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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Hispanics see potential for growth in construction industry
Santiago Perez has built a career in construction. His success story, however, wasn’t written overnight.
The owner of Coastline Construction and Renovation in Tulsa left his native Uruguay to come to the United States when he was 18.
“When I got here, I saw the potential to accomplish the American dream,” said Perez, 33. “It wasn’t just a movie thing.”
Perez hung drywall, framed and served as a project manager, and in 2015 he started Coastline, which specializes in out-of-state hotel renovation. His company, which employs about a dozen people full time, currently is in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, razing and converting a 200-room hotel into time shares…
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RANKING: Top 10 Video Platforms Preferred by US Hispanics
Which video platforms do US Hispanic users prefer? What types of content do they provide? Does gender play a role in audiovisual content preference? Read on for the answers to these questions, drawn from comScore’s February 2016 ranking…
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Analyst: Latino grocery stores likely to see more deals
Scott Moses, managing director and head of food retail and restaurants investment banking for Peter J. Solomon Co., said he sees a rise in Latino-focused grocers in the future, according to the Shelby Report.
Private equity firm KKR recently invested in Cardenas Markets (currently operating 30 stores) and Mi Pueblo (operating 19 stores).
Latino Americans comprise approximately 17% of the U.S. population in 2017….
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Managing Diversity in Organizations: A Global Perspective
M Triana – 2017 – books.google.com
This book equips students with a thorough understanding of the advantages and challenges
presented by workplace diversity, suggesting techniques to manage diversity effectively and
maximize its benefits. Readers will learn to work with diverse groups to create a productive..
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Prospera joins Clearwater SPARK, nurtures Hispanic businesses
Twenty-five years ago, Prospera — then called the Hispanic Business Initiative Fund — was established in a small West Tampa office.
There was a need to support Hispanic entrepreneurs in the area, says Claudia Johnson, senior business development consultant on the West Coast. Prospera stepped in to fill this void by offering bilingual technical assistance and workshops to Spanish-speaking businesses.
Decades later, the organization has spread to markets in south Florida and as far north as Jacksonville. Additional offices have opened in Miami and Orlando. Over the past 25 years, Prospera has “supported several thousands of people,” Johnson says. “Our objective became to strengthen the state of Florida’s economical sector with Hispanics.”…
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Trump puts U.S. food, farm companies on edge over Mexico trade
By Tom Polansek and Mark Weinraub | CHICAGO
U.S. food producers and shippers are trying to speed up exports to Mexico and line up alternative markets as concerns rise that this lucrative business could be at risk if clashes over trade and immigration between the Trump administration and Mexico City escalate.
Diplomatic relations have soured fast this month, as the new U.S. administration floated a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports and a meeting between the presidents of the two countries was canceled. U.S. President Donald Trump has also pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) trade deal with Mexico and Canada…
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Success of Food Trucks Draws Hispanics into the Restaurant Trade
LOS ANGELES – Over the past few years, big cities have seen a boom in the food trucks that travel around town offering their fare, a success that has inspired many Hispanic food truckers to take the next step and open traditional restaurants that offer their usual menus to diners in less of a hurry but eager to get the same quality and originality.
“A business on wheels is always difficult – you have to be ready for anything, whether it’s a police complaint or finding a parking place. It’s harder than having an ordinary business,” Zeferino Garcia, now owner of two restaurants in Los Angeles, told EFE…
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Black and Latina women pitch tech startups at Demo Day in Atlanta
Showcase is hosted by nationally-recognized, Atlanta-based incubator dedicated to increasing the number of women of color in tech
Startups led by Black and Latina women will make their case for capital at the first-ever demo day hosted by digitalundivided’s BIG Accelerator, the new, nationally-recognized Atlanta-based program dedicated to reversing the lack of diversity in the tech industry.
The BIG Demo Day will showcase live demonstrations by each startup to a select group of investors, corporate executives, and tech leaders, as well as talks by leading national experts from the U.S. Small Business Administration, Capital One, and Kapor Capital. helping women entrepreneurs of color develop sustainable businesses. The Demo Day is the culmination of an intense, 12-week accelerator program that provided each startup founder with coaching on how to scale their ventures, mentorship by top industry leaders, office space for one year, and $20,000 in seed funding from the investment fund Harriet Angels Syndicate…
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MABPA: Mexican American Business and Professional Association
Mission
MABPA: Prioritizing access, advocacy and prosperity for all San Diego Communities.
MABPA’s robust membership actualizes its mission with an informed focus on Business, Education, Community Leadership, and the Legislative domain…
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Hispanic Female-Owned Businesses On The Rise In Arizona
At about 8 o’clock on a recent Tuesday night, 36 small-business owners were working their second shift of the day at the Fuerza Local business accelerator.
The six-month-long program is for Spanish-speaking business-owners and is run by the Local First Arizona Foundation. The program trains small-business owners on the ins and outs of starting and running a business, from finances and budgeting to planning for growth, according to Edgar Olivo, the director of the program.
At the end of the program, each business will receive $1,000 to invest in their growth…
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WeHo’s John Duran Elected Chair of Latino Elected Officials Group
NALEO today announced the election of Duran as chair of its board and of two new members on the 15-member board. They are Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, executive vice president of government and corporate affairs at Univision Communications Inc. and Joseph “Pep” Valdes, executive vice president and director of new business development for Parking Company of America…
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Mexico President: NAFTA Benefits Both Sides of the Border
LIMA, Peru – Several U.S. allies expressed worry over what changes could take place when it comes to trade under president-elect Donald Trump’s administration at a summit of Asian-Pacific leaders in Peru on Saturday.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said NAFTA benefits workers and companies on both sides of the border. He expressed concern that the U.S. could be turning its back on a bilateral trade relationship responsible for moving $1 million worth of goods every minute…
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Access Latina is Looking to Boost Successful Latina Entrepreneurs
Latina entrepreneurs are among the fastest growing and industrious business owners in the United States, and one organization is looking to give a leg up to promising companies.
Access Latina, which is completely run by women, provides a platform for promising and pioneering Hispanic women who need capital or guidance to further grow their businesses. The platform seeks to uplift Hispanic women working in agriculture, social innovation and STEM fields…
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New mayor seeks cooperation, also higher developer fees
Developers with projects in the pipeline can expect to be asked to provide more affordable housing and a stronger community benefits package before being approved, Mayor-elect Jesse Arreguín said Monday during a far-ranging interview with Berkeleyside.
Now that the self-described progressives have the City Council majority (see below for more details) the “previous approach” to development will change, he said.
“I do think the voters wanted a change,”Arreguín said at PIQ on Shattuck Avenue. “That’s one of the reasons I was elected by such a large margin. One of the issues I heard throughout the city of Berkeley was a concern about the major demographic changes, the changes to the character of the place, long-time businesses being displaced, the scale of development.”
“I think the voters of Berkeley want more equitable, responsible growth,” he said. “That is not to say everything is going to come to a grinding halt. We need to create more housing so, certainly, under my administration, we are going to encourage the construction of transit-oriented development in Berkeley.”…
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Mexican American Proarchive: Annual Report on Mexican American Professionals
News from the census American Community Survey is generally good for the 2015 year. Mexican American college enrollment was up from 18.7% to 18.9% in the 2014 and 2015 years. Graduate or professional degree attainment was also up from 2.9% to 3.0%. The number of bachelor’s degrees granted to Mexican American students rose from 7.6% in 2014 to 7.8% in 2015.
In spite of these gains, Mexican Americans still remain at the bottom of the ladder when it comes to earning a bachelor’s degree. Even after broadening the group to Latinos or Hispanics, this group still lags behind. According to the Pew Hispanic Center: “As of 2014, among Hispanics ages 25 to 29, just 15% of Hispanics have a bachelor’s degree or higher. By comparison, among the same age group, about 41% of whites have a bachelor’s degree or higher (as do 22% of blacks and 63% of Asians).” Pew reports that the main reasons for this low graduation rate is that Hispanics are less likely “to enroll in a four-year college, attend an academically selective college and enroll full-time.”
Also in the good news column, the University of California will continue to push for a greater number of underrepresented minorities; namely, Chicano/Latino students whose resident freshmen numbers rose from 2.7% to 32.3% of admitted California freshmen. In other good news, the proportion of Chicano/Latino students transferring from community colleges increased to 29.3% from 26.8% for 2015.
Occupations, including those in management, business, science, and art, fared better for Mexican Americans. The number of Mexican Americans filling these occupations rose from 17.4% in 2014 to 17.5% in 2015.
The total number of Hispanics filling these occupations was 16.1% in 2015, a bit lower than Mexican Americans specifically.
The report shows that industrial employment for Mexican Americans remained the same for 2014 and 2015 at 10.2%.
The figures for Hispanic or Latino employment for 2015 and 2016 show a healthy increase.
According to the Pew Hispanic center, “Construction, professional and business services, health services, financial services and food services…showed healthy gains.” Most of the jobs gained by native-born Hispanic workers were in manufacturing, mostly durable goods (82,000 Hispanic workers in this industry), followed by wholesale and retail trade (79,000), publishing, broadcasting, communication and information services (55,000), and construction (54,000).
Foreign-born Hispanics had the most job gains in construction (417,000), followed by business and professional services (179,000). Together, those two industries accounted for almost three-quarters (74%) of all jobs gained by foreign-born Latinos between 2005 and 2006.
The business and professional services sector, which ranges from management and technical services to janitorial, landscaping, and waste management services, is also a key employer for non-Hispanic workers. Of the total increase in employment in 2005-06, non-Hispanic workers accounted for 410,000 employees in the industry, native-born workers 327,000, and foreign-born workers 83,000.
Sources
- Census Bureau, Selected Population Profile in the United States: 2015
- Pew Research Center
- University of California
- Bureau of Labor Statistics
Event speaker says Texas’ Hispanic community is an economic powerhouse that will only continue to grow
The Hispanic community is a growing part of the economic engine of Texas, marketing pro Terry Soto said at the annual Hispanic Business Achievers luncheon on Wednesday.
“To market to our community, thinking about a market that used to exist 10 or 20 years ago doesn’t work,” Ms. Soto explained. “We have to evolve our thinking and our approach to this community.”
Ms. Soto, president and CEO of About Marketing, has worked with Fortune 500 organizations including Walgreen’s, ALDI Supermarkets, Verizon Wireless Coca Cola, Citibank, Kraft Foods and Disney, among others. She told a capacity crowd at Harvey Convention Center that the Hispanic community will continue to grow as an economic and demographic force in Tyler and the rest of the nation…
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As population booms, so do Hispanic businesses
It only seemed natural that the Díaz family would go into business for themselves some day.
Father Ruben worked in horticultural for years. Sons Rafael and Ruben Jr. went to school to specialize in business and horticulture management.
In 2007, the three teamed up to create the Díaz Group LLC, a Chicago-area landscape and brick paving contractor.
The company has grown since then. Rafael now serves on the board of the National Hispanic Landscape Alliance. Other Diaz family members have joined the Diaz Group. Their services have been featured on HGTV.
The Díazes are typical of many Hispanic-owned businesses. They are often family-owned, launched within the past 14 years, and concentrated in service industries such as landscaping and retail…
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Immigration Reform 2016 News – Facebook and Microsoft Say STEM, Immigrants Help U.S. Tech Companies Stay Competitive
Representatives from the country’s most affluent companies challenged the next presidential administration to revise education and immigration programs during a Democratic National Convention forum on Wednesday.
Members of the nonpartisan Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, which pushes for scientific and technological advancements, urged lawmakers to reform longstanding immigration laws that limit how long individuals can work or study in the United States. The panelists also said a lack of enthusiasm for STEM – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – education programs among minorities makes it difficult to compete globally…
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A Latino Angel Wants To Help You Invest In Tech Startups
For the past two decades, I have been an advisor to many technology startups, and I can tell you this: raising the first million is the hardest.
Even harder: raising the first million if you are Latino/Latina founder.
Last week, DreamFunded – a San Francisco-based company that I’ve written about before — became the first SF-headquartered firm to get approval from FINRA to launch a portal that will enable many people — not just the rich — to invest in technology through crowdfunding. According to DreamFunded, it’s also the first Latino-led equity crowdfunding portal anywhere to get FINRA approval…
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Michael Zajur, President of the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
HOW HE HAS SHAPED THE REGION: Zajur, as head of the chamber, has provided a voice for the Hispanic business community during a period in which the Hispanic population in Virginia essentially doubled.
In 2000, the year Zajur founded the chamber, about 4.7 percent of the state’s population was Hispanic or Latino. In 2014, that percentage was up to 9 percent…
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