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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Noam Chomsky kicks off lecture series on linguistics at UCLA
“The father of modern linguistics delivered the first of several public lectures at UCLA on Monday as part of a weeklong lecture series.
Noam Chomsky, a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is giving a series of open lectures on linguistic theory at UCLA from Monday through Thursday.
The event was hosted by UCLA’s Department of Linguistics. Roughly 250 people attended the first lecture Monday, said Claudia Salguero, linguistics department manager. Attendees included UCLA undergraduate and graduate students, USC students and visitors from overseas who flew in to attend the lecture, she said.
Chomsky spoke about the history of linguistics during Monday’s lecture, as well as several linguistic theories he developed. One of these theories was the theory of universal grammar. Chomsky proposed there are universal linguistic rules that are innately hard-wired in humans. These basic rule…”
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Pre-med students overwhelmingly want greater diversity, study shows
“…Pre-medical students support greater diversity in the medical profession, according to a recent national survey.
The survey, which was published April 15 by Kaplan Test Prep, found that 80% of pre-medical students said the medical profession needs to better reflect the demographics of the general patient population.
Representation of minority groups in medical schools has not mirrored that of the patient population, said Petros Minasi, director of pre-health programs at Kaplan.
About 4% of active physicians in the United States are black and another 4% are Hispanic, while black and Hispanic patients each make up 13% of the patient population, Minasi said…”
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Not what it seems
“…This is the editor’s letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.
In The Week’s office, the country’s major newspapers are laid out in a line each day along a counter. One day last week, the same spooky image stared out from every front page, like a cosmic eyeball — the first-ever “photo” of a black hole. It’s an achievement once thought impossible, given that black holes exert such monstrous gravity that they swallow light itself. To see the unseeable, it took 200 scientists on four continents using eight radio telescopes, synchronized so that they functioned like one giant radio dish the size of Earth. Even Einstein, whose theories predicted black holes, initially doubted something so outlandish could exist. Now astronomers have captured what one looks like: a radiant orange-red ring of superheated gas swirling…”
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Latinos’ Incomes Higher Than Before Great Recession, but U.S.-Born Latinos Yet to Recover
“…Overall gain is driven by rise in share of higher-income immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for more years… U.S.-born Latinos have yet to recover financially from the Great Recession.The Great Recession of 2007-09 triggered a lengthy period of decline in the incomes of American workers. Since hitting a trough stretching from 2012 to 2014, their financial fortunes appear to be on the mend – in 2017, a decade after the recession began, the median personal income of American workers stood 3% higher than in 2007…”
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Underrepresented Spanish-speaking women share perspectives in film festival
“…Immigration, sexuality and maternity will be explored from a woman’s point of view in this year’s annual Latin American, Latinx and Iberian Film Festival.
Founded in 2012 by assistant adjunct professor Adrián Collado and hosted by UCLA’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese, this year’s iteration of the annual festival will run from Monday through Thursday featuring films directed by women from Spain, Latin America and Mexico. Some screenings will be accompanied by live Q&As with cast and crew. One of the festival’s goals is to provide a platform for underrepresented women in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries to share their perspectives on social issues, said Spanish and Portuguese professor Elizabeth Warren…”
Why the United States Needs More Immigrants
“As controversy continued to rage on Thursday about the Trump Administration’s policy of separating migrant families at the southern border, the Census Bureau published new data that show why the United States will need more immigrants, not fewer, in the coming decades.
Demographers and economists have been warning that the aging baby-boomer population presents a serious challenge to the nation’s finances, as the ratio of seniors to working-age adults—the age-dependency ratio—rises. The reason is straightforward: Social Security and Medicare are largely financed on a pay-as-you-go basis, which means that some of the taxes paid by current workers are transferred to current retirees. If the dependency ratio rises, the financial burden on the working-age population …”
Posted in Economics, Front Page Items, Immigration, Political Science
College Material
“— The Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP) at UC Santa Barbara will hold a series of UC Success Night events April 10 through May 3 to celebrate the academic success of high school seniors from the university’s EAOP partnership schools who have been admitted to the UC system.
UC-admitted seniors and their families from high schools in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Kern counties are invited to attend their respective school’s event.
The program includes a presentation of awards and of State Proclamations from local Senate and Assembly members in recognition of students’ academic achievement, and student keynote speeches will be delivered in both English and Spanish. Attendees also will have the opportunity to meet UC Santa Barbara faculty and staff members, administrators, alumni and undergraduate students, as well as network with other students and families from their hometown who may be attending the same universities in the fall.
“‘Where Preparation Meets Opportunity’ — that’s our slogan,” said Britt Ortiz, EAOP director. “UC Success Night represents every aspect of our students’ preparation for meeting opportunity when it knocks. We celebrate the success of so many first-generation students and their families for being admitted to the UC system, one of the most competitive public institutions in the country. Our EAOP students put in the time, they did the work, they made the sacrifices and we were able to help them make their educational dreams come true.”
The EAOP college site coordinators and academic services team have, according to Ortiz, “poured their hearts and souls” into helping the 2019 senior class. “They started in the summer before their senior year with the College Readiness Academy, then college applications, personal inquiry questions for the UC system, scholarship letters, FAFSA-CADA applications, extending hours for advisement or holding test preparation workshops on the weekend,” he said. “Most of our EAOP staff are first-generation college grads themselves, so helping students in our program is their passion.”
The first of seven UC Success Night events will honor Carpinteria High School students Wednesday, April 10, at 6 p.m. in the school cafeteria, 4810 Foothill Rd. The Santa Paula High School event will follow Thursday, April 11 at 6 p.m. in the school cafeteria, 404 N. 6th St.
The UC Success Night for Santa Maria Joint Union High School District will take place at 6 p.m. Monday, April 15, in Veterans Memorial Hall, 313 W. Tunnell St. Fillmore High School students will be recognized at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, in that school’s cafeteria, 555 Central Ave. Channel Islands and Hueneme high school students and their families are invited to attend an event at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 25, at the Oxnard Performing Arts…”
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EDI office lacks inclusivity necessary to promote diversity throughout UCLA
“In the wake of rich, white kids being able to buy their way into college and faculty growing increasingly concerned about the lack of diversity in their leadership, it’s easy to turn to UCLA’s designated solution-maker: the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
But cut through the sleek website, carefully crafted copy- and buzzword- filled seminars, and it’s clear the office is mainly just that – and a couple of smart administrators.
It comes down to inclusion, something the EDI office ironically needs to work on.
The office is run by Jerry Kang, the vice chancellor for EDI, and a handful of other administrators. While these individuals have various advisory councils, an office tasked with matters of diversity and inclusion should certainly have a more reflectively diverse leadership team…”
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A Central American Marshall Plan Won’t Work
“Since late January, thousands of would-be asylum applicants have been held up just outside of the U.S. border with Mexico, where they have been forced to wait their turn to speak to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The growing humanitarian situation—camps for migrants are overcrowded, unhygienic, and dangerous—has renewed focus on Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s call for a Central American Marshall Plan, through which $30 billion would be channeled toward regional development in an effort to ease migration pressures. López Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, has set a goal of funding the plan by May, and U.S. President Donald Trump, eager to halt immigration to the United States, agreed to participate to the tune of $5.8 billion…”
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Adaptation of Trojan Women starring Syrian refugees set for UK tour
“..An acclaimed adaptation of The Trojan Women with an all-female cast of Syrian refugees recounting their stories of loss, flight and exile is coming to the UK for a three-week run.
First performed in Amman, Jordan, in 2013, Queens of Syria will open at the Young Vic in early July before going to venues in Liverpool, Edinburgh and elsewhere. Fifteen Syrian refugees, who had never acted until they appeared in the great antiwar tragedy by Euripides, will be on stage…”
Link to article, please read the other immigrant story I published
Central American migrant border influx grows as detentions top 1,000 in El Paso in one day
“The influx of Central American migrants topped more than 1,000 detentions Wednesday in El Paso, straining U.S. Border Patrol resources, officials warned.
Migrant crossings continued Thursday with groups walking across the Rio Grande from Executive Center Boulevard in West El Paso to the area near Yarbrough Drive and the Zaragoza Bridge in the Lower Valley.
More than 1,000 men, women and children were detained by the end of Wednesday in El Paso after crossing the border onto U.S. soil to surrender to agents along the border fence, said Border Patrol Agent Jose Romero, an agency spokesman…”
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Asian Americans Are the Least Likely Group in the U.S. to Be Promoted to Management
“Asian Americans are the forgotten minority in the glass ceiling conversation.
This was painfully obvious to us while reading the newly released diversity and inclusion report from a large Silicon Valley company: Its 19 pages never specifically address Asian Americans. Asian men are lumped into a “non-underrepresented” category with white men (we’ll say more about that below); Asian women are assigned to a category that includes women of all races. In contrast, the report addresses Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans as distinct categories. Ironically, the chief diversity and inclusion officer of the company remarked about its efforts, “If you do not intentionally include, you will unintentionally exclude.”
But excluded from the report was the fact that Asian Americans are the least likely racial group to be promoted into Silicon Valley’s management and executive levels, even though they are the most likely to be hired into high-tech jobs. This was a key finding in a 2017 report we coauthored for the Ascend Foundation (“The Illusion of Asian Success”), analyzing EEOC data on Silicon Valley’s management pipeline…”
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Student captures candid moments through creative videography for Shawn Mendes tour
“Connor Brashier made arrangements to take one of his final exams while in Germany.
The second-year psychology student will miss finals week because he is currently shooting videos for Shawn Mendes’ self-titled world tour, which kicked off March 7 in Amsterdam. His role involves editing and sharing clips with Mendes for the singer’s social media accounts. Brashier got his start in lifestyle videography working with brands like PacSun and Pura Vida Bracelets, but has taken to filming DJs and musicians like Madison Beer in recent years. Filming on tour brings creative challenges with each consecutive show, he said, but it ultimately allows him to better incorporate music into videos.
“Having a video team on the road has been so important to giving my fans constant content and helps me to connect with them,” Mendes said in an email statement. “(Brashier) has an amazing way of capturing really special and intimate moments at shows and backstage, and has just an incredible energy.”
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The Woman who Invented Barro Negro (Black Pottery)
“The barro negro (black pottery) tradition in Oaxaca, Mexico, dates to the early 1950s, although its predecessor, the grey, utilitarian cántaro of San Bartolo Coyotepec has a tradition going back a couple of thousand years. The most common pottery form in the area, known as the cántaro, had been used for carrying and storing water, mezcal, milk and other liquids, for generations. Then in the early 1950s, a humble, personable woman named Doña Rosa Real, together with her husband Juventino Nieto, by chance developed an innovation to its appearance and functionality; if the pot, before firing, was rubbed with a piece of clear quartz, and then baked for only eight or nine hours rather than the traditional 13 or 14 hours, the result would be a shiny, black cántaro, purely decorative and unable to retain liquids without discoloration and filtration. Between the 1950s and the early 1960s, everyone else in the village continued to produce their grey functional pottery, while Doña Rosa and family toiled away with what became known as barro negro (black pottery). She developed a following of foreigners who collected Latin American folk art, including the likes of Nelson Rockefeller.
More travelers began to travel to Oaxaca and visit San Bartolo Coyotepec. The market for barro negro thereby increased substantially. Virtually every potter in the village began burnishing his pieces with quartz, and removing them from the kiln “prematurely,” out of economic necessity and a burgeoning tourist market…”
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Students now work longer hours than before to afford college, study finds
“UCLA students said they need to work long hours to cover high costs of living and other school-related expenses.
A study conducted in September by HSBC, a banking and financial services company, found students in the United States are spending more time working paid jobs than studying or going to class.
The survey also found the U.S. has the largest funding gap between parents and students across the surveyed countries, with college students spending six times more money than their parents on their education over the course of their college years.
The study found parents have had to reduce spending and more students have had to work paid jobs to afford college.
Paul Mullins, the regional head of international banking at HSBC, said in an email statement that researchers found 85 percent of current U.S. college students work paid jobs, with 37 percent of students looking..”
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Doctor on Video Screen Told a Man He Was Near Death, Leaving Relatives Aghast
“Julia Jacobs
A doctor on a video conference explained to Ernest Quintana that he did not have long to live. Mr. Quintana’s family members criticized the use of telemedicine in that circumstance.
Catherine Quintana’s father had been in and out of a hospital for weeks, and the family understood that his time was running out
Her 78-year-old father, Ernest Quintana, had lung disease and was struggling to breathe on his own. On March 3, he was admitted to a Kaiser Permanente hospital in Fremont, Calif., for the third time in 15 days, Ms. Quintana said. He had his wife of nearly six decades and other members of his family at his side…”
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Standardized tests pose issues but inequalities go deeper, say students, faculty
“Eliminating standardized testing from the college admissions process may not make the process more fair for students from historically underrepresented socioeconomic classes, UCLA students and faculty said.
Beyond the Score, a student organization, held a town hall Feb. 20 to discuss the drawbacks of using standardized testing in college admissions. Members of the organization are campaigning to remove standardized testing as an admissions factor because they believe it selects against certain groups of applicants based on their socioeconomic status.
Patricia Gandara, a professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies and co-director of The Civil Rights Project, said standardized test scores are strongly and positively correlated with the test-takers’ socioeconomic status.
“If you come from a high-income family, you have a much greater chance of scoring well on these than you do if you come from a low-income family,” Gandara said. “And that is socially unjust.”..”
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Baker Tilly Appoints Mexico Market Leader
“CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Mar 5, 2019–Leading advisory, tax and assurance firm Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, LLP (Baker Tilly) welcomes Angel Ramirez to its international services practice as Mexico market leader. In his role, Ramirez will strengthen Baker Tilly’s market-leading expansion solutions for clients, specifically in the area of U.S.-Mexico business growth, operations and trade regulations.
Most recently, Ramirez was Midwest market director for ProMexico – the Mexican government’s trade and investment agency. Following recent news by the Mexican government that all of ProMexico’s foreign offices are expected to close, and operations to fully cease by early 2019, Ramirez’s addition to the Baker Tilly team is both welcome and timely.
Ramirez’s experience includes working in the automotive sector and supply chain and production planning for large consumer product companies in the U.S. and Mexico…”
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UCLA diversity report shows general trend toward increased representation in TV
“Women and people of color continue to be left out of Hollywood, but the 2019 Hollywood Diversity Report details the proportional representation that is slowly and steadily underway.
Released Feb. 21 by UCLA’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, the report is the sixth in an annual series and examines gender and racial diversity in the film and television industries. Zeroing in on 1,316 television shows from the 2016 to 2017 season and 2017’s top 200 theatrical films, the report shows an increase in gender and racial diversity in categories such as directors and digital scripted show leads.
“We think that information has begun to slowly sink in in Hollywood, and that’s one of the reasons we think we’re starting to see more diversity in Hollywood,” said Darnell Hunt, dean of social sciences and an author of the report. “Even though we have a long way to go, at least things seem to be moving in the right direction, particularly in television.”
[RELATED: Researchers study underrepresentation in film, TV]…”
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Erica Lopez: Mexican American Home Movies, Being ‘Seen,’ and Gauging Class in Amateur Films
“I met Erica Lopez at the AMIA (Association of Moving Image Archivists) conference in Pittsburgh, PA. It was November of 2016.
It was a really weird situation because the actual conference was amazing. Some of the best panels I’ve ever experienced at AMIA. But we were all so goddamn numb because of the election results that we were somewhere between zombie, “Is this real life?” and wanting to go to sleep forever or the next 4 years (whichever came first).
But I met Erica Lopez and it was just remarkable. She’s an incredible woman and a real asset to the archiving and preservation field.
Erica got in touch with me just before she graduated and told me what her thesis was going to be about and I was floored…”
Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Front Page Items
