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…
Hawaii’s Growing Latino Population
“…In 2017, one in every 10 Hawaii residents was Hispanic or Latino, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. While this number may seem small, it doesn’t provide the full picture of the rapid growth of Hawaii’s Latino population.
Standing at an estimated 159,737 in 2018, the Hawaii Latino population has increased over 80 percent since 2000. The bulk of the growth of the individuals of Hispanic or Latino origin took place between 2010 and 2018 as the increase over the 2000-2010 period was “just” 37.79 percent.
But wait, there’s more. That is, more Latinos in Hawaii.
According to data from a recent study, Hawaii’s Hispanic population is poised to reach 186,611 or 12.29 percent of the projected total Hawaii population in 2023. That’s a projected 16.88 percent growth in Hawaii’s Latino population from 2018 to 2023 compared to a much smaller 0.79 percent increase for the total Hawaii population…”
Link to article
Smithsonian Adds Gallery Honoring Latino-American Culture
“…The Smithsonian Institution announced on Thursday that it will add a gallery dedicated to honoring Latino-American experiences to the National Museum of American History. The addition was made possible by a $10 million lead gift from five members of the Molina family, who made the donation in memory of their father, Dr. C. David Molina, the founder of Molina Healthcare Inc.
The 4,500 square foot Molina Family Latino Gallery is scheduled to open in 2021 and will focus on sharing the stories of Latino communities through multimedia activities, artifacts and first-person narratives. The inaugural exhibition, “Making Home: Latino Stories of Community and Belonging,” will explore the history of various Latino cultures in North America and their influence in the United States and elsewhere…”
Link to article
Key takeaways about Latino voters in the 2018 midterm elections
“Latinos make up an increasing share of the U.S. electorate. A record 29 million Latinos were eligible to vote in this year’s midterm elections, accounting for 12.8% of all eligible voters, a new high. While it’s too soon to know how many voted and their turnout rate, Latinos made up an estimated 11% of all voters nationwide on Election Day, nearly matching their share of the U.S. eligible voter population (U.S. citizens ages 18 and older). Here are key takeaways about Latino voters and the 2018 elections…”
Link to article
Verses and Flows: Migrant Lives and the Sounds of Crossing
“…Dr. Alex E. Chávez (Anthropology, Notre Dame) will present a talk titled “Verses and Flows: Migrant Lives and the Sounds of Crossing” on Wednesday, November 7, 2018 from 3:30-4:45 pm in Music Room 1145. Dr. Chávez will cover his new ethnography of Huapango music and US-Mexico border migration, Sounds of Crossing: Music, Migration, and the Aural Poetics of Huapango Arribeño (Duke 2017). Co-sponsored by the Department of Music’s Ethnomu’sicology and Musicology/Theory forums, the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Music (CISM), and the Department of Anthropology…”
Starting From the Bottom: Why Mexicans are the Most Successful Immigrants in America
Who’s more successful: The child of Chinese immigrants who is now a prominent attorney, or a second-generation Mexican who completed high school and now holds a stable, blue collar job?
The answer depends on how you define success.
In fact, according to a study by University of California, Irvine, Sociology Professor Jennifer Lee and UCLA Sociology Professor Min Zhou, contrary to stereotypes, Mexican-Americans are the most successful second-generation group in the country. The reason is simple: The study considered not just where people finished, but from where they started.
The report serves as counter-point to arguments raised by Amy Chua, a Yale Law School professor better known as the Tiger Mom. In a new book, The Triple Package, Chua and her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, argue that some groups—namely Chinese, Jews, Cubans, and Nigerians—are more successful than others because they possess certain cultural traits that enable them to be…”
Link to article
Survey finds 85% of underserved students have access to only one digital device
“…New research on students who took the ACT test, conducted by the ACT Center for Equity in Learning, found that 85% of underserved (meaning low income, minority, or first generation in college) students had access to only one device at home, most often a smartphone.
American Indian/Alaskan, Hispanic/Latino, and African American students had the least access. White and Asian students had the most.
Nearly a quarter of students who reported that family income was less that $36,000 a year had access to only a single device at home, a 19% gap compared to students whose family income was more than $100,000…”
Americans have mixed views of Mexico, ‘warmer’ feelings toward Canada
“…Views of Mexico are mixed: While 39% say they feel “warmly” toward Mexico, 34% feel “coldly,” and 26% are neutral, according to a new Pew Research Center survey conducted July 30 to Aug. 12 among 4,581 adults.
The feelings are expressed on a 0-100 “feeling…”
Link to article
Mennonites and Mormons in Mexican Culture
“…Liminal Sovereignty examines the lives of two religious minority communities in Mexico, Mennonites and Mormons, as seen through Mexican culture. Mennonites emigrated from Canada to Mexico from the 1920s to the 1940s, and Mormons emigrated from the United States in the 1880s, left in 1912, and returned in the 1920s. Rebecca Janzen focuses on representations of these groups in film, television, online comics, photography, and legal documents. Janzen argues that perceptions of Mennonites and Mormons—groups on the margins and borders of Mexican society—illustrate broader trends in Mexican history. The government granted both communities significant exceptions to national laws to encourage them to immigrate; she argues that these foreshadow what is today called the Mexican state of exception. The groups’ inclusion into the Mexican nation shows that post-Revolutionary Mexico was flexible with its central tenets of land reform and building a mestizo race. Janzen uses minority communities at the periphery to give us a new understanding of the Mexican nation…”
Link to summary
Against Trump’s wishes, Mexican professionals keep visas in new trade deal
By Anita Kumar And Franco Ordoñez
August 28, 2018 04:35 PM
Updated August 28, 2018 11:12 PM
WASHINGTON
Tens of thousands of Mexican professionals who come to work in the United States will be able to keep their visas as part of the new U.S.-Mexico trade agreement, the Mexican government says, delivering a political loss to the Trump administration who sought to slash the number of visas as part of NAFTA re-negotiations.
The Mexican Economy Ministry told McClatchy that…”
Link to article
Young Texas Latinos are an untapped voting goldmine
“…Nearly half of Texans under 18 are Latino and 95 percent of them are U.S. citizens — meaning they will be eligible to vote once they turn 18. Will they?…”
Link to article
A journalist’s journey, guided by curiosity for her father’s illness
“…Now the story of a daughter who grew up on the border between the United States and Mexico. She searches for herself, while also coming to grips with her father’s mental illness.
Amna Nawaz has the latest selection from the “NewsHour” Bookshelf…”
Link to transcript
Diversity in teacher degree programs lags nationwide
“…The report showed that at Central Washington University, which graduates the most teachers in the state each year, the number of minority students was very close to their ratio in the population — including about 12% Hispanic, the largest minority. Other Washington colleges did similarly well in matching the state breakdown…”
Link to article
Minority youth will keep America great, white anxiety will not
“The Census Bureau reported last month that the nation’s white population declined for the first time. This dip was previously not projected to begin until the next decade, though it will continue for much of this century.
Many white supporters of President Trump will view this as yet another sign of the end of the America they know, as the country inches toward “majority-minority” status. To them, this means relinquishing dominance and privileged status to browner and newer Americans, whom they perceive as competing with them for jobs and government resources, while distorting their way of life. This “white anxiety” underlies many proposals from Trump, such as the Mexican border wall and Muslim ban..”
Link to article
Positioning Ourselves to Support College Success for Males of Color
“…my colleagues Jelisa S. Clark at Fayetteville State University and Matthew Smith at California State University Dominguez Hills, our recently published book, Empowering Men of Color on Campus: Building Student Community in Higher Education, takes an in-depth look at the collegiate experiences of males of color at a Hispanic serving institution in the southwest region of the U.S.
Our main objective in writing this book, published by Rutgers University Press, was to investigate how a select group of students, all of whom were engaged in a male success program on campus, narrated their educational experience,s including their pathways to and experiences during college. We wanted to know how these students thought about themselves, built relationships with their male peers, made meaning of their engagement experiences and aspired to success. We argue that despite the overly projected deficit narrative about males of color, there is much to learn from their meanings, associations, engagements and efforts, as well as their connections to and uses of community…”
Link to article
Borders, mobility and belonging
M Gilmartin, P Wood – 2018 – books.google.com
Questions of migration and citizenship are at the heart of global political debate with Brexit
and the election of Donald Trump having ripple effects around the world. Providing new
insights into the politics of migration and citizenship in the UK and the US, this book …”
Link to book preview
What you need to know about Mexico’s historic election
“Mexico holds an historic election on Sunday: its biggest to date in terms of the sheer number of races.
Eighty-eight million registered voters — many of whom are fed up with corruption and inefficiency under the administration of current president Enrique Peña Nieto — will get the chance to change the face of Mexico’s government, and affect the course of U.S. relations, with major border and trade issues at stake.
Beyond the presidential race, more than 1600 elected positions at the state and local level are up for a vote across 30 of Mexico’s 32 states — including Mexico City’s mayor — as well as its entire federal legislative body: 500 seats in the legislature, and 128 in its senate…”
Link to article
Mexican Americans’ many routes to finding their own national identities
“…Alfredo Corchado is messing with my head, forcing me to think hard about something I had neatly packed away: What it means to be Mexican American. What are friends for if not to turn your world upside down?
As a reporter — currently for the Dallas Morning News, and earlier at the El Paso Herald-Post and the Wall Street Journal — Corchado has always been a good storyteller. But when he began writing books, he had to learn to tell his own story. He has become good at that, too…”
Link to article
Humanity’s Genes Reveal Its Tangled History
…”Reality, it turns out, is more complex and interesting than scientists ever imagined.
In the early 19th century, Jean-Fraconnçois Champollion used the Rosetta Stone to begin the process of deciphering the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt. We already knew Egypt through the Bible and the histories of the Greeks, but even Herodotus wrote 2,000 years after the beginning of the Old Kingdom. With the translation of hieroglyphics, the legend of Egypt came to life. What had been cloudy became clear.
In Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past, David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard’s Medical School and the Broad Institute, introduces us to the 21st-century Rosetta Stone: ancient DNA, which will do more for our understanding of prehistory than radiocarbon dating did. Where the latter allowed archaeologists to create a timeline based on the material objects they excavated, DNA sequencing allows scholars to explore the genetics of the people who created those material cultures. We may never see the face of Agamemnon, but we already have the DNA of the warlords of Mycenaean Greece, and in the future we could reconstruct their features from genes alone…”
Link to article
Most Hispanic parents speak Spanish to their children, but this is less the case in later immigrant generations
U.S. Latinos say it’s important for future generations of Hispanics to speak Spanish, and the vast majority speak the language to their children. However, the share of Latino parents who ensure the language lives on with their children declines as their immigrant connections become more distant, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.
Overall, 85% of Latino parents say they speak Spanish to their children, according to the Center’s 2015 National Survey of Latinos. Among immigrant parents, nearly all (97%) say they do this. But the share drops to 71% among U.S.-born second-generation Latino..”
Link to article
Upwardly Mobile
The number of Mexican-born professionals living in the United States has more than doubled since 1995. They’re not the undocumented workers you see in evening-news mug shots or aerial photographs of a littered and barren desert. They’re college graduates — some with multiple degrees — who join their blue-collar counterparts in their journeys north…
Link to article
