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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Front Page Items

Sacrificing a Latina/o Presence in the Professoriate: An Analysis of Affirmative Action as Racial Remedy and Silent Covenant

MM Espino – Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, 2015
… I felt an obligation to (re)present the participants’ narratives in a responsible manner. Many of
these participants are the only Mexican Americans or faculty of color in their departments and
may be easily recognizable depending on their discipline and social identities. …
Link to article

Analysis shows fewer Hispanic young adults ‘disconnected’ from school, jobs

Near the end of the Great Recession, about one-in-five Hispanics ages 18 and 19 were “disconnected youth” – neither working nor going to school. But, helped by the economic recovery, the share of these young Hispanic adults not working or enrolled in school dropped from 21% in 2009 to a historic low of 16% by 2014, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of federal government data…
Link to report

Immigration and psychotic experiences in the United States: Another example of the epidemiological paradox?

H Oh, J Abe, N Negi, J DeVylder – Psychiatry Research, 2015
… association between immigration and PE in the US, and their findings showed that when compared
with native-born populations, Mexican immigrants reported … The NLAAS is a survey of Latino
(n=2554) and Asian (n=2095) Americans, which for the purposes of this study was …
Link to abstract

A Chican@ Pathways Model of Acción: Affirming the Racial, Cultural and Academic Assets of Students, Families and Communities

E Alemán Jr, DD Bernal, E Cortez – … of Mexican American Educators Journal, 2015
… Association of Mexican-American Educators (AMAE) Special Invited Issue © 2015, Volume 9,
Issue 1 ISSN 2377-9187 … In particular, Emma shares how Americans (but really she means white
people) treat her mother unfairly because she gets underpaid for the amount and type …
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The Effects of Acculturation on Neuropsychological Rehabilitation of Ethnically Diverse Persons

JP Niemeier, JK Kaholokula, JC Arango-Lasprilla… – … : Clinical Prinicipals for …, 2015
… In terms of pre- dictors for psychological problems such as depression, a recent survey (Leung
et al., 2014) revealed increased self-report of depression symptoms in Mexican Americans who
were concerned about discrimination, had a loss of income, or were worried about …
Link to preview

A Comparatie Study of the Perceived Housing Needs of Low-income and Upper-Middle-income Residents of San Jose California

A Mazur – 2015
… B. Neighborhoods. IV. Mexican-Americans and the Elderly. A. Physical Structures. … While only
5’1 of the housing units occupied by non-Mexican-American whites were unsound in I960, 23′,
of the units occupied by Mexican-Americans were unsound. Overcrowding was …
Link to report

Binge Drinking and Perceived Neighborhood Characteristics Among Mexican Americans Residing on the U.S.–Mexico Border

PAC Vaeth, R Caetano, BA Mills – Alcoholism: Clinical and …, 2015 – Wiley Online Library
7 days ago – Background This study examines the association between perceived
neighborhood violence, perceived neighborhood collective efficacy, and binge drinking
among Mexican Americans residing on the US–Mexico border. Methods Data were …
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The Magic Key: The Educational Journey of Mexican Americans from k-12 to College en Beyond

RE Zambrana, S Hurtado – 2015 – books.google.com
4 days ago – Mexican Americans comprise the largest subgroup of Latina/os, and their path
to education can be a difficult one. Yet just as this group is often marginalized, so are their
stories, and relatively few studies have chronicled the educational trajectory of Mexican …
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Stability in Cognitive Function Over 18 Years: Prevalence and Predictors among Older Mexican Americans

Purpose: Numerous studies have examined the association of physical, behavioral and social factors with cognitive decline in older adults. Less attention has been placed on factors associated with long-term maintenance of intact cognition even into very old age. A greater understanding of those factors can inform the development of activities for maintaining cognitive strength. Methods: Using a sample from the Hispanic Established Populations for Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly, a population-based study of non-institutionalized Mexican Americans aged 65 and older from five Southwestern states (N = 2767), latent class mixture models were developed to identify subgroups of cognitive…
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Immigration

Immigration is central to the growth and identity of the Hispanic population. Almost all of the project’s research, regardless of topic, includes separate tabulations of data for U.S.-born and foreign-born Hispanics. Research on immigration focuses on the unauthorized population, overall trends in immigration and public attitudes towards immigrants and immigration policy.
Also see our statistical portraits, state and county databases, demographic profiles and Census 2010 tables for data on the characteristics of the Latino and foreign-born populations in the United States…
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Latin American festival showcases Mexican potters

World-renowned artisan potters from Mexico were on hand Sunday afternoon at the annual Latin American Festival in Old Town.
The outdoor event is designed to bring talented Latin American artists and their authentic folk art collections to San Diego where attendees can purchase items for sale.
Bazaar del Mundo has held the event for about 25 years. This year, there were about 35 artists showcasing their wares at the weekend event, including folk artist Irene Aguilar Alcántar of Oaxaca and Mata Ortiz potter and principal artist Jorge Quintana.
Named after a town in northwestern Chihuahua, Mata Ortiz pottery was developed in the 1970s by Juan Quezada, who learned to re-create ancient pottery near the archeological site of Paquimé. The struggling village has been transformed as a result of the resurgence of this traditional art form.
“The economy (in Mata Ortiz) has changed,” Quintana said. “But the most important part is that the people go to school. In the past, they only went to elementary school, and a few people went to secondary school. Now, more people go to college and university.”…
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Latin American Women’s Association helps Latino students succeed in Charlotte

By Katya Lezin
Correspondent
Violeta Moser came to the United States in 1974 as an exchange student from Peru.
She studied at New Jersey’s Montclair State University and earned a degree in business administration.
“I was supposed to stay for only one semester,” Moser said. “And it has turned into 42 years.”
Moser, 60, knows the obstacles faced by students who are new to the U.S. educational system…
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Hispanic Scholarship Fund

Founded in 1975, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund provides scholarships to Latino students, as well as related support services. HSF seeks to give students all the tools they need to apply to college, do well in their course work, graduate, enter a profession, excel, help lead our nation going forward, and mentor the generations to come
As the nation’s largest not-for-profit organization supporting Hispanic American higher education, HSF has awarded over $470 million in scholarships and provides a range of ancillary programs for candidates, scholars, and their families.
HSF further strives to make college education a top priority for every Latino family across the nation and to mobilize our community to proactively

Link to web site

Deals Flow to Contractor Tied to Mexican President

SAN FRANCISCO XOCHICUAUTLA, Mexico — Armando García has filed lawsuits, joined protests and gotten arrested trying to stop a highway from slicing through his hilly backyard in a nature reserve.
But even with a court order on his side, bright green pines have been stripped away and tree stumps dot the hillside. Parts of protected forest have been slashed, exposing the path of a 20-mile highway to the new airport in Mexico City that is demolishing…
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Study Finds Latino Entrepreneurs Are Driving New Business Creation

Latinos and immigrants helped drive an increase in new business creation nationally, according to an annual measure of U.S. startup activity released on Thursday.
According to research conducted by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, immigrant entrepreneurs launched 28.5% of the new businesses in 2014 — up from 25.9% a year earlier and 13.3% in 1996. Immigrants account for 12.9% of the U.S. population, according to the most recent data by the U.S. Census Bureau…
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Latin America’s middle class grows, but in some regions more than others

As a whole, Latin America enjoyed solid economic growth in the first decade of this century, with a fall in poverty, a decrease in income inequality and a rise of its middle class. But in many respects, it was a tale of two Americas, with South America and Mexico seeing more of these gains than Central America and the Caribbean…
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Nationwide Grants Give Groups Chance to Learn Latino Culture, History

Latinos may be the largest minority group in the U.S., but many are not familiar with the fact that they have been an integral part of the U.S. since the country’s beginnings, and that different nationalities have their distinct history, culture and roots.
To celebrate and inform on the diversity and achievements of U.S. Latinos, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association created Latino Americans: 500 Years of History, a nationwide initiative grant to educate communities around the country…
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Opinion: America’s unlikeliest Latino

(CNN) –

Now everybody wants to be Hispanic. Last week, in an exchange on Twitter, one of the country’s most xenophobic lawmakers made the bizarre suggestion that he is as Latino as Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro. In response to a tweet paraphrasing Castro as warning that the “GOP could kiss the Latino vote goodbye,” Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, tweeted, “What does Julián Castro know? Does he know that I am as Hispanic and Latino as he is?”…

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Poem
“…And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while…”

T.S. Eliot
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Mexican American Proarchive Annual Report for 2022

The American Community Survey is an annual survey administered by the federal government to help local officials and community leaders and businesses understand the changes that take place in their communities. It includes percentages of our population’s graduate school attainment and the employment of Mexican Americans in various occupations.  These important factors influence the allocation of federal resources. Mexican American Proarchives uses the data provided by the American Community Survey to better understand how Mexican Americans compare to the general population.

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