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,”
Read More…

Social Sciences

Clinton Jencks and Mexican-American Unionism in the American Southwest

JJ Lorence – 2013
… process, I have been fortunate to work with the skilled editors at the University of Illinois Press,
whose professional guidance was … The University of Illinois Press granted permission to reprint
portions of “Mexican American Workers, Clinton Iencks, and Mine-Mill Social Activism in …
Link to book

A Theater Intervention to Prevent Teen Dating Violence for Mexican-American Middle School Students

RA Belknap, K Haglund, H Felzer, J Pruszynski… – Journal of Adolescent …, 2013
… from two prior qualitative studies regarding perceptions of dating relationships and violence among
male and female Mexican-American adolescents to … An acting group of four undergraduate students
and a professional theater director wrote, directed, and performed the plays. …
Link to abstract

An Adapted Brief Strategic Family Therapy for Gang-Affiliated Mexican American Adolescents

A Valdez, A Cepeda, D Parrish, R Horowitz, C Kaplan – Research on Social Work …, 2013
… and Charles Kaplan1 Abstract Objective: This study assessed the effectiveness of
an adapted Brief Strategic Family Therapy (BSFT) intervention for gang-affiliated
Mexican American adolescents and their parents. Methods: A …
Link to abstract

Family Obligation Values and Family Assistance Behaviors: Protective and Risk Factors for Mexican–American Adolescents’ Substance Use

EH Telzer, N Gonzales, AJ Fuligni – Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 2013
… In the current study, we examined the role of family obli- gation values and family assistance
behaviors on Mexican– American adolescents’ substance … studies with a similar population (Telzer
and Fuligni 2009a) ranging from 1 (unskilled level) to 5 (professional level); examples …
Link to abstract

Parental Factors Associated with Mexican American Adolescent Alcohol Use

C Mogro-Wilson – Journal of Addiction, 2013
… Bachman, LD Johnston, and JE Schulenberg, “The epidemiology of alcohol, marijuana, and
cocaine use among Mexican American, Puerto Rican … EV Cohen, “Child-rearing values of
low-income, urban Puerto Rican mothers of preschool children,” Professional Psychology, vol. …
Link to article

The Psychology of Working: A Case Study of Mexican American Women With Low Educational Attainment

L Guerrero, S Singh – The Career Development Quarterly, 2013
… However, work–life balance issues may be more relevant to younger Mexican American women,
because this group’s average age was almost 48. DelCampo, DelCampo, and DelCampo (2009)
found that, although professional Hispanic women expected to share some of the …
Link to abstract

Mexican-American Perceptions of the Causes of Mental Distress

I Barrera, CH Schulz, SA Rodriguez, CJ Gonzalez… – Social Work in Mental …, 2013
… This is important for mental health professionals to understand when working with
Mexican-American clients. View full text; Download full text; … This is important for mental health
professionals to understand when working with Mexican-American clients. Keywords. …
Link to abstract

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, BODY FAT, AND ENDOTHELIAL FUNCTION IN MEXICAN AMERICAN MALE ADOLESCENTS

EJ Winokur – 2012
Page 1. PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, BODY FAT, AND ENDOTHELIAL FUNCTION IN MEXICAN
AMERICAN MALE ADOLESCENTS by … prepared by Elizabeth J. Winokur entitled Physical Activity,
Body Fat, and Endothelial Function in Mexican American Male Adolescents …
Link to dissertation

Mexican American Studies: The Historical Legitimacy of an Educational Program

C Gómez, M Jimenez-Silva – Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, 2013
… After the Committee was divided into three smaller subcommittees, Committee members read
and discussed the latest professional literature on their … Over ninety-five percent of the speakers
at the public hearings favored the creation of a Mexican American Studies program. …
Link to article

Fostering Resilience in Mexican American Youth Through Cultural and Family Assets

GL Stein, CG Coll, N Huq – … : Mexican-American Schooling, Immigration, and Bi- …
… Fostering Resilience in Mexican American Youth 249 students’ language brokering or familial
obligations. … In so doing, schools, offering professional development as needed, can encourage
biculturalism and thus communicate to students and fami- lies that their ethnicity is …
Link to book

Understanding Mexican American Children

V Zúñiga, ET Hamann – … : Mexican-American Schooling, Immigration, and Bi- …
… students who started their schooling in Mexican schools but still declared them- selves “American.”
Second, the hyphenated Mexican American identity is … They more readily imagine themselves
doing their vocational or professional studies in US colleges and know well that they …
Link to book

Alcohol Availability and Violence among Mexican American Youth

RN Parker, KJ McCaffree, ML Alaniz – Alcohol and Violence: The Nature, 2013
… the other variables in the model do not consistently pre- dict youth violence rates once outlet
density, professional employment, and divorce rates are taken into account. DISCUSSION This
study establishes a link during the key period of Mexican American population growth of …
Link to book

When Labels Don’t Fit: Hispanics and Their Views of Identity

Paul Taylor, Mark Hugo Lopez, Jessica Hamar Martínez and Gabriel Velasco
Nearly four decades after the United States government mandated the use of the terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” to categorize Americans who trace their roots to Spanish-speaking countries, a new nationwide survey of Hispanic adults finds that these terms still haven’t been fully embraced by Hispanics themselves. A majority (51%) say they most often identify themselves by their family’s country of origin; just 24% say they prefer a pan-ethnic label…
Link to article

Parent and child fluency in a common language: Implications for the parent–child relationship and later academic success in Mexican American families.

T Schofield, K Beaumont, K Widaman, R Jochem… – Journal of Family …, 2012
… journal cover Parent and Child Fluency in a Common Language: Implications for the
Parent–Child Relationship and Later Academic Success in Mexican American Families. … Parents
and children in Mexican American families often gain fluency in English at different rates. …
Link to abstract

Viewing globalization in transnational, Mexican American Spaces

GAM Esparza
… Nine primary diary keepers – including one second and one third generation Mexican-American
(born in the US) – lived by themselves. … His professional background is in journalism, which he
practiced for 13 years in different news outlets in Mexico, including Siglo 21 in his …
Link to Article

We Became Mexican American: How Our Immigrant Family Survived to Pursue the American Dream

CB Gil
… parents especially in sensing that we were no longer Mexican like them, that we were becoming,
and in the end, became Mexican American. … As an honest storyteller and professional historian,
I felt obliged to explain that she was referring to the great Mexican Rebellion of 1910 …
Link to book

The Perceptions of Successful and Unsuccessful Mexican American Students on the Public School System

L Arreola – 2012
… schools, and professional schools. Hispanic A Hispanic person is of Latin-American descent
living in the United States; especially: one of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin. Latino A
Latino is a person of Latin-American origin living in the United States. Mexican American …
Link to thesis


  

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.

Read More…