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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Aspen Ideas Festival: Being Latino in America today
There are 55 million Hispanics in the United States, and demographers expect Latinos will account for half of America’s population growth, and a substantial amount of economic growth as well.
Former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros says Latinos are the biggest story in the whole multicultural evolution of the United States — despite their exclusion from most history books, which tend to look only at white and black issues.
“Over the last 50 years we have made immense progress,” Cisneros said during a panel discussion at the Aspen Ideas Festival, June 29, 2017. “(People) understand our economic contribution, that mainstream economics idea. This country’s future workforce, its health of its social security system, its entrepreneurial new business formations is all about the role Latinos are going to play.”…
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Number of minorities, women taking CS is skyrocketing thanks to STEM collaborations
- Following implementation of a new type of computer science option last fall — AP Computer Science Principles, which puts real-world perspectives on coding — data from 2016 to 2017 shows the number of minorities taking a computer science exam in some form nearly tripled to 22,199, up from 8,283, while the number of girls taking it rose from 12,642 to 29,708.
- AP CSP was born out of a collaboration between the National Science Foundation, College Board and Code.org, along with other authorized providers, who are rolling out the course and training teachers to facilitate it, reports NPR — and over half of the schools teaching the course are using curriculum from Code.org, which trained 500 teachers last year…
Facebook Researchers Shut Down Artificial Intelligence That Created It’s Own Language
Facebook has recently developed a new artificial intelligence (AI), and it has since created its own language using code words to communicate more efficiently. Researchers promptly shut the system down over concerns that they might lose control over the A.I.
This isn’t the first time AIs have diverged from their training in the English language to develop their own, more efficient language. While the resulting phrases from this condensed method of communication sound like gibberish to the human ear, they do in fact make semantic sense when interpreted by AI agents…
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Rising Minority
K De Angelis – Inclusion in the American Military: A Force for …, 2017 – books.google.com
As one of the largest and fastest growing minority groups in the United States, Hispanics are
reshaping the major institutions of American life, including the military. The all-volunteer
military now has more racial and ethnic minorities, more women, and more women who are…
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Culturally-relevant pedagogy critical to meet needs of today’s students
Educators must work to find better ways of building culturally relevant curriculum and reconfiguring their approach to pedagogy as they work with students, says Dr. Christopher Emdin, an associate professor with Teacher’s College, Columbia University.
During a presentation at the school this week, Emdin cautioned that incorporating cultural insight into teaching could be problematic, particularly when educators utilize their own biased preconceptions of how they think culture can manifest in classroom instruction.
Higher ed IT still struggles with diversity
Though the field of IT in higher education has diversified during the last five years, survey data from 2015 indicates that there are still gaps in representation when it comes to age, gender and ethnicity — and only 12% are Millennials, despite that age group comprising 34% of the country’s overall workforce, according to Ed Tech: Focus on Higher Ed.
Minority workers only represent about 15% of higher ed’s IT workforce, though they also make up 34% of the country’s workforce, and their numbers jumped 5% over a five-year span from 2010 to 2015…
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High Impact
Growing up in Old Town Goleta, Britt Ortiz used to ride his bicycle to UC Santa Barbara on warm summer afternoons to swim in the campus pool. Little did he know he’d play water polo in that same pool during high school and college, or that his professional career would land him at UCSB decades later…
Amazing
I just learned of this new thing ……
San Jose State U Will Utilize Mobile App to Enhance Student Life
A new partnership with mobile app OOHLALA will help San Jose State University better assist its student population to get more involved in college life, particularly those who commute to the school, according to Sonja Daniels, the associate vice president for campus life…
Republicans overall disenchanted with higher ed, study finds
Though a majority of Americans still view higher education as being good for the country, there is division along party lines on how the industry is viewed. According to a Pew Research Center report released Monday, a majority of Republicans and right-leaning citizens (58%) believing colleges and universities have a negative impact on the country while 72% of Democrats and left-leaning individuals perceive positive impact…
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Carolina Herrera: A woman who broke the rules at the border with Mexico
Carolina Herrera: A Woman Who Broke the Rules at the Border of Mexico weaves a tale of the events that led to the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Carolina’s story is that of the revolution interwoven with a woman whose life was impacted by it. As she was growing up, Carolina had to navigate two cultures—her parents’ Mexican culture, and the mostly American culture she was surrounded with in El Paso, Texas…
How I Made It From teen immigrant to vintner, Rolando Herrera has bottled his dream
Rolando Herrera runs Mi Sueño Winery in Napa Valley, which annually produces about 8,000 to 10,000 cases of premium estate Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Petit Verdot and a specialty blend. The family-run operation, Spanish for “My Dream,” has 16 full-time employees and 40 acres of vineyards — with another 23 planned…
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University of California Graduate Admissions for Chicano/Latino students
UC is making slow but steady progress in diversifying the racial/ethnic makeup of its graduate academic students
Enrollment of underrepresented race/ethnic groups (African American, American Indian and Chicano/Latino) in UC’s graduate academic programs has grown over the past decade. In 2012–13, UC awarded academic doctoral degrees to underrepresented racial/ethnic groups at greater percentage rates than did its peers…
Unsurprisingly, Mexicans held a much more favourable view towards the United States before Trump
Within the last 30 years pro-American tendencies, from both Mexican authorities and the general public, brought the United States to be one of the most favored countries of Mexico. However, recent findings from Jesús Velasco show this tendency has reversed due to Donald Trump’s statements about Mexico during his presidential campaign. Today Mexicans are highly anti-Trump, and anti-American. Whether or not this pattern will change in the near future is difficult to say.
Donald Trump’s antagonistic rhetoric toward Mexico has caused an increase in anti-American sentiment among Mexicans.
Today, many in Mexico reject Trump’s policies and fear his administration, citing it as fascist, authoritarian, populist, dictatorial, xenophobic, misogynist or simply an aberration…
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UC-Irvine brings intentionality to its designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution
The University of California, Irvine is among the latest to earn the “Hispanic-Serving Institution” designation, joining a fast-growing group of U.S. higher education institutions that educate a student body that is at least 25% Hispanic.
And while many colleges and universities become HSIs by accident — simply by virtue of changing demographics — UC-Irvine’s goal of becoming an HSI has been a clear part of its strategic plan. The number of Latino students on UCI’s campus has more than doubled in the last decade, thanks to targeted recruitment efforts and pipeline building…
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Funding awarded for new Latino Center of Excellence
UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare has won a five-year $3.4 million grant to fund recruitment, scholarship and research efforts in the school’s new Latino Center of Excellence.
Awarded by the federal Health Resources & Services Administration, the grant will support efforts to boost Latino youth interest in behavioral and mental health and encourage them to pursue undergraduate and/or graduate degrees in social welfare…
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Tampa Chamber of Commerce offers boost to black and Hispanic-owned businesses
Nearly half (48 percent) of all Hillsborough businesses are minority-owned, yet those minority businesses contribute less than 5 percent of the county’s total revenue, according to a study by the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce.
A new Minority Business Accelerator sponsored by the Tampa chamber seeks to fix that by providing black and Hispanic businesses with the skills, resources and networks to grow their businesses..
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UC San Diego is failing in equity and diversity
I recently retired from my position as a student affairs administrator and education studies lecturer after 28 years of service at UCSD. In 1991, along with UCSD alumni, faculty, students and staff, I helped found the UCSD Chicano/Latino Concilio to advocate for the access and success of Chicanos at the elite La Jolla campus. Creating an external organization was necessary as virtually no Chicano voices existed among the UCSD administration or academic senate to increase institutional diversity and equity…
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How Silicon Valley appropriates Mexican-American ideas, plus degrees of assimilation.
Ripping off music and movies? We call it piratería, and we know a guy at the Paramount Swap Meet who has Guardians of the Galaxy 3 on VHS. AirBnB? We’ve been renting out the couch to visitors since the days of the Toltecs. Uber? The aforementioned raiteros, what the gabacho media used to call gypsy cabs. Some app that you can use if you need someone to cut your lawn or fix your clogged toilet? Day laborers. Dia de los Muertos everything? BRUH…and all of this caca will continue…
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