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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Latina Elected Officials Make History in States like Colorado, Illinois
Latina elected officials are making strides not just on the federal level with the first Latina elected to the U.S. Senate and sworn in on Tuesday, but on the state and local level.
Colorado in particular stands out: It’s making history in 2017 with two Latinas in top positions.
Democrat Crisanta Durán becomes the state’s first-ever Speaker of the House. Fellow Democrat Lucía Guzmán was re-elected Senate Minority Leader…
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San Gabriel Valley Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio appointed first Latina chair of human services committee
State Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, has been appointed as the first Latina chair of the Assembly’s human services committee, her office announced Tuesday
The committee oversees child welfare services, foster care, CalWORKs, developmental disabilities services, adult protective services and other human services programs.
Rubio, who was elected to her first term in November, was appointed to the position by Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon…
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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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Latino voters will reshape American politics as we know it — and here’s the proof
Twenty years ago, neither Democrats nor Republicans saw Latinos as a voting bloc worth wooing. Instead, they often pursued policies that actively played into xenophobia. In 1996, Bill Clinton signed into law the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which according to a recent Human Rights Watch report, set into motion today’s mass deportation. In that same year, future Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel wrote a memo urging Clinton to “claim and achieve record deportation of criminal aliens.”
Over the last decade, the Democratic Party has changed its tune, and started trying desperately to woo Latinos. Today, leading Democrats overwhelmingly support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and are using executive orders to halt deportations, while Republicans, led by Donald Trump, continue to demonize Latinos and promise harsh countermeasures to stop undocumented immigrants from entering the country…
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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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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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The First Latina Senator is Ready to Be “One Hell of a Check and Balance” on Donald Trump
Former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto made history on Tuesday night when she became the first Latina to be elected to the Senate in U.S. history — and she’s already making it very clear she’s more than willing to go head-to-head with Donald Trump once she arrives in Washington, DC.
“Our government is built on a system of checks and balances, and I will promise you this: I will be one hell of a check and balance on him,” she said during her victory speech on Wednesday. “Tonight we start our fight together… The diversity here is our strength and we will continue to be strong.”…
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English graduate student wins Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship
Cesar Soto wants to know how the spark of political revolution can transform religious concepts of community and inclusion.
To better understand the issue, he’s turning to the literature of England, Ireland, and Mexico in the late 1700s and early 1800s.César Soto wants to know how the spark of political revolution can transform religious concepts of community and inclusion.
Soto, a Ph.D. candidate in Notre Dame’s Department of English, has been awarded a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship for 2016-17 to support his project.
The fellowships recognize graduate students who have demonstrated superior academic achievement, show promise as future scholars and teachers at a college or university level, and are prepared to use diversity as a resource to enrich the education of all students…
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Obama White House Touts Latino Gains in Income, Education, Health
by SUZANNE GAMBOA
WASHINGTON, DC — The White House on Wednesday touted gains Hispanics have made in education, income and health insurance during President Barack Obama’s time in office.
In a report released to mark the closing days of Hispanic Heritage Month, which ends Saturday, the White House issued a four-page brief from its Council on Economic Advisers on the Hispanics’ economic progress in the Obama years.
Obama marked the close of Hispanic Heritage month with remarks at a White House reception Wednesday afternoon. Hispanic Heritage Month began Sept. 15 and closes on Saturday.
“Over the last eight years we have made a lot of progress, together for all Americans and nowhere have you been able to see more vividly the progress than in the Hispanic American community,” Obama said at the event…
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USC professor spotlights the significance of Latinos to California’s future
The USC Price School of Public Policy has taken a leading role in training local decision-makers and its partnership with the Latino Caucus demonstrates the inroads it has made.
That’s a thought from USC Price Professor Raphael Bostic.
USC Price hosted more than 20 public officials from the League of California Cities Latino Caucus, who took part in the Bedrosian Center on Governance’s Local Leaders Executive Education Forum on Sept. 22 and 23.
The participants, many of whom are mayors or council members of cities across California, heard presentations from USC Price faculty on leadership, public ethics and housing policy, among other topics.
Professor Frank Zerunyan, director of executive education at the Bedrosian Center, led the program, which was the product of an agreement that USC Price and the Bedrosian Center signed with the Latino Caucus in 2014 to provide training aimed at enhancing the leadership capacity of public officials statewide…
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Nationally Recognized Scholar of Latino Politics to Speak at CSU, Chico for Constitution Day 2016
Dr. Gary Segura of Stanford University will make the California State University, Chico Constitution Day keynote address, “The Future is Ours: How Demographic Change and Latino Voters Are Changing American Politics in 2016 and Beyond.” The event is on Tuesday, September 20 at 6 p.m. in the Bell Memorial Union auditorium. It is a free, public event open to all students, faculty and community members.
Gary Segura is the Morris M. Doyle Centennial Professor of Public Policy at Stanford University. He is the director of the Stanford Institute on the Politics of Inequality, Race and Ethnicity, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His work focuses on issues of political representation and social cleavages, the domestic politics of wartime public opinion, and the politics of America’s growing Latino population…
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Eva Longoria’s powerful speech: ‘My family didn’t cross the border. The border crossed us’
Eva Longoria took the podium at the Democratic National Convention with a powerful speech about her family’s immigrant past.
The actress was among the various speakers at Monday night’s opening night in Philadelphia. She spoke about her personal experience as a Mexican-American living in the U.S.
“I’m from a small town in South Texas, and if you know your history, Texas used to be part of Mexico,” Longoria, 41, said. “I’m ninth-generation American. My family never crossed the border, the border crossed us.”…
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Clinton’s Latina political director Amanda Renteria is key to getting the Hispanic community on board with her
WASHINGTON — For Amanda Renteria, 2016 has made the political even more personal.
When she took the job as Hillary Clinton’s political director, making her the highest-ranking Hispanic staffer on the campaign, Renteria knew she’d play a key role in trying to awaken the sleeping giant of the Hispanic vote. She never imagined she’d do it while squaring off against Donald Trump and his anti-Latino xenophobia…
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Voto Latino Power Summit Kicks Off To Mobilize Young Latinos
With Hillary Clinton now virtually assured to be the Democratic nominee for President, the Voto Latino Power Summit being held this weekend in Las Vegas, Nevada holds particular significance for the growing power of Latino millennials, who make up 44 percent of all Latinos according to recent analysis from Pew Research.
An estimated 3.2 million Latinos will be able to cast their votes for the first time in the upcoming presidential election, and will likely pit Republican frontrunner Donald Trump against Clinton. With Donald Trump poised to get the lowest vote ever among Latinos for a Republican presidential nominee, organizations like Voto Latino will be an important venue for using the attention of the election to connect young Latinos with each other in networking opportunities and getting them motivated to become active citizens…
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