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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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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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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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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From the Delano Grape Strike to the Mexican American Vintners Association
By Humberto Gutierrez
There have been several longitudinal studies on Mexican American mobility showing that although the monetary movement of Mexican Americans is not quite as rapid as that of whites, there is still a steady accumulation of wealth across generations.
This mobility is evidenced by the progress made by Mexican American professionals. As evidence of this success, we have witnessed the birth of several prominent professional associations. Most notable are:
- MAES, Latinos in Science and Engineering
- AMAE, Association of Mexican American Educators
- MABA, Mexican American Bar Association
- SACNAS, Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science
- MAHPA, Mexican American Hispanic Physicians Association
- MABPA, Mexican American Business and Professional Association
- MALFA, Mexican American Latino Faculty Association
- MAVA, Mexican American Vintners Association
The latest American Community Survey shows year-to-year progress, or lack of it, on the survey’s annual census.
Prominent among this year is the continued progress of Mexican American college enrollment, which has jumped from 18.1% in 2013 to 18.7% in 2014. Unfortunately, graduate or professional degrees remain low with a small gain. For 2013, the graduate or professional degree was 11.2% and for 2014 this percentage climbed to 11.4% for the total population, while for 2013 it was 2.8% for Mexican Americans, and 2.9% for 2014.
Occupations in management, business, science, and arts showed a nice increase for Mexican Americans, from 16.7% to 17.4% while for the total population percentages went from 36.3% in 2013 to 36.9% in 2014. Mexican Americans still lag far behind the total population but there is a slight gain as compared to the total population.
For industry, numbers have gone up slightly for the total population but have remained stagnant for Mexican Americans.
References
- Census Bureau, Selected Population Profile in the United States: 2014
- United States S0201 and B05006. Selected Population Profile in the United States
- Population Groups: Mexican and Mexico (foreign-born)
- Data Set: American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates for years 2012 and 2014
- Census Bureau, American Fact Finder, Selected Population Profile in the United States
Visas For Latin American Professionals Available at U.S. Consulates Overseas
Economies of 26 Latin American countries show signs of weakness and … TN for Mexican professionals: A list of 61 designated professions and the …
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UC Riverside Library Awarded Grant to Participate in the Latino Americans: 500 Years of History Initiative
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) – The University of California, Riverside Library received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Library Association (ALA) to participate in the Latino Americans: 500 Years of History initiative…
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10 New Books by Established Latino Authors
Over the summer I highlighted 9 books by emerging Latino voices, but it’s as important to acknowledge that Latino literature’s more familiar names are also gracing the covers on display on bookstore shelves in 2015.
Many of these prominent writers produced the foundational texts that shape the Latino literary canon such as The House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros), The Latin Deli (Judith Ortiz Cofer) and The Devil’s Highway (Luis Alberto Urrea). Others listed here include the Poet Laureate of the United States, Juan Felipe Herrera, and three younger writers (Joy Castro, Lorraine López and Urayoán Noel) whose prolific and stellar output has earned them a place among these legends of Latino letters. In celebration of Latino Heritage Month, I invite readers to consider the following new books from these established Latino authors…
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Syndicated Chicano cartoonist to visit WNMU
SILVER CITY, N.M. — Political cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz, who has been described as perhaps the most prolific Chicano artist in the nation, will be on the Western New Mexico University campus as part of the Raza Alumni Reunion for Homecoming 2015.
On Thursday, Oct. 8, at 7 p.m., Alcaraz will give a presentation at the Global Resource Center on campus. He will speak about his experience as a writer and then premiere the first episode of Bordertown, an upcoming American adult animated sitcom. The premiere will be followed by a Q&A opportunity…
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‘Breakout Moment’: More Books Reflect Mexican American Kids, Teens by Juan Castillo
SAN MARCOS, TX. – The growing movement to reflect the lives of Mexican American children and young adults through the power of words has come a long way.
Just ask new U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, who over the weekend told a rapt audience of writers, illustrators and multicultural children’s book advocates at Texas State University, “This is our breakout moment.”
The first Mexican American to hold the position, Herrera spoke at the 2015 Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, which celebrated its 20th anniversary. Herrera spoke excitedly about mounting positive bellwethers – more Latino authors, more interest from Hollywood and from corporate America, “more global interest, more global writers and voices.” …
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From Factory To Classroom: A Worker, A Student — And A Mother
Today, Noramay Cadena is a mechanical engineer, fitted with multiple degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But she came by her motivation in a place much different from the MIT classrooms: a factory in Los Angeles where her mother brought her one summer as a teenager…
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Report: Minority Teachers Are Quitting at Rapid Rates
Although small strides have been made toward diversifying the U.S. school system over the past couple of decades, a new report shows there’s still a long way to go.
At a national level, schools have made progress in the hiring of minority teachers, according to a report by the Albert Shanker Institute, “The State of Teacher Diversity in American Education.” The attrition amongst minority teachers, however, is higher…
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Bilingual Education In California
“They say that if you speak two languages, you’re bilingual. If you speak three or more languages, you’re multilingual,” said Texas Sen. Judith Zaffirini. “And if you speak only one language, well then, you’re an American.”…
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WAGE DISPARITY OF NON – HISPANIC WHITE AND MEXICAN POPULATIONS IN CALIFORNIA
B Huang – 2015
… and Wealth, 52(1), 17-42. Cobb-Clark, DA, & Hildebrand, VA (2006b). The Wealth of Mexican
Americans. Journal of Human Resources, 41(4), 841-868. Page 39. … Trejo, SJ (1997). Why do
Mexican Americans earn low wages?. Journal of Political Economy, 105(6), 1235-1268. …
Link to thesis
Epidemiology of Headache
U Uygunoglu, A Siva – Pharmacological Management of Headaches, 2015
… In the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), which was conducted by the National Center
for Health Statistics, overall prevalence was estimated as 14.3% in Whites, 14.0% in Blacks, 9.2%
in Asians, 12.9% in Hispanics, 11.9% in Mexican Americans, and 17.7% in Native …
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Uh oh…bad news on SAT test results
Teenagers who took the SAT test during the latest standardized testing season performed worse on the controversial test than they have in many years.
Students generated reading scores that were the lowest since the College Board began releasing annual reports in 1972; the math scores were the worst since 1999. The score for the writing section, which was launched in 2006, was the lowest ever…
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School dedicated for ‘forgotten’ Mexican-American scholar
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Decades after leaving New Mexico in disgrace, a noted Mexican-American scholar and key figure in school desegregation got a school dedicated in his honor in his hometown of Albuquerque…
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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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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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