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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United States involvement in the Mexican Revolution
MRV Carranza, E Zapata, FI Madero, P Villa, P Orozco…
… Prior to Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration, the US military focused mainly on just warning
the Mexican military that decisive action from the US military would take place if lives and
property of North Americans living in the country were endangered. …
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Latino/a Immigration: A Refutation of the Social Trust Argument
JJ Mendoza – 2015
… There is no Americano dream. There is only the American dream created by an
Anglo-Protestant society. Mexican-Americans will share in that dream and in that
society only if they dream in English. (Huntington 2004, 256) …
Link to chapter
UTRGV professor first to win Professor of the Year award in UT System
EDINBURG — In a first for the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and the entire UT System, a faculty member was recognized as Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
Of the more than 300 applications for the award, Stephanie Alvarez, professor of Mexican-American studies at UTRGV, was selected as one of only four recipients of the national award, which she accepted last week in Washington, D.C…
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Race in America: 5 ways minorities trail economically
A new CNN/Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 55 percent of blacks and 52 percent of Hispanics said it was easier for them to achieve the American Dream than their parents. That’s compared to only 35 percent of whites. Blacks and Hispanics interviewed by CNNMoney said they feel they have more opportunity these days in terms of education and jobs…
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From Undocumented to Goldman Sachs Exec: Julissa Arce’s Amazing Story
NEW YORK, NY — A job at the investment bank Goldman Sachs is one of the most prized positions in the country. The company prides itself on attracting some of America’s most talented professionals—ambitious, smart and highly motivated. Many people would probably be very surprised to discover that at least one undocumented Mexican immigrant was working shoulder to shoulder with the country’s corporate elite.
Former Goldman Sachs vice president Julissa Arce, 32, wants to change the way Americans think about immigration by sharing her story. And in her upcoming September 2016 memoir, “My (Underground) American Dream,” she aims to describe her long and difficult journey from undocumented to documented, which took her from selling funnel cakes in Texas to Wall Street…
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Poll: 49% of Americans say racism is a ‘big problem’
(CNN) Debra Aust sees it in videos of recent police shootings.
Alex Sproul reads about it in his Facebook feed.
Sheryl Sims senses it when she walks down the street.
They are three Americans from three different demographic groups living in three different states. And they believe the same thing: Racism is a big problem.
Their voices are just a few in a country of more than 322 million people. But they are far from alone…
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Hispanic Ad Spending and Reallocation Could Mean Accelerated Growth for Firms, Brands: Study
The Hispanic market is traditionally underserved, but that may change soon. Several firms with the financial services, insurance and retail sectors have discovered that reallocating funds and increasing ad dollar spending on Hispanic media could mean a greater return on their investment.
The national trade organization Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) published the latest addition to its insight series on Nov. 8, “Financial-Insurance Services & Auto Hispanic Media Allocation Trends 2010-14 & Impact on Total Market Revenue Growth Study.” According to findings in the report, which were also sourced via Nielsen, insurers and financial service companies that effectively target the Hispanic market with publicity campaigns see a higher…
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John G. Florez Chemical engineering has taken this ACS Scholar around the world to encourage others to take up STEM education
A Scott – 2015
… An additional role he has taken on during his years at ExxonMobil has been to encourage other
Mexican Americans to establish a scientific career. … Mexican Americans continue to be poorly
represented in STEM subjects at the university level, Florez says. ..
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More Mexicans Leaving Than Coming to the U.S.
More Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico from the U.S. than have migrated here since the end of the Great Recession, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from both countries. The same data sources also show the overall flow of Mexican immigrants between the two countries is at its smallest since the 1990s, mostly due to a drop in the number of Mexican immigrants coming to the U.S…
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Texas Education Scoreboard
The capacity of Texas schools to prepare students for college varies significantly by community. Use the Texas Education Scorecard to compare data on key education milestones from Pre-K through college completion.
Scroll over a county to see its education scorecard rating. Click through to see a detailed Education Scorecard with information on how your county can improve…
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Open Letter to Arthur Liman
AL Higginbotham – Yale Law & Policy Review, 2015
… of Clarence Thomas has accomplished anything, it has accomplished this: it has made it safe
for the enemies of racial progress, such as Professor Lino A. Graglia of the University of Texas
Law School, to assert openly that “[b]lacks and Mexican- Americans are not …
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New Mexico Land of Contrast: Images and Thoughts by Humberto Gutierrez
While admiring the sunset from the bell tower of Santa Fe’s La Fonda Hotel, it occurs to me that the sunset represents the contrast and diversity that New Mexico enjoys. The sun’s light makes life possible on this earth but also functions as a massive hydrogen bomb. How ironic, life and death all in one.
Living together in the state of New Mexico is a very diverse group of communities: Indian, Spanish, Mexican, Spanish American and Anglo. At the same time, this heterogeneous group lives in a place where the first atom bomb was developed and exploded.
New Mexico’s history is a sequence of encroachments of the area’s communities by waves of newcomers claiming the land as their own; from the early native peoples to the arrival of American fur traders.
New Mexico is the home of Los Alamos National Laboratories, where the first atom bomb was designed and built, and White Sands Proving Ground, where that bomb was exploded. At the same time, Santa Fe is the home of the New Mexico Museums of Natural History and Science that elegantly exhibits the story of our earth, from the Big Bang to the present day.
What a contrast the state presents; the Big Bang, the birth of our universe, and the atomic bomb, as it’s inventor, Robert Oppenheimer, described it as the “destroyer of worlds” that when detonated looked like “the radiance of a thousand suns.”
Walking through the Rio Grande’s gorge, where ancient petroglyphs can be seen, and visiting the communities and museums of New Mexico, my senses are immersed in the state’s natural beauty and invigorated by its Indian, Spanish, Mexican, and American cultures. My kudos to New Mexico for investing vast resources in its many fine museum celebrating the state’s rich natural history, scientific, and cultural heritage.
Hidden in Plain Sight: A Note on Legitimation Crises and the Racial Order
MC Dawson – 2015
… that have conflicting interests and ideologies. Blacks and Latinos (particularly Mexican Americans,
who have been targets of increasingly vile and racist anti-immigrant attacks), are becoming
increasingly disillusioned and angry due to the escalation of white supremacy within …
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Felix Arroyo’s Journey Through Public Education to Housing the Homeless
Growing up in Boston Public Schools, Felix Arroyo got to know the University of Massachusetts Boston through the Talented and Gifted (TAG) Latino Program, a program for young English language learners.
“In middle school I was running around those hallways at UMass Boston,” he says. “I’m looking forward to being a partner with UMass in my role now, while I have it, to make sure that the school is successful.”…
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Technology startup seeks to connect Mexican IT workers with U.S. employers
Mexican Nationals seeking an opportunity in the United States typically face an extra barrier when it comes to visa sponsorship through employers. But one San Antonio startup hopes to ease that entry and help fill local bilingual information technology jobs.
Jesus ‘Tito’ Salas ran the San Antonio Mexican Entrepreneurial Challenge competition for Geekdom last year that sought to connect South Texas to Mexican startups…
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The Power of Zero
Fifty years after founding the influential theatre company, El Teatro Campesino, Luis Valdez visited USF last Tuesday to give a lecture called “The Power of Zero.” The talk focused primarily on the connection between the Mayan zero and the influence it holds on different aspects of life, especially its capacity to allow for change. Being at ground zero holds great potential and is the root of development, which Valdez related to the Chicano movement…
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Mexican Conductor Alondra de la Parra Makes History
Conductor and pianist Alondra de la Parra is in a league of her own. And come next year, when she steps onto the podium as the first female chief conductor and musical director of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, one of Australia’s three largest orchestras, she will live in a more rarefied space—one of the few females directing a major orchestra…
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Educational Inequalities Reflecting Sociocultural and Geographical Embeddedness? Exploring the Place of Hispanics and Hispanic Cultures in Higher Education and Research Institutions in New Mexico
T Freytag – Ethnic and Cultural Dimensions of Knowledge, 2016
… The Hispanic population in New Mexico includes two particularly large subgroups: (a) immigrants
from Mexico (“Mexican Americans”) and (b) “Hispanos,” who represent the descendants of Spanish
immigrants and settlers from the sixteenth century until the end of the Spanish …
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George Lucas Just Donated $10 Million for Black and Latino Kids to Study Film at USC
Written by Andrew S. Vargas It’s widely known that the University of Southern California boasts one of the world’s greatest film schools, with notable alums among its ranks, including Judd Apatow, Ron Howard, and George Lucas standing out on a list of the literally hundreds of Hollywood big shots who have graced its halls. But much like the Hollywood dream factory that plucks its recruits directly from each graduating class, USC’s alumni list also happens to be pretty damn white, and while there are undoubtedly myriad reasons for this imbalance, it probably has a little to do with the school’s exorbitant private university tuition…
The Museum of Latin American Art is Showing Chicano Artists For the First Time in 20 Years
A year ago,“Somewhere Over El Arco Iris/ Chicano Landscapes, 1971- 2015” – the most recent exhibit at the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach – wouldn’t have been on display. The 25 piece exhibition, featuring artists whose styles range from experimental expressionism to urban street art, is inspired by the Chicano experience of the last 40 years. Collectively, its mixed-media, photographs, drawings and paintings make evident how instrumental some Chicano artists have been in creating and defining LA’s contemporary… Link to article
