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

PSYCHOSOCIAL INFLUENCES OF ACCULTURATION AND ACCULTURATIVE STRESS ON LEPTIN, ADIPONECTIN, AND GESTATIONAL DIABETES IN MEXICAN AMERICAN WOMEN DURING PREGNANCY

SE Muñoz – 2014
… LEPTIN, ADIPONECTIN, AND GESTATIONAL DIABETES IN MEXICAN AMERICAN WOMEN
DURING PREGNANCY Committee: … STRESS ON LEPTIN, ADIPONECTIN, AND GESTATIONAL
DIABETES IN MEXICAN AMERICAN WOMEN DURING PREGNANCY by …
Link to dissertation

Ian Heney López on the Dog Whistle Politics of Race: Interview with Bill Boyers

February 28, 2014

What do Cadillac-driving “welfare queens,” a “food stamp president” and the “lazy, dependent and entitled” 47 percent tell us about post-racial America? They’re all examples of a type of coded racism that this week’s guest, Ian Haney López, writes about in his new book, Dog Whistle Politics.
Link to interview

Reduction of Non-adherent Behaviour in a Mexican-American Adolescent with Type 2 Diabetes

E Piven, R Duran – Occupational Therapy International, 2014
… In addition, fatalismo (a Mexican-American fatalistic belief about God’s control over oneself) may
pose challenges to the development of an … Seeking help from a professional has been viewed
as an outward demonstration of weakness that challenged machismo and…
Link to abstract

HIV RISKS AND RISK REDUCTION READINESS IN HARD-TO-REACH, DRUG-USING AFRICAN AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AMERICAN WOMEN: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

HIV RISKS, RIN HARD-TO-REACH
… risky HIV behaviors, We developed the AIDS Survival Kit (ASK) program, which targeted both
African American and Mexican American men and … Making such changes will involve the
collaborative efforts of health and social service professionals who understand the issues …
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A Qualitative Study of Family Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors of Mexican-American and Mexican Immigrant Fathers and Mothers

BJ Turner, N Navuluri, P Winkler, S Vale, E Finley – … of the Academy of Nutrition and …, 2014
… Twelve focus groups were held from August 2011 through January 2012 in community settings
in predominantly Mexican-American neighborhoods of … and transcribed verbatim by Area Health
Education Center staff and reviewed for accuracy by a professional transcriptionist as …

Link to abstract

From Coveralls To Zoot Suits: The Lives of Mexican American Women on the World War II Home Front

N Molina – Southern California Quarterly, 2014
… The final essay in Regionalists on the Left—and the closest thing to a conclusion the book
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ZOOT SUITS: The Lives of Mexican American Women on the World War II Home Front. …

Link to preview

The Association Between School Engagement and Achievement Across Three Generations of Mexican American Students

JL Rodríguez, IP Boutakidis – Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, 2014
… group diversity for school engagement and achievement in order to address how to develop and
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MEXICAN AMERICAN FIRST-GENERATION STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF SIBLINGS AND ADDITIONAL FACTORS INFLUENCING THEIR COLLEGE CHOICE PROCESS

D Elias McAllister – 2012
… Title of Document: MEXICAN AMERICAN FIRST- GENERATION STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS
OF SIBLINGS AND ADDITIONAL FACTORS INFLUENCING THEIR COLLEGE CHOICE PROCESS …
choice process of Mexican American first-generation students who had an older …
Link to dissertation

Cilantro: A Natural Water Purifier?

Cilantro — the spicy ingredient common to many fiery Mexican and Southeast Asian foods — may offer a natural, inexpensive new way to purifying drink water, new research shows.

In a presentation at an American Chemical Society meeting Indianapolis this week, scientists from Ivy Tech Community College and the Universidad Politécnica de Francisco I. Madero in Hidalgo said laboratory studies have determined the herb — also known as coriander and Thai parsley — has significant “biosorbent” properties that allow it to effectively remove lead and other potentially toxic heavy metals from contaminated water.
Link to article

Beliefs, Practices, and Experiences Of Postpartum Mexican American Women: An Ethnonursing Study

VA Hascup – Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal …, 2014
… University, Union, NJ. Discipline: Childbearing (CB), Professional Issues (PI), Women’s
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Link to abstract

Hidden in plain sight: design approaches to Midwestern Mexican-American landscapes

S Dieterlen – Journal of Urbanism: International Research on …, 2014
… Midwestern Mexican-American landscapes by any of those scholars is likely to focus on testing
or developing theory, this study focuses primarily on physical intervention in actual neighborhoods
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The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory

DIVThe Mexican American woman zoot suiter, or pachuca, often wore a V-neck sweater or a long, broad-shouldered coat, a knee-length pleated skirt, fishnet stockings or bobby socks, platform heels or saddle shoes, dark lipstick, and a bouffant. Or she donned the same style of zoot suit that her male counterparts wore. With their striking attire, pachucos and pachucas represented a new generation of Mexican American youth, which arrived on the public scene in the 1940s. Yet while pachucos have often been the subject of literature, visual art, and scholarship, The Woman in the Zoot Suit is the first book focused on pachucas.
Link to reviews


  

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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