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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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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From minor to major
One American in six is now Hispanic, up from a small minority two generations ago. By mid-century it will be more than one in four. David Rennie explains what that means for America
IN THREE TERMS representing Colorado in Congress, John Salazar got used to angry voters calling him a Mexican and not a proper American. During fights over the Obamacare health-insurance law, a constituent told him to “go back where you came from”. The attacks were misplaced. Mr Salazar is proud of his Hispanic heritage, but he comes from a place with deeper American roots than the United States. One of his ancestors, Juan de Oñate y Salazar, co-founded the city of Santa Fe in New Mexico…
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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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Parental Cultural Socialization of Mexican-American Adolescents’ Family Obligation Values and Behaviors
KM Tsai, EH Telzer, NA Gonzales, AJ Fuligni – Child Development, 2015
… Parental Cultural Socialization of Mexican-American Adolescents’ Family Obligation Values and
Behaviors. … Tsai, KM, Telzer, EH, Gonzales, NA and Fuligni, AJ (2015), Parental Cultural
Socialization of Mexican-American Adolescents’ Family Obligation Values and Behaviors…
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1 ‘Embodying the transnational: How young Mexican – American women negotiate the intersections of gender, race and class in the U.S. – Mexico borderlands’
C O’Neill Gutierrez – 2015
Page 1. 1 ‘Embodying the transnational: How young Mexican-American women negotiate the
intersections of gender, race and class in the US-Mexico borderlands’ … Mexican-American
household that moves past limited notions of macho men and subservient women. …
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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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Machismo in The United States
The word Latino will be used in this paper because of its inclusivity. It has
been used in the United States by people of Hispanic and Latin decent as a means
of legitimacy in politics, humanities and literature. To avoid any uncertainty, Latino,
according to the Royal Academy of Spanish Language, is used to reference both
males and females (Torres-Rivera 26). In the United States, Latinos are younger
than the general population on average. About 60% of the US population is 39 years
or younger, while over ¾ of the Latino population falls in this quotient. 21% of Latino
homes fall below the poverty line. Almost 15% of all those jailed in the United States
are Latino and 23% of these are drug related (27). Therefore, it is highly probable
that any counselor or clinician working with Latino clients will encounter addiction
and substance use or abuse…
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Cockroach Dreams: Oscar Zeta Acosta, Legal Services, and the Great Society Coalition
Early in Oscar Zeta Acosta’s 1972 novel, The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, his protagonist, Oscar Acosta, quits his job as a War on Poverty-funded Legal Services lawyer in East Oakland, California, dumping his law license in the wastepaper basket. His resignation precipitates his search for racial identity in Autobiography and eventual transformation into Buffalo Zeta Brown, the activist Chicano lawyer in Acosta’s sequel, The Revolt of the Cockroach People (1973). (1) Oscar’s abrupt departure enacts a double rejection. First, he rejects the liberalism that led him to take on “the enemy our president [Lyndon Johnson] so clearly described in his first State of the Union address” (Autobiography 22). Instead, especially in Revolt, Oscar/ Brown adopts a militant Chicano/a Cultural Nationalism at odds with the politics of integrationist Mexican American leaders affiliated with the Democratic Party. (2) Second, he rejects the professional aspirations…
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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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El Movimiento Chicano in Colorado
On Saturday February, 7 the Colorado History Museum opened an exhibit of El Movimiento – The Chicano Movement in Colorado that attempts to offer a picture of over a decade of explosive activities that described the drive for social and political justice for Latinos. Among the founders of the exhibit is Ricardo LaFore who talks of it as immersing the visitor “in the urgency, passion and vitality of one of Colorado’s most important social movements as activists fought to end discrimination and to gain social and political power through education, culture and the arts.” …
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Seeing Mothers-in-Law Through the Lens of the Mothering Ideology An Interview Analysis of Taiwanese, Taiwanese American, and Mexican American Daughters-in-Law
KY Shih, K Pyke – Journal of Family Issues, 2015
… subsamples. Only 4 of the 36 respondents are not mothers, including 1 Taiwanese,
1 Taiwanese American, and 2 Mexican American respondents. Most respondents are
employed full-time in a professional or middle-class occupation. …
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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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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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Explaining the Mexican-American Health Paradox Using Selectivity Effects
EA Téllez, JN Martínez, ER González – 2015
… Banco de México Working Papers N° 2015-02 Explaining the Mexican-American Health Paradox
Using Selectivity Effects January 2015 … Erick Rangel González Banco de México Page 2. Explaining
the Mexican-American Health Paradox Using Selectivity Effects …
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Mexican American Children and Families: Multidisciplinary Perspectives
MOB Caughy, L Franzini – Mexican American Children and Families: …, 2014
… Policy makers and public health professionals must recognize the heterogeneity within and among …
Selected measures of health status for Mexican-American, mainland Puerto Rican, and Cuban …
Child Maltreatment: Journal of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of …
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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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Cecilia Abbott becomes state’s first Hispanic first lady
AUSTIN, Texas
The swearing in of new Texas Gov. Greg Abbott makes his wife the state’s first Hispanic first lady.
Cecilia Abbott is the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants and was raised in San Antonio.
Delivering his inaugural address on the steps of the state Capitol on Tuesday, the new governor said his wife embodies Texas.
He said the state “has been the blending of cultures from across the globe even before we became our own nation.”…
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How Mexicans Became Americans
SOUTH GATE, Calif. — A FEW weeks ago, the City Council in this suburb southeast of Los Angeles appointed a Mexican immigrant to its advisory council. Jesus Miranda is from Michoacán and owns a taco restaurant here. He’ll advise the council on housing development and other issues.
Mr. Miranda’s appointment is hardly national news. But small moments like these are signs of a historic change of heart toward America and civic engagement among Mexican immigrants, many of whom, like Mr. Miranda…
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The Culture of Generativity: Exploring the Manifestation of Generativity in the Manifestation of Generativity in the Mexican/Mexican-American Population
Generativity is a developmental stage in adulthood where an individual makes a
conscious decision to leave their mark on the world with the intent to make the world a
better place for future generations. Research has shown that engaging in generative acts
benefits both the person engaging in such practices as well as the recipient, and thus
generativity is positively correlated with reported well being. It has also been shown that
adults engaging in such practices are psychologically healthier and ease into old age with
less resistance than their non-generative counterparts. Generativity is a strengths-
based approach. It is shaped by one’s cultural values and beliefs and also serves
as a window into one’s particular culture…
Link to dissertation
Al Madrigal’s New Special ‘Half Like Me’ Is What Latinos Have Been Waiting For
Al Madrigal goes on a journey of self-discovery… starting with how to pronounce his own name.
In his new one-hour special “Half Like Me,” premiering on Fusion on January 22, The Daily Show’s senior Latino correspondent travels across the U.S. to discover what it means to be half Mexican and half white.
“Being half has always been confusing,” Madrigal says in the preview for the special. “White people think you’re Mexican and Latinos give me shit about not being Latino enough.”…
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