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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Starting From the Bottom: Why Mexicans are the Most Successful Immigrants in America
Who’s more successful: The child of Chinese immigrants who is now a prominent attorney, or a second-generation Mexican who completed high school and now holds a stable, blue collar job?
The answer depends on how you define success.
In fact, according to a study by University of California, Irvine, Sociology Professor Jennifer Lee and UCLA Sociology Professor Min Zhou, contrary to stereotypes, Mexican-Americans are the most successful second-generation group in the country. The reason is simple: The study considered not just where people finished, but from where they started.
The report serves as counter-point to arguments raised by Amy Chua, a Yale Law School professor better known as the Tiger Mom. In a new book, The Triple Package, Chua and her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, argue that some groups—namely Chinese, Jews, Cubans, and Nigerians—are more successful than others because they possess certain cultural traits that enable them to be…”
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Founders of tortilla company hope to eventually sell food to UCLA Dining
“…Ronald Alcazar spent years honing his family’s tortilla recipe with his mother for he and his brother’s new tortilla company. Today, the two UCLA alumni have their own tortilla factory and hope to sell their tortillas to UCLA Dining Services.
Anthony and Ronald Alcazar, who graduated from UCLA in 2006 and 2012 respectively, started their own flour tortilla company, Mr. Tortilla, in 2012. Anthony Alcazar said he urged his brother to start the company during Ronald Alcazar’s senior year of college because they wanted to share their family’s tortilla recipe.
Developing the tortilla recipe was a family endeavor, Ronald Acazar said. He spent over a year creating the formula with his mother and father. He said he prides Mr. Tortilla tortillas on being non-GMO and preservative-free…”
Against Trump’s wishes, Mexican professionals keep visas in new trade deal
By Anita Kumar And Franco Ordoñez
August 28, 2018 04:35 PM
Updated August 28, 2018 11:12 PM
WASHINGTON
Tens of thousands of Mexican professionals who come to work in the United States will be able to keep their visas as part of the new U.S.-Mexico trade agreement, the Mexican government says, delivering a political loss to the Trump administration who sought to slash the number of visas as part of NAFTA re-negotiations.
The Mexican Economy Ministry told McClatchy that…”
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Big Businesses Create App-etizing Programs for Hispanic Students by Mary Ann Cooper
For many Hispanics community colleges are the first step in the higher education journey, but the road to a college degree begins long before high school graduation. Although Hispanic college enrollment has been growing over the past decade, Latinos still earn less than 9 percent of bachelor’s degrees among all graduating college students. How can more Hispanic students be funneled into the higher education pipeline, starting with community college? Three high profile corporations have created very different programs to change the minds and hearts of young Hispanics – some as young as middle school student, as well as high school students – and create a passion for pursuing a college education. Here are the stories of what these programs have to offer…”
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Most Hispanic parents speak Spanish to their children, but this is less the case in later immigrant generations
U.S. Latinos say it’s important for future generations of Hispanics to speak Spanish, and the vast majority speak the language to their children. However, the share of Latino parents who ensure the language lives on with their children declines as their immigrant connections become more distant, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.
Overall, 85% of Latino parents say they speak Spanish to their children, according to the Center’s 2015 National Survey of Latinos. Among immigrant parents, nearly all (97%) say they do this. But the share drops to 71% among U.S.-born second-generation Latino..”
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NAFTA talks focus on low wages for Mexican autoworkers
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has promised to bring auto manufacturing back to the United States from Mexico.
The success of NAFTA negotiations could be determined by how willing the Mexican government is to let him try.
As top officials from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico scramble to come to some sort of deal on the continental free trade pact by next Friday, the overwhelming focus of their discussions is the complicated issue of auto rules…
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2018’s Best Cities for Hispanic Entrepreneurs
Expect the Hispanic and Latino community’s contributions to the U.S. economy to be nothing short of monumental in the coming decades. Not only is this demographic expected to make up a more than 25% of the U.S. population by 2050 — translating into large buying power — this group is also creating businesses at 15 times the national rate, according to one report.
The timing, therefore, could not be more appropriate for Hispanic entrepreneurs to make their business ideas a reality. But what places have the best conditions for a Hispanic-owned enterprise? To answer that question, WalletHub compared more than 180 U.S. cities across 23 key indicators of business…
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Engagement, Content Sharing High Among Hispanic Millennials
A recent study released by marketing trade organization the Culture Marketing Council details many of the unique online engagement trends salient among U.S. Hispanic audiences today.
Social media was cited as the number-one digital activity among Hispanic Millennials ages 18-34, and these audiences also seem to view and share more online and social media content than their non-Hispanic white counterparts: according to the study, Hispanics ages 18-34 shared an average of 33 percent more content than non-Hispanic white respondents in the same age group…
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Brands Utilizing Hispanic Baseball Stars In New Ad Campaigns
What: Hispanic players, which make up nearly a third of opening day rosters, are starting to be used in national campaigns, even for non-sports brands.
Why it matters: Brands may be catching up to the crossover appeal of the sport’s top Latino stars.
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HSBC Highlights Corporate Optimism’s Resilience Over Global Trade Uncertainty
Protectionism has cast a shadow of uncertainty over global traders, and North America’s trade relationships are in flux.
Early in President Donald Trump’s presidency, the U.S. withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. One year later, the nation’s participation in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is also changing as the U.S., Canada and Mexico engage in negotiations that are expected to continue through April, according to Bloomberg reports this week.
Despite ongoing change and uncertainty, however, new analysis from HSBC finds corporates across North America remain confident in their future global trading operations…
…Eighty-seven percent of Mexican professionals, 77 percent of U.S. professionals and 70 percent of Canadian professionals say they are optimistic about increasing cross-border trade volume over the next year…
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Stanford Study: Latino Startups Are Growing In Numbers But Are ‘Underbanked’
An annual Stanford study — known as the State of Latino Entrepreneurship — arrived this year with its usual mix of good news and bad news for Latino entrepreneurs and their supporters.
The good news: the growth rate of Latino businesses in the US continues to outpace that of other groups. The bad news: as in previous years, the Stanford study reported that a disproportionate few of those Latino businesses are growing beyond the $1 million annual revenue mark, the Stanford threshold for a “scaled business.”…
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Data: Latinos in Iowa City faced worst US bias in home loans
IOWA CTY, Iowa (AP) — Latinos seeking conventional home loans in the Iowa City area were nearly four times more likely to be denied than non-Hispanic whites in 2016, the widest disparity in the nation, a new analysis of federal data shows.
The findings suggest racial inequality in the mortgage market in the progressive college town and appear driven by a high rate of rejections for prospective Latino borrowers reported by a single financial institution, Hills Bank, according to the analysis of millions of records by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. The analysis controlled for factors such as applicants’ income, loan amount, neighborhood that could affect the likelihood of denial…
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Among U.S. Latinos, the internet now rivals television as a source for news
On a typical weekday, three-quarters of U.S. Latinos get their news from internet sources, nearly equal to the share who do so from television, according to a 2016 survey of Latino adults by Pew Research Center…
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Starting From the Bottom: Why Mexicans are the Most Successful Immigrants in America
“…according to a study by University of California, Irvine, Sociology Professor Jennifer Lee and UCLA Sociology Professor Min Zhou, contrary to stereotypes, Mexican-Americans are the most successful second-generation group in the country. The reason is simple: The study considered not just where people finished, but from where they started…”
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El Pasoans complete grueling Stanford program
A new entrepreneurial program at Stanford University focused on developing Latino businesses has graduated 12 business owners from El Paso since it was launched two years ago.And on Saturday, Dec. 2, four Latino El Pasoans joined a growing list of business owners who have graduated from the Latino Business Action Network, which is part of the Stanford Graduate School of Business in CaliforniaThere are now 12 El Paso CEOs who have graduated from the program and are part of a network of more than 360 Latino executives around the country…
Latino Food Industry Association launches
LOS ANGELES — The Latino Food Industry Association (LFIA) announced its official launch to serve its members and educate the public and policy makers on the contributions and significant impact made buy Latino-owned food businesses on the US economy.
“Given the Hispanic market’s $1.5 trillion in annual buying power and the rapid growth of Hispanic-owned businesses in the food and beverage segment, many of our members felt it was time to launch the LFIA to maximize our position in the industry,” said Ruben Smith, LFIA chairman. “Our members include grocery chains…
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Aspen Ideas Festival: Being Latino in America today
There are 55 million Hispanics in the United States, and demographers expect Latinos will account for half of America’s population growth, and a substantial amount of economic growth as well.
Former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros says Latinos are the biggest story in the whole multicultural evolution of the United States — despite their exclusion from most history books, which tend to look only at white and black issues.
“Over the last 50 years we have made immense progress,” Cisneros said during a panel discussion at the Aspen Ideas Festival, June 29, 2017. “(People) understand our economic contribution, that mainstream economics idea. This country’s future workforce, its health of its social security system, its entrepreneurial new business formations is all about the role Latinos are going to play.”…
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Tampa Chamber of Commerce offers boost to black and Hispanic-owned businesses
Nearly half (48 percent) of all Hillsborough businesses are minority-owned, yet those minority businesses contribute less than 5 percent of the county’s total revenue, according to a study by the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce.
A new Minority Business Accelerator sponsored by the Tampa chamber seeks to fix that by providing black and Hispanic businesses with the skills, resources and networks to grow their businesses..
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How Silicon Valley appropriates Mexican-American ideas, plus degrees of assimilation.
Ripping off music and movies? We call it piratería, and we know a guy at the Paramount Swap Meet who has Guardians of the Galaxy 3 on VHS. AirBnB? We’ve been renting out the couch to visitors since the days of the Toltecs. Uber? The aforementioned raiteros, what the gabacho media used to call gypsy cabs. Some app that you can use if you need someone to cut your lawn or fix your clogged toilet? Day laborers. Dia de los Muertos everything? BRUH…and all of this caca will continue…
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6 Reasons Corporate America Misses Out On Trillions of Hispanic Dollars
America is changing and becoming more multicultural. A big part of that has been due to the Hispanic market. They are not just a sub-segment of our economy anymore. They have become a powerhouse of economic and political influence. Their purchasing power of over $1.5 trillion is larger than the GDP of Mexico, which is considered one of the top 10 economies in the world…
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