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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At the Core and in the Margins: incorporation of Mexican immigrants in two rural Midwestern communities
J Albarracín – 2016 – books.google.com
Beardstown and Monmouth, Illinois, two rural Midwestern towns, have been transformed by
immigration in the last three decades. This book examines how Mexican immigrants who
have made these towns their homes have integrated legally, culturally, and institutionally. …
Link to book preview
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Austin Revealed: Chicano Civil Rights-Desegregation and Education
In the aftermath of desegregation, Mexican-American students and teachers in Austin realized the lack of equality in the school system and higher education. In the first installment of KLRU’s Austin Revealed: Chicano Civil Rights series, students and teachers who lived it share their stories about the disparate conditions and the fight for reform…
Link to article
Super Tuesday showcases electorate’s growing racial, ethnic diversity
The U.S. electorate this year will be the country’s most diverse ever, and that is evident in several Super Tuesday states holding primaries or caucuses on March 1 in which blacks could have a significant impact
In five of 12 Super Tuesday states, blacks account for at least 15% of the electorate, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of 2014 census data. Black eligible voters have the largest footprint in Georgia (31%) and Alabama (26%), while Virginia, Tennessee and Arkansas also have sizable black electorates.
In a reversal of historical migration trends, Southern states have seen their black populations increase more than twice as fast as non-Southern states since 1990. From 1910 to 1970, 6 million blacks left the South, with many pursuing industrial jobs in Northern cities in what is called the Great Migration. But since then, blacks have increasingly chosen to live in the South…
Link to article
LULAC Hits Goal of 10,000 Iowa Latinos Pledging to Caucus
Leaders of a group that has been trying to increase Latino participation in Iowa’s caucuses said Monday they hit their goal of getting at least 10,000 Latinos to pledge to participate.
Joe Enriquez Henry, LULAC’s national vice president for the Midwest region, was upbeat when reached by NBC News Latino Monday morning as LULAC Iowa made its final push to get Latinos out to the first-in-the-nation caucus for their choices of presidential nominees…
Link to article
Millennials Make Up Almost Half of Latino Eligible Voters in 2016
Hispanic millennials will account for nearly half (44%) of the record 27.3 million Hispanic eligible voters projected for 2016—a share greater than any other racial or ethnic group of voters, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data…
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Meet 19-Year-Old Ismael Fernández, Elected to Idaho’s First All-Latino City Council
In Wilder, Idaho – where 75 percent of the population is Latino – a completely Latino city council has taken shape. And 19-year-old College of Idaho student Ismael Fernández is one of the council members who will influence law in Wilder. Mayor Alicia Almazán’s city council group includes Tila Godina, Robert Rivera, and Guadalupe García. Univision reports that this is the first all-Latino city council in Idaho…
Link to article
More Millennial Than Latino
More Millennial Than Latino
As millennials embrace progressive politics, the conservative Latino narrative is unraveling.
Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton attend a rally during a campaign event, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2015, in San Antonio.
A new generation is charting its own course in politics and ideology. Latinos represented 8.4 percent of voters in the 2012 presidential election, and because the Latino population is increasing, much ink has been spilled about their future influence on American electoral outcomes. But population size is just one moving target. One such monumental shift is that while only 46 percent of Latino 34-year-olds were born in the U.S., 81 percent of Latino 18-year-olds were, according to the American Community Survey…
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Mexico Stubbornly Resists Accountability
When he campaigned for the presidency of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto used the title of his book, “Mexico, the Great Hope,” to explain the record he hoped to achieve and the nation he hoped to build. More than three years into his presidency, it seems more likely that he will be remembered not as the transformational leader Mexicans thought they had elected, but as a politician who skirted accountability at every turn…
Link to Editorial Opinion
Immigration to the U.S.: A Problem for the Republicans or the Democrats?
AM Mayda, G Peri, W Steingress – 2015
… “Many white Americans see that America is changing, believe that immi- gration is driving
many of the negative changes and know that one party stands largely on the side of
immigrants while the other party stands largely in opposition. …
Link to paper
All for One? And One for All? Mexican American Group Consciousness and Partnership
JL Urbano Jr – Minority Voting in the United States [2 volumes], 2015 – books.google.com
Latinos are the largest minority group in the United States, and within this pan-ethnic group
are Mexican Americans who constitute over 66 percent of the total Latino population.
Because of its current size and future population estimates, experts frequently speculate …
Link to book
Maya Arce , et al . v . Diane Douglas, et. al
L Bannai, R Chang, C Garden – 2015
… teachers.”2 2 The MAS program was previously called “Mexican American/Raza Studies.”
Plaintiffs assert that “La Raza” more generally refers to Mexican Americans. See
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Case …
Link to case
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. …
Link to article
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
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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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.”…
Link to article
Soledad O’Brien Launches ‘I Am Latino in America’ Tour
Following the success of Soledad O’Brien’s Black in America tours, which foster conversations on issues plaguing the Black community, the award-winning journalist launched another tour: I Am Latino in America.
While Black in America’s main focus has been overpolicing in the Black community, I Am Latino in America takes a look amplifying Latino voices leading up to the 2016 presidential election….
Link to article
George I. Sánchez: The Long Fight for Mexican Integration by Carlos Kevin Blanton (review)
JL Pycior – Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 2015
… Today the University of Texas education building bears Sánchez’s name. What really matters,
though, as this definitive account makes clear, is that his words and deeds contributed mightily
to the civil rights advances of Mexican Americans. [End Page 231]. …
Link to review
Coming to America: An Examination of the U.S. Immigration Debate in its Historical Context
JR Davidson – Kaleidoscope, 2015
… arriving in large numbers. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, Americans
in the Southwest, particularly in Los Angeles, believed that Mexican immigrants were
draining the welfare system (Boisson, 2006). In a time when …
Link to article
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.”…
Link the study
