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

Chuck Ramirez: Outsider Objects

Chuck Ramirez, a graphic designer for H-E-B, a Texas-based grocery store chain, spent his workdays communicating ideas through the products he promoted in glossy advertisements and posters. His professional career undoubtedly influenced his artistic endeavors, which revolved around producing images of everyday objects. He often photographed his subjects out of context, isolated against a stark white background, thereby provoking the viewer to reexamine them. What was it about coconuts, grocery bags, pillboxes, piñatas, raw meat, wilted flowers, and worn brooms that enthralled Ramirez?…
Link to abstract and thesis

The Fluffy Movie

By Kurt Jensen
Catholic News Service
NEW YORK (CNS) — Like Bill Cosby, Gabriel Iglesias tells stories, not jokes. In “The Fluffy Movie” (Open Road), the rotund Mexican-American comic, whose tales are as soft around the edges as the man himself, shares engaging accounts of weight loss and the difficulties of being the stepfather of a teenage boy…
Link to review

Upscale and Affluent Latinos Are Tech Savvy, Bilingual and Big Spenders

Upscale and Affluent Latinos Are Tech Savvy, Bilingual and Big Spenders
By Nicole Akoukou Thompson (n.thompson@latinpost.com)
First Posted: Jul 25, 2014 01:17 PM EDT
Guests attend a launch event for Kiva City D.C. hosted by Capital One, Kiva, and the Latino Economic Development Center on January 8, 2013 in Washington, DC
Savvy, affluent and upscale Latinos have soaring purchasing power, and ad campaigns have been working to connect with high-earning Latinos by attempting to understand the preferred media and voice of this segment.
The upsurge in U.S. Hispanic affluence has become more visible within the last two decades. The number of wealthy Latinos (incomes greater than $75,000) doubled from 2000 to 2010, growing at three times the rate of non-Hispanic upscale households. In 2010, there were 2.9 million upscale Latino households, and that number has continued to…
Link to article

Mexican American Vintners Association Enters Retail Scene with Whole Foods Market Partnership

Napa, CA (PRWEB) July 24, 2014
In an effort to educate California wine lovers about the variety and quality of wines made by Mexican-American winemakers in the region, the Mexican American Vintners Association (MAVA) is breaking into retail. During the months of August and September, Whole Foods Market’s Northern California and Reno stores will highlight wines crafted by select MAVA members. Never before has a retailer of any size focused specifically on wines produced by Mexican-American vintners…
Link to article

Wells Fargo Foundation donates $50,000 to improve El Soldado Mexican American Veterans Memorial

SACRAMENTO – Among tall trees and nestled on a pillar stands El Soldado or as it has more recently been called, the Mexican American Veterans Memorial.
This monument to the gallant and patriotic military service of Latino/Hispanic veterans is well on its way to receiving a much needed facelift thanks to the commitment from individuals and organizations alike.
The Wells Fargo Foundation is the latest such organization to demonstrate its commitment, not just to veterans and their families, but also to the monuments that showcase their patriotic service.
“On behalf of all veterans, but especially Latino/Hispanic veterans, we are proud to accept this $50,000 donation from the Wells Fargo Foundation,” said Peter J. Gravett, CalVet secretary. “This donation allows us to take a giant step forward in our quest to beautify and enhance El Soldado.”
California is home to approximately 1.8 million veterans of which nearly 272,000 are Hispanic/Latino. El Soldado/the Mexican American Veterans Memorial serves as a testament to the service and contributions of these Hispanic/Latino veterans…
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Hispanic college enrollment up, but not by enough

Recent data show that nationwide Hispanic or Latino and Chicano college admissions are on the rise, with Hispanic figures now outpacing white enrollment at some schools. But Hispanic education experts say the numbers are not high enough.
Patricia Gandara, research professor and co-director of The Civil Rights Project at UCLA, and and commissioner with the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics calls the numbers have improved, but they are still “disastrous.”…
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Manhattan College History Professor Julie Leininger Pycior Publishes Book on Mexican-American Activism

Historian Julie Leininger Pycior, Ph.D., professor of history at Manhattan College, recently published her newest book, “Democratic Renewal and the Mutual Aid Legacy of US Mexicans.” Pycior’s latest book traces the historic mutual aid organizing of Mexican-Americans, from its early origins after the Mexican-American War to its present day impact on important policy issues such as immigration…
Link to press release

Salma Hayek surprises fans with singing and dancing in Sofia

. Mexican-American film actress, director and producer
. Breakthrough role was in 2002 film “Frida” as Frida Kahlo
. Starred in “Grown Ups” and “Grown Ups 2”
Mexican-American actress/film producer Salma Hayek has a huge fan following in North America and Mexico because of her beauty, acting and outgoing personality and these traits have once again come to the forefront and brought her more fans in Bulgaria…
Link to article

Exploring the Role of Community Cultural Wealth in Graduate School Access and Persistence for Mexican American PhDs

MM Espino – American Journal of Education, 2014
… Exploring the Role of Community Cultural Wealth in Graduate School Access and Persistence for
Mexican American PhDs. Michelle M. Espino. … Exploring the Role of Community Cultural Wealth
in Graduate School Access and Persistence for Mexican American PhDs. …
Link to preview

In Defense of My People: Alonso S. Perales and the Development of Mexican-American Public Intellectuals ed. by Michael A. Olivas (review)

JR Buriel – Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 2014
… Perales’s professional work on behalf of Mexican Americans entailed legal practice on social
justice cases involving equality in employment … Mario T. García calls in Mexican Americans:
Leadership, Ideol- ogy, and Identity, 1930–1960, “The Mexican-American Generation” (1989 …
Link to abstract

Breast Cancer Cause Beliefs Chinese, Korean, and Mexican American Breast Cancer Survivors

P Gonzalez, JW Lim, M Wang-Letzkus, KF Flores… – Western Journal of Nursing …, 2014
… Focus groups with Chinese (n = 21), Korean (n = 11), and Mexican American (n = 9) BCS recruited
through community- and hospital-based … experience may influence a survivor’s interpretation and
response to the breast cancer diagnosis, so that health professionals, in turn …
Link to abstract

My Career Veered Off Course On purpose: Melissa’s #LaunchLikeABoss Story

Melissa is part of a classic American immigrant tale.

Her Mexican-American parents raised her with a strong ethic of hard work and community. She prioritized her education to become a first-generation college graduate, and she made it all the way to law school before taking on the kind of corporate desk job her parents always dreamed for her. Melissa was not going to have to work with her hands…
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Diversity in the Workplace: NPR’s Latino Employees, Audience Statistics Below US Population Average

National Public Radio’s employee ethnicity rate is nearly identical to their listenership statistics. NPR Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos disclosed the company’s ethnicity data following criticism of the cancellation of its diversity-focused talk show “Tell Me More.”

“I agree that cancellation of the journalistically excellent seven-year old show is sorrowful, and I don’t think I am talking out of school when I say that this seems to be a feeling shared up and down the NPR hierarchy,” Schumacher-Matos wrote. “The reasons for the closure, as Chief Content Officer Kinsey Wilson has made clear in a number of public statements, are that the show had a relatively small audience, lost money and is a victim of shifting strategies to keep up with changing times.”…
Link to article

Included in Communication Learning Climates That Cultivate Racial and Ethnic Diversity

OI Davis, JM Martinez, TK Nakayama – … : Learning Climates That Cultivate Racial and … – ERIC
16 days ago – … As an African American, a Mexican American, and an Asian American who teach
and conduct research in performance studies, inter- cultural communication, and rhetoric,
respectively, we bring an array of differ- ences together in our professional lives at Arizona State …
Link to essay

Latino scholar gifts books to S.A. Central Library’s Latino Collection

The San Antonio Public Library, its foundation and the Latino Leadership for the Library Committee celebrated art historian Tomás Ybarra y Frausto Tuesday for a donation of hundreds of Latino literature books, accumulated over a long career as a scholar and Latino arts and cultural historian.
The works will go into the Central Library’s Latino Collection on the sixth floor. His gift was a timely one, as the space is being renovated with new branding and furniture. The project will be completed this fall…
Link to article


  

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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