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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Two Latino Activists Divided by Years, Joined By Their Cause
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — They sat on opposite ends of the room and didn’t know each other. One is considered the old guard, while the other is the fresh young face. One is Puerto Rican and Dominican, born in New York; the other is Mexican American, born in the U.S. but raised in Mexico. One works on the West Coast, the other the East Coast…
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UNC reinstates Mexican-American studies after protests
GREELEY – After students, alumni and community members staged protests in and around the University of Northern Colorado campus over the suspension of the Mexican-American Studies program, university leaders lifted the suspension…
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Why aren’t more Latinos going to UC, CSU schools?
By Fidel A. Vargas
For those of us working to empower Latino families and help young people attain the American dream through higher education, there is cause to celebrate: The high school dropout rate among Latinos declined by about half between 2000 and 2012. More Latino high school graduates are going to college than ever before; 19 percent of all university students in the United States are Latinos.
While this surge of college-bound Latino students is encouraging, some troubling patterns persist. Latinos are less likely than non-Hispanic whites to attend a four-year university and to graduate from college…
Tejanos in College: How Texas Born Mexican-American Students Navigate Ethnoracial Identity i al I de n t it y
… often called it a tostada. Another way that I felt different from my Mexican-American Page 14.
4 … My Tejano identity formation was as a young professional who had the opportunity to reflect …
My conversations had all been with graduate students and professionals. Page 15. 5 …
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UCLA professor brings Chicana/o, Latina/o culture to Hill residents
On the Day of the Dead each year, Charlene Villaseñor Black goes to the cemetery with her family to reconnect with her ancestors. She then goes to the Hill to see through the Day of the Dead celebration, watching participants and guests create altars in honor of friends and family who have died.
Residents of Sproul Hall wave and smile back at Black each day as she walks past the dorm rooms on the second-floor Chican@/Latin@ Studies theme community, which she brought to Sproul Hall five years ago when she was a faculty-in-residence there…
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Mexican American Opportunity Foundation
The mission of the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation (MAOF) is to provide for the socio-economic betterment of the greater Latino community of California, while preserving the pride, values, and heritage of the Mexican American culture.
We advance our mission through an array of programs in early childhood education, job training, financial literacy and senior services provided throughout California…
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College welcomes distinguished Chicano writer for reading March 26
CHESTERTOWN — On Thursday, March 26, the Sophie Kerr Lecture Series at Washington College will present “An Evening of Fiction with Helena María Viramontes.” The event will take place at 4:30 p.m. at the Rose O’Neil Literary House, 407 Washington Ave., and is free and open to the public.
Viramontes is admired as one of Chicano literature’s most distinguished craftspeople. She began her career working for the innovative magazine ChismeArte and published her first book, “The Moths and Other Stories,” in 1985, quickly becoming a force on the Chicano literary scene. She has since published numerous essays and two novels, “Under the Feet of Jesus” and “Their Dogs Came with Them.”…
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Growing Chicano studies program gets votes from faculty senate
UNM’s Chicana and Chicano studies program recently continued to gain recognition when the faculty senate voted for departmentalization of the program, allowing for more structure and opportunities for students interested in the field.
Irene Vasquez, director of the program, said that growing the program has been an ongoing process since 2011. In 2013 a bachelor’s degree was installed, and in the fall it will get even bigger.
Departmentalization allows for better infrastructure, something that Vasquez said was a huge obstacle for success when developing the plan for a major…
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On representations of race
Given the sheer volume of conversations that occurred on this campus regarding students at the College wearing stereotypical costumes that specifically depicted Mexicans and, more generally, Latinos, I was struck by the lack of depth to these conversations. Most of the debate focused on the question: Do Latinos on this campus have the right to be offended? At that point the issue became divisive, and those who felt that these costumes were not offensive did not give more than a cursory glance at the more important and revealing question of why these costumes were offensive to some. Conversations failed to move beyond this flat discussion because many people were preoccupied with who does and does not have the right to offend and be offended. Catholics? Pilgrims? The Irish?! What separates an appropriating and damaging costume from good, harmless fun?
Personally, I find “taco” and “mariachi” costumes to be offensive and bigoted in their depiction of Mexicans. Period. However, the problem with these costumes does not stop with their attack on a racial identity. The issue…
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Chicano studies professor dies after battle with cancer
Camille Guérin-Gonzales, a former UW-Madison professor who focused her teaching and research on Chicano and Latino history and social movements, passed away at age 70 Feb. 24 after more than a year-long battle with cancer.
Colleague Karma Chávez said Guérin-Gonzales’ love for Chicano culture and her passions for history and labor brought the two co-workers together…
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Chicano Art Exhibit Provides Signs Of New Life At Defunct Museo Alameda
For the first time, a pair of nationally known Chicano artists from South Texas are showing their work side-by-side in “Arte y Tradición de La Frontera: The U.S.-Mexico Borderlands in the Works of Santa Barraza and Carmen Lomas Garza,” on view through May 24 at Texas A&M University-San Antonio’s Educational & Cultural Arts Center in Market Square…
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Steps toward Unifying Dual Language Programs, Common Core State Standards, and Critical Pedagogy: Oportunidades, Estrategias y Retos
Recent education reforms have begun to reframe academic discussion and teacher practice surrounding bilingual educational approaches for preparing “21st century, college and career ready” citizens. Given this broader context, in this article we examine ways that we might join implementation of dual language programs, Common Core State Standards, and critical pedagogy at the school and classroom levels via a teacher, school administrator, and teacher professional development program. We focus on a concrete example of a partnership between a progressive dual language school along the U.S.-Mexico border, known as Chula Vista Learning Community Charter School, and a bilingual teacher education program in the College of Education at San Diego State University, which prepares teachers and administrators to implement and develop dual language instruction aligned (but not beholden) to Common Core State Standards. We include discussion of a Freirian-based instructional program that helps unite the opportunities presented by dual language programs and standardsbased reform initiatives in a deeper equity and social justice framework for educating students. We discuss opportunities (oportunidades), strategies (estrategias), and challenges (retos) encountered during this collaborative work between the bilingual teacher preparation program, a Dual Language school, and one exemplary fourth grade teacher team and their enactment of a critical pedagogy-based curriculum. We conclude with a discussion of implications of our work for education of multilingual learners and the educators that work with them…
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UCSB Scholar to Receive National Honors
Aída Hurtado, a professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at UC Santa Barbara, has been named the 2015 Scholar of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS). The organization’s highest honor, it recognizes Hurtado’s significant contributions to the field in a career spanning more than three decades. She will be honored at the NACCS annual conference in San Francisco in April. – See more at: http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2015/014931/national-association-chicana-and-chicano-studies…
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Tech Program Helps Put Latinos On A Path To Silicon Valley
About an hour south of Silicon Valley in a classroom at Hartnell Community College, Daniel Diaz and Brian De Anda stand at a whiteboard mapping out ideas on how to reduce the size of a mobile app their team is building.
This isn’t a class, and the app they’re building — an informational guide for a drug rehab center — isn’t even a school project. But this is what it takes to have a chance at an elite summer internship, says Daniel Diaz.
“What you are taught at school is not enough,” Diaz says, “especially in today’s competitive society. I think you need to do some more outside learning.”The inaugural class of the Computer Science and Information Technology program, scheduled to graduate in 2016.All Tech ConsideredOut Of The Fields And Into Computer Science Classes
So these students are working on other apps, doing hackathons and learning additional programming languages outside of class. They’re doing it because there’s a thought — perhaps a reality — that hangs over…
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In 3 Minutes, This Video Will Completely Change the Way You Think About Race
By Marcie Bianco January 14, 2015
Is “race” just another label?
From Raven-Symoné to Toni Morrison, a growing number of people are now claiming that race is a social construct. As Morrison told Stephen Colbert last year, “There’s no such thing as race. None. There’s just the human race, scientifically, anthropologically. Racism [too] is a construct.” Not that race isn’t without benefits, she explained: “Money can be made off of it. People who don’t like themselves can feel better because of it. … It has a social function.”
But what does that actually mean? Jenée Desmond Harris, in a new video for Vox, has created an excellent primer for anyone confused about the concept. Whether you agree with her or not, this three-minute video will almost certainly get you thinking differently about race…
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Mexican American Studies students show academic gains, report says
As Los Angeles schools add ethnic studies courses, researchers report students who participate in Mexican American Studies increased their chances of graduating and passing state tests.
More than 100 Los Angeles Unified high schools will soon offer ethnic studies courses, such as Asian Literature, Mexican American History and African American Literature.
By 2019, every LAUSD student will have to take a one-semester ethnic studies course to graduate.
The University of Arizona study, published in the American Educational Research Journal’s December issue, found students’ chances of earning a cap and gown increased by nearly 10 percent when they took Mexican American Studies.
Struggling students showed an increased probability of passing the state reading test by about 9 percent after the course…
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University of Chicago Gets $13 Million to Attract More Hispanic Students
HYDE PARK — The Neubauer Family Foundation is spending $13 million to get more Hispanic students on campus at the University of Chicago.
The foundation announced Monday it is committing $13 million to reach out to Hispanic high school students to get them into programs on campus, as well as for financial support if they enroll at the University of Chicago…
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Wealth inequality has widened along racial, ethnic lines since end of Great Recession
The Great Recession, fueled by the crises in the housing and financial markets, was universally hard on the net worth of American families. But even as the economic recovery has begun to mend asset prices, not all households have benefited alike, and wealth inequality has widened along racial and ethnic lines.
The wealth of white households was 13 times the median wealth of black households in 2013, compared with eight times the wealth in 2010, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. Likewise, the wealth of white households is now more than 10 times the wealth of Hispanic households, compared with nine times the wealth in 2010…
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Can Ethnic Studies Improve Student Achievement? Researcher Says Yes
A new study linking Mexican American Studies with academic achievement is adding to a growing national conversation about the benefits of ethnic studies curriculums, a researcher tells NBC Latino.
“In many respects, ethnic studies is sometimes treated like a convenient academic add-on,” said Nolan Cabrera, an assistant professor in the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona. “What this (research) is demonstrating is that ethnic studies in and of itself represents real education.” …
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A House of Mirrors: Seeing Myself, Seeing Mexican American Children
R López, C Vaughn – The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational …, 2014
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