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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Social Sciences

Early Childrearing Practices and Their Relationship to Academic Performance in Mexican American Children

Arevalo, Amanda PT, DSc, PCS; Kolobe, Thubi H.A. PT, PhD, FAPTA; Arnold, Sandra PT, PhD; DeGrace, Beth PhD, OTR/L
Purpose:
To examine whether parenting behaviors and child rearing practices in the first 3 years of life among Mexican American (MA) families predict children’s academic performance at school age
Link to abstract

Academic Invulnerability Among Mexican-American Students: The Importance of Protective Resources and Appraisals

Sylvia Alatorre Alva
California State University, Fullerton

This study examined the characteristics of a cohort of Mexican-American tenth-grade students to determine why some Mexican-American students are academically successful and others are not, despite sharing a similar sociocultural background. Based on current work on invulnerable children, the purpose of this study was to examine the role of protective…
Link to abstract

Racism on trial : the Chicano fight for justice

“Ian Haney Lopez tells the compelling story of the Chicano movement in Los Angeles by following two criminal trials, including one arising from the student walkouts. He demonstrates how racial prejudice led to police brutality and judicial discrimination that in turn spurred Chicano militancy. He also shows that legal violence helped to convince Chicano activists that they were nonwhite, thereby encouraging their…
Link to book preview

The Mexican-American Diaspora and its Influence on American Trade Policy

M Mucci Pineda – 2014
Page 1. The Mexican-American Diaspora and its Influence on American Trade Policy By … ii Abstract
This study focuses on the Mexican-American community in the US, the American and Mexican
governments, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and trade in …
Link to dissertation

PSYCHOSOCIAL INFLUENCES OF ACCULTURATION AND ACCULTURATIVE STRESS ON LEPTIN, ADIPONECTIN, AND GESTATIONAL DIABETES IN MEXICAN AMERICAN WOMEN DURING PREGNANCY

SE Muñoz – 2014
… LEPTIN, ADIPONECTIN, AND GESTATIONAL DIABETES IN MEXICAN AMERICAN WOMEN
DURING PREGNANCY Committee: … STRESS ON LEPTIN, ADIPONECTIN, AND GESTATIONAL
DIABETES IN MEXICAN AMERICAN WOMEN DURING PREGNANCY by …
Link to dissertation

Ian Heney López on the Dog Whistle Politics of Race: Interview with Bill Boyers

February 28, 2014

What do Cadillac-driving “welfare queens,” a “food stamp president” and the “lazy, dependent and entitled” 47 percent tell us about post-racial America? They’re all examples of a type of coded racism that this week’s guest, Ian Haney López, writes about in his new book, Dog Whistle Politics.
Link to interview

Reduction of Non-adherent Behaviour in a Mexican-American Adolescent with Type 2 Diabetes

E Piven, R Duran – Occupational Therapy International, 2014
… In addition, fatalismo (a Mexican-American fatalistic belief about God’s control over oneself) may
pose challenges to the development of an … Seeking help from a professional has been viewed
as an outward demonstration of weakness that challenged machismo and…
Link to abstract

HIV RISKS AND RISK REDUCTION READINESS IN HARD-TO-REACH, DRUG-USING AFRICAN AMERICAN AND MEXICAN AMERICAN WOMEN: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

HIV RISKS, RIN HARD-TO-REACH
… risky HIV behaviors, We developed the AIDS Survival Kit (ASK) program, which targeted both
African American and Mexican American men and … Making such changes will involve the
collaborative efforts of health and social service professionals who understand the issues …
Link to article

A Qualitative Study of Family Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors of Mexican-American and Mexican Immigrant Fathers and Mothers

BJ Turner, N Navuluri, P Winkler, S Vale, E Finley – … of the Academy of Nutrition and …, 2014
… Twelve focus groups were held from August 2011 through January 2012 in community settings
in predominantly Mexican-American neighborhoods of … and transcribed verbatim by Area Health
Education Center staff and reviewed for accuracy by a professional transcriptionist as …

Link to abstract

Beliefs, Practices, and Experiences Of Postpartum Mexican American Women: An Ethnonursing Study

VA Hascup – Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal …, 2014
… University, Union, NJ. Discipline: Childbearing (CB), Professional Issues (PI), Women’s
Health (WH). Learning Objectives: Desribe the values that are most important to
Mexican American women during the childbirth continuum. …
Link to abstract

Hidden in plain sight: design approaches to Midwestern Mexican-American landscapes

S Dieterlen – Journal of Urbanism: International Research on …, 2014
… Midwestern Mexican-American landscapes by any of those scholars is likely to focus on testing
or developing theory, this study focuses primarily on physical intervention in actual neighborhoods
and cities to improve residents’ quality of life. The addition of professional-practice …
Link to abstract

The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory

DIVThe Mexican American woman zoot suiter, or pachuca, often wore a V-neck sweater or a long, broad-shouldered coat, a knee-length pleated skirt, fishnet stockings or bobby socks, platform heels or saddle shoes, dark lipstick, and a bouffant. Or she donned the same style of zoot suit that her male counterparts wore. With their striking attire, pachucos and pachucas represented a new generation of Mexican American youth, which arrived on the public scene in the 1940s. Yet while pachucos have often been the subject of literature, visual art, and scholarship, The Woman in the Zoot Suit is the first book focused on pachucas.
Link to reviews

The Role of Behavioral and Cognitive Cultural Orientation on Mexican American College Students’ Life Satisfaction

L Ojeda, LM Edwards, EE Hardin, B Piña-Watson – Journal of Hispanic Higher …, 2014
… Implications for Practice Despite the limitations of this study and its exploratory nature,
our findings suggest several implications for professionals in college settings working
with Mexican American students. For example, higher …
Link to abstract

Cultural Differences in the Parenting of Young Children: An Observational Study of Low-Income Mexican American and European American Families

KM McCabe, JR Shanley, LN Niec, M Naaf, M Yeh… – Child & Family Behavior …, 2013
… Cultural Differences in the Parenting of Young Children: An Observational Study of Low-Income
Mexican American and European American Families. … Parenting style of Mexican, Mexican
American, and Caucasian–non-Hispanic families: Social context and cultural influences . …

Link to abstract

Democratizing Texas Politics: Race, Identity, and Mexican American Empowerment, 1945-2002

B Márquez – 2014
… Page 4. Democratizing Texas Politics Race, Identity, and Mexican American Empowerment,
1945–2002 by benjamin márquez University of Texas Press Austin … Introduction This is a book
about Mexican American incorporation into Texas electoral politics after World War…
Link to preview of book

Acculturation and Religious Coping as Moderators of the Association Between Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms Among Mexican-American Vocational Students

A Fernandez, A Loukas – Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 2013
… population, because of limited eco- nomic resources and access to other forms of coping, such
as professional counseling [2 … Although religious involvement is important to the Mexican-American
population, the amount of literature examining religiousness and its influence on …
Link to abstract


  

Poem
“…And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while…”

T.S. Eliot
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Mexican American Proarchive Annual Report for 2022

The American Community Survey is an annual survey administered by the federal government to help local officials and community leaders and businesses understand the changes that take place in their communities. It includes percentages of our population’s graduate school attainment and the employment of Mexican Americans in various occupations.  These important factors influence the allocation of federal resources. Mexican American Proarchives uses the data provided by the American Community Survey to better understand how Mexican Americans compare to the general population.

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