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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Both Mexico and the US Are to Blame for Ruthless Drug Lords Like El Chapo
Sean Penn, actor and activist, has made a name for himself as something of a renegade journalist, pursuing interviews with controversial figures such as Cuban leader Raul Castro, the late Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, and most recently Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Penn’s interview with El Chapo is perhaps his most provocative, for the narcotics trafficker has been America’s most wanted man since the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. While the interview, printed in Rolling Stone, is certainly intriguing, it is important to remember how much of a point of contention the war on drugs has become for the United States and its southern neighbor. Since the 1960s, relations between the U.S. and Mexico have grown increasingly strained due to not only the growing presence of drug cartels in Mexico, but the seemingly endless flow of firearms south and the insatiable American appetite for marijuana, heroin, and cocaine. As the U.S. and Mexico negotiate the extradition of the world’s most powerful drug trafficker from his home base in Sinaloa state to a correctional facility somewhere north of the border, distrust between the two countries remains palpable, particularly after El Chapo’s previous escapes from two out of Mexico’s three maximum security prisons…
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Grounds for Dreaming: Mexican Americans, Immigrant Mexicans, and the California Farmworker Movement
LA Flores – 2016 – books.google.com
Known as “The Salad Bowl of the World,” California’s Salinas Valley became an agricultural
empire due to the toil of diverse farmworkers, including Latinos. A sweeping critical history of
how Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants organized for their rights in the decades …
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Digging for a Tale: Genomic Analysis Solves Mysteries Surrounding America’s Earliest People
T Tanenbaum
… and her colleagues undertook genetics as well as morphological analyses on historical Mexican
and South American populations, the latter to re-evaluate whether these ancient skulls were closer
in skull morphology to Australo-Melanesians than to modern Native Americans. …
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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. …
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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) …
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PLAYING IN PARADISE: THE SOCIAL IMPACTS OF BEER GARDENS IN BORDERLANDS CITY 1870-1915
VA Herrera – 2015
… 5 Thomas Sheridan, “Peacock in the Parlor: Frontier Tucson’s Mexican Elite,” The
Journal of Arizona History 25, no. 3 (1984): 187. 6 Ibid., 34. Page 6. 6 … races in one
space; Mexicans, Americans, Castilians, and Native Americans all …
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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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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]. …
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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 …
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Exhibit in Dallas to honor Mexican-American veterans
DALLAS (AP) — In 1967, Albert Valtierra, a working-class kid from West Dallas, joined the U.S. Air Force and headed to Vietnam.
The Dallas Morning News (http://bit.ly/1LXLfoQ ) reports his younger sister, Rosemary, marched defiantly to protest the war.
Their mother, Serapia, simply lit velas and prayed the rosary.
Rosemary would marry Ramiro Hinojosa, and together they raised a son named after his father. Ram, as the son was called, enlisted in the Army in 2004 and headed for Iraq. He was motivated by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and by the service of others in his family.
“What did I do wrong?” Rosemary thought.
Then she found herself lighting velas in prayer.
The family’s story is one of many portrayed in a photo and video exhibit and lecture series highlighting Mexican-American veterans from the Dallas area. The montage covers more than 100 years in more than 1,000 photos portraying about 400 service members…
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The Effects of Warfare and Captive-Taking in Indegenous Mortalilty in Postcontact North America
CM Cameron – Beyond Germs: Native Depopulation in North America, 2015
… hunter arrived in Chihuahua City in 1845 with 182 scalps, 18 captives, and some Mexican women
and children he had rescued. In response, the Apaches Page 203. 190 CM Cameron only
intensified their raiding. They were finally subdued when Anglo- Americans took over …
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An American in Mexico
By Celia Wren June 26
The silver jaguar carries six amethysts: one in each paw, and on its back and tail. The brooch is remarkable on its own merits, but as part of a new exhibition at the Mexican Cultural Institute, the jewelry also epitomizes the style of its designer, William Spratling…
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History Professors New Book Shows Power of Hispanic Politics on New Mexico’s History
For nearly 50 years, one man dominated the political scene of Hispanics, Anglos and American Indians in northern New Mexico: Emilio Naranjo. This new book explores the controversial political figure, who some refer to as a self-serving, corrupt boss and others hail as a folk hero, convincing a generation of northern New Mexico residents to use the power of the ballot box. Conflict swirled around this powerful Democrat, reaching his highest power in the 1960s and ’70s when he was sheriff in Rio Arriba County…
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NBC Series ‘California’ Will Trace Latino Family’s Roots In The Area Over 200 Years
A new NBC series will delve into the history of a Latino family in California, following their roots to before the area was even part of the United States.
Jennifer Lopez will reunite with director Gregory Nava, who gave the star her breakthrough role in “Selena” almost 20 years ago, to bring to life the limited series, Deadline.com reported this week.
The website added that the upcoming show will be titled “California” and follow the fictional Latino family’s “journey over 200 years in California from Spanish, to Mexican, to American rule.”…
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Adopting the American Racial Lens: A history of Mexican migration to Chicago from the town of Arandas, Jalisco
R Alvarez-Pimental
… Although wealthier merchants, professional men, rancheros56, and hacendados57 largely
refrained from joining the ranks of the emigrants, it would often be the case that their sons, driven
by economic incentive, would become part of large regional migrations to the United …
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Joe Debro on racism in construction, Part 10: The Mexican American al laborer and entrepeneur(continued)
A 1968 book-length report, titled “A Study of the Manpower Implications of Small Business Financing: A Survey of 149 Minority and 202 Anglo-Owned Small Businesses in Oakland, California,” was sent to the Bay View by its author, Joseph Debro, prior to his death in November 2013, and his family has kindly permitted the Bay View to publish it. The survey it’s based on was conducted by the Oakland Small Business Development Center, which Debro headed, “in cooperation with the small businessmen of Oakland, supported in part by a grant, No. 91-05-67-29, from the U.S. Department of Labor, Manpower Administration, Office of Manpower, Policy, Evaluation and Research.” Project co-directors were Jack Brown and Joseph Debro, and survey coordinator was Agustin Jimenez. The Bay View is publishing the report as a series. A prolog appeared in the December 2013 Bay View, Part 1 in January 2014, Part 2 in February, Part 3 in April, Part 4 in May, Part 5 in June, Part 6 in August, Part 7 in October, Part 8 in November, Part 9 in January 2015 and this is Part 10 of the report…
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City Election Sea Change Santa Barbara to Initiate New District System This November
Although a few “i”s remain to be dotted and few “t”s to be crossed, the Santa Barbara City Council voted 6-0 to settle a lawsuit charging that the at-large elections City Hall has conducted since 1971 have yielded “racially polarized” results as defined by the California Voting Rights Act. The five plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit pointed out that only one Latino — Cathy Murillo — had been elected to the council since 2000 even though Latinos make up 38 percent of the population and 24 percent of eligible voters. As part of the settlement, the council agreed to begin holding district elections this November, when three seats come up for grabs…
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BBC Pop Up: What does it mean to be Mexican-American?
6 February 2015 Last updated at 01:54 GMT
More than 30 million Americans trace their roots back to Mexico – it’s the fastest growing demographic in the US.
While the focus of the political debate is on the recent arrivals – especially those who entered illegally – many immigrants have been in the country for generations. Of course, some states in the south west, including Arizona, were originally part of Mexico before they joined the Union.
It is therefore hard to define the Mexican-American experience. People’s attitudes, beliefs and even their choice of cuisine is influenced by when they arrived in the US and how connected they stay to their Mexican traditions…
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The Election of Pete Chacón: Latino Hope, Pride and a New Belief in the System
By Maria E. Garcia
Peter “Pete” Chacón
The general public knew Peter Chacón as a California State Assemblyman who served from 1970-1992. Very few know or understand what Pete’s election meant to the Latino community.
From the time I was a small child I remember my parents going inside a building to vote. They would take turns voting as we sat in the car. One parent would go inside to vote while the other parent would care for us. Then the reverse would occur. Voting was always a special activity and in many ways a mystery…
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George I. Sánchez : the long fight for Mexican American integration
“George I. Sánchez was a reformer, activist, and intellectual, and one of the most influential members of the ‘Mexican American Generation’ (1930-1960). A professor of education at the University of Texas from the beginning of World War II until the early 1970s, Sánchez was an outspoken proponent of integration and assimilation. He spent his life combating racial prejudice while working with such organizations as Read more..
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