 65 percent of the state’s likely voters.
Hispanics make up a third of the state’s population but represent only 17 percent of likely voters…”
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Hispanic Unemployment Rate Ties All-Time Low
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The number of Hispanics and Latinos employed set a record high in August as their national, seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate matched its record low of 4.2%, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data released Friday show.
In August, the unemployment rate for Hispanics and Latinos, aged 16 and up, was 4.2%, down from 4.5% in July, returning to the record low of 4.2% in April and May – which broke the record low of 4.3% set two months earlier in February. BLS began tracking Hispanic-Latino employment data in 1973.
285,000 more Hispanics had jobs in August, as the 27,866,000 employed broke the record for Hispanic employment of 27,701,000 set in December 2018. The number of Hispanics participating in the workplace rose in August, as did Hispanics’ labor force participation rate, which increased from 66.4% to 66.7%.
The number of unemployed Hispanics fell by 98,000 to 1,216,000, down from 1,314,000 in July…”
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UC confronts hurdles as school year begins
“…Among those dreams is to vanquish the steep decline in underrepresented groups — black, Latino and Native American students — since 1996, when voters approved Proposition 209 and stopped statefunded schools from considering ethnicity in admissions.
Before then, black students, for example, made up 7% of freshmen admitted to UC Berkeley from California. By 1998, just 3% of instate admissions went to black students. This year, the figure stood at 4%, or 391 of the 9,634 California high school seniors admitted.
Overall, 26% of California students admitted to the freshman class this year were underrepresented groups: 2,091 Latino, 391 black, and 66 Native American students, about the same as last year.
UC Berkeley is not the most selective campus in the system (UCLA is). Yet no UC campus has a lower ratio of underrepresented groups.
“I know that some members of our community feel we talk a good game about improving diversity, but haven’t backed up our words with appropriate actions,” Christ said in December as she unveiled her Undergraduate Student Diversity Project. She cited Prop. 209, but said: “We cannot and will not use that as an excuse.”
One of the project’s goals is to become a “HispanicServing Institution” within the next decade, a designation that opens the door to federal grants. But overall, the plan calls for better ways to recruit and enroll far more people of color…”
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Getting College Students to the Finish Line
“…More than 2 million high school graduates begin college every year. Yet only 60 percent of four-year college students finish their degree within six years, and less than 40 percent of community college students graduate or transfer to four-year institutions. UC Berkeley professor David Kirp, who details these issues in his latest book “The College Dropout Scandal,” believes colleges a…”
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Persistence: The Success of Students Who Transfer from Community Colleges to Selective Four-Year Institutions
One of several key findings;
“…Community college students who transfer to selective institutions have equal to higher graduation rates as students who enrolled directly from high school or those who transferred from other four-year institutions. They graduate in a reasonable amount of time, earning their degrees within two and a half years, on average…”
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La Profesora del Mundo
“…Sara Poot_Herrera as long had one foot in the U.S. and the other in Mexico. A professor in UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese, she’s been a powerful champion of Mexican and Spanish-American literature. Her scholarship and support of literatura iberoamericana have brought her numerous awards, including some of the most prestigious honors Mexico bestows…”
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First draft of state ethnic studies curriculum ‘falls short,’ board says
“…California’s proposed ethnic studies curriculum “falls short and needs to be substantially redesigned,” said state education leaders as more ethnic organizations called for revisions Tuesday.
Earlier, the draft sparked opposition among many Jewish groups, who have been joined by organizations representing Armenians, Greeks, Hindus and Koreans in calling for changes.
The draft curriculum is being developed as state lawmakers are poised to make ethnic studies a graduation requirement in high schools.
But the draft did not meet the goals to be “accurate…”
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Their U.S. roots date back centuries, but these Latinos still wonder if it’s enough to belong
By Esmeralda Bermudez, Paloma Esquivel
Aug. 16, 2019
“It’s a tricky thing, what makes up an American.
There are Latinos whose families have been on this land since long before the Statue of Liberty greeted newcomers from New York Harbor, before the Civil War and the Declaration of Independence.
In the days since the El Paso massacre, many have found themselves reflecting, wrestling with their place in society and asking questions about how their heritage, their language and their skin color has shaped them and the way other Americans perceive them…”
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On the US-Mexico Border, Craft Beer Diplomacy Is Bringing Brewers Together
‘Sick of battling it out on southern California’s legendarily congested freeways, Ryan Brooks packed his bags and headed south. “I was living about an hour north of San Diego, commuting an hour each way, and I thought, ‘This is stupid, I hate it,’” he said. “So I went to TJ and spent 100 bucks a month to stay at my buddy’s house.”
That’s “TJ” as in Tijuana, Mexico, a breezy 15- to 20-minute drive from Coronado Brewing Co., where Brooks was working as a brewer in 2011. “The same border guy waved me through every day because I was like the one white guy crossing [from Mexico into the US] at 5 in the morning,” he remembered…”
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Andres Garcia-Amaya
“…Andres Garcia-Amaya founded Zoe Financial with the goal of improving people’s relationships with their personal finances.
His childhood was spent on a farm in Colombia before his parents moved their family to New York when he was a young teenager. Andres later graduated from Villanova University where he met his wife. After completing his undergrad and a stint as an institutional trader at Morgan Stanley, he went on to study at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, where he received his MBA on an academic achievement scholarship…”
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Money Concepts Regional Director, Gilbert Mercado Receives Recognition for Texas Association of Mexican American Chamber of Commerce Businessman of the Year
“Money Concepts Regional Director, Gilbert Mercado, won the Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce Businessman of the Year Award from a Small Chamber.
Gilbert joined Money Concepts in February 2006 as a President and in March 2017, he became a Regional Director for the Del Rio, Texas area. His independent organization focuses on holistic planning including tax preparation services.
Money Concepts President & CEO, Denis Walsh stated, “It is such a pleasure to see someone so committed to helping others receive a well-deserved recognition. Gilbert is a total professional and his true concern for others shines through in everything he does.”
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A New Home
“…The UC Santa Barbara Library and La Casa de la Raza have reached a new accord that signals another milestone in the preservation of local community history.
At a public reception July 11 at La Casa de la Raza, representatives from the library and from La Casa signed an agreement that will ensure the historical records of this community-based organization will be archived, preserved and made accessible in the library’s Special Research Collections.
Approximately 50 community residents, elected officials and represent…”
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UC admits all-time record number of freshmen, transfer students for Fall 2019
“…The composition of the freshman class is similar to that of last year. Chicano/Latino students increased slightly as a proportion of admitted students from 33 percent to 34 percent, while Asian American students remained the largest ethnic group of admitted students at 35 percent. The proportion of white students stayed flat at 22 percent. The proportion of African American students also stayed flat at 5 percent, while American Indian students remained at 0.5 percent…”
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