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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The Oscars are less white, but where are Latinos?
When black performers were excluded from all acting categories at the Academy Awards for a second year in a row in 2016, the shutout sparked a second year of an impassioned social-media movement: #OscarsSoWhite. You could say the campaign was a success. A week later, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences pledged to phase out senior members and enlist new, diverse voters who would, if all recruiting goals were met, double minority membership by 2020. This morning, for the first time, three black actors were nominated in the same category, best supporting actress: Viola Davis for “Fences,” Naomie Harris for “Moonlight,” and Octavia Spencer for “Hidden Figures.” Denzel Washington was also nominated in the lead actor category for his performance in “Fences,” and Mahershala Ali in the supporting actor category for “Moonlight.”
But Hollywood’s diversity problem isn’t solved. By many measures, it’s still as bad as ever. And the studios’ biggest minority deficit by far involves the very people living and working outside their walls in virtually every direction — Latinos…
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Democrats Elect Thomas Perez, Establishment Favorite, as Party Chairman
ATLANTA — Former Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday, narrowly defeating Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota to take the helm of a still-divided party stunned by President Trump’s victory but hopeful that it can ride the backlash against his presidency to revival…
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Mexico City
AF IMAGINARY – The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and the …, 2017 – books.google.com
It is inevitable when speaking of Mexico City to speak of it as one of the premier
megalopolises of the world, probably second only to Tokyo in the population of its greater
area. 1 That is, one speaks of the federal capital of the country of Mexico—the Distrito …
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Alt.Latino Explores Afro-Latin Music For Black History Month
“I think there is this reclaiming of Afro-Latinidad through culture and through music. And one of the examples I think of is “Africana” by Los Rakas. Los Rakas is an Afro-Panamanian group based out of the Bay Area. They have this fusion called Panabay where they mix Caribbean sounds with hip-hop. And “Africana” is an ode to black women and their beauty…”
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The Role of Ethnicity
Counseling LGBTQI + Person of Color…
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Esther Cepeda: Latino health-outreach program is a reminder that it’s all in the name
If culture can be used as a currency to understand and serve a community, it can also be a trap, if the culture is painted with too broad a brush. We think we “know” the so-called Hispanic community — generalizing to certain tropes about language, love of family, deference to authority figures, etc. — and we rarely stop to question whether our initial assessments still hold true.
For instance, a decade ago, the hot medical news was the emerging use of “promotoras” — Spanish-speaking Latina community volunteers who worked with medical organizations to coordinate health outreach activities in their neighborhoods — as a cutting-edge tactic to produce better outcomes in predominantly Mexican populations suffering from obesity, diabetes and other ailments…
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Latino Protestants in America: Growing and Diverse
MT Mulder, AI Ramos, G Martí – 2017 – books.google.com
Latino Protestantism is growing rapidly in the United States. Researchers estimate that by
2030 half of all Latinos in America will be Protestant. This remarkable growth is not just
about numbers. The rise of Latino Protestants will impact the changing nature of American…
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This Upcoming Exhibition Highlights the Work of 116 Radical Latina & Latin American Artists
Because the system’s so biased and so restrictive, so much wonderful art has [gone] completely unnoticed.” With these words, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill succinctly described the impetus for an upcoming exhibition – Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985 – at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. The last few decades has seen progress for female artists, but the art world hasn’t reached parity, with men still basking in the limelight far more often than women…
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Hispanic Homeownership Rate Continues to Rise
The Hispanic homeownership rate rose from 45.6 percent in 2015 to 46 percent in 2016, according to data from the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP). This is the second year in a row that this demographic experienced a homeownership rate increase.
This increase in homeownership is mirrored by a decline in the overall U.S. homeownership rate—a slight dip from 63.7 percent in 2015 to 63.4 percent last year—and reported declines in homeownership among African-Americans and Asian-Americans. NAHREP also reported that Hispanics led in net household formations in 2016, adding a total net increase of 330,000 households…
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Trump puts U.S. food, farm companies on edge over Mexico trade
By Tom Polansek and Mark Weinraub | CHICAGO
U.S. food producers and shippers are trying to speed up exports to Mexico and line up alternative markets as concerns rise that this lucrative business could be at risk if clashes over trade and immigration between the Trump administration and Mexico City escalate.
Diplomatic relations have soured fast this month, as the new U.S. administration floated a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports and a meeting between the presidents of the two countries was canceled. U.S. President Donald Trump has also pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) trade deal with Mexico and Canada…
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Valentines for all Seasons
A book of love poems by Humberto(Tito)Gutierrez…
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Success of Food Trucks Draws Hispanics into the Restaurant Trade
LOS ANGELES – Over the past few years, big cities have seen a boom in the food trucks that travel around town offering their fare, a success that has inspired many Hispanic food truckers to take the next step and open traditional restaurants that offer their usual menus to diners in less of a hurry but eager to get the same quality and originality.
“A business on wheels is always difficult – you have to be ready for anything, whether it’s a police complaint or finding a parking place. It’s harder than having an ordinary business,” Zeferino Garcia, now owner of two restaurants in Los Angeles, told EFE…
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Picturing Childhood: Youth In Transnational Comics
Mexican Director Ernesto Contreras Wins Audience Award at Sundance
LOS ANGELES – Mexican director Ernesto Contreras won the Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic for “Sueño en otro idioma” (I Dream in Another Language) at the Sundance Film Festival.
The film tells the story of the arrival of a linguist in a community that is home to the last two speakers of a millennia-old language who have not spoken in 50 years…
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Ethnic Humor in a Multicultural Society
L Gogová – Ars Aeterna, 2016
… 22 yellow.” The Mexican child says, “When the phone greens, I pink it up and say yellow.” The
joke is an example of ethnic humour, which uses a minority ethnic group (in this case
Hispanic/Latino Americans) as a target and the aspect of linguistic imperfection as a pivot in …
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Deported by Marriage: Americans Forced to Choose Between Love and Country
B Caldwell – Brooklyn Law Review, 2016
… Article 1 Fall 12-1-2016 Deported by Marriage: Americans Forced to … For more information, please
contact matilda.garrido@brooklaw.edu. Recommended Citation Beth Caldwell, Deported by
Marriage: Americans Forced to Choose Between Love and Country, 82 Brook. L. Rev. …
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Black and Latina women pitch tech startups at Demo Day in Atlanta
Showcase is hosted by nationally-recognized, Atlanta-based incubator dedicated to increasing the number of women of color in tech
Startups led by Black and Latina women will make their case for capital at the first-ever demo day hosted by digitalundivided’s BIG Accelerator, the new, nationally-recognized Atlanta-based program dedicated to reversing the lack of diversity in the tech industry.
The BIG Demo Day will showcase live demonstrations by each startup to a select group of investors, corporate executives, and tech leaders, as well as talks by leading national experts from the U.S. Small Business Administration, Capital One, and Kapor Capital. helping women entrepreneurs of color develop sustainable businesses. The Demo Day is the culmination of an intense, 12-week accelerator program that provided each startup founder with coaching on how to scale their ventures, mentorship by top industry leaders, office space for one year, and $20,000 in seed funding from the investment fund Harriet Angels Syndicate…
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Take Notice, Hollywood. Latinos Are Part Of The New Mainstream.
Watching the Golden Globes last Sunday night, I recalled the story Diego Luna shared on Twitter of an older Hispanic man who cried after watching Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and for the first time being able to relate to a hero (Luna) in a blockbuster movie, a character who looked and sounded like him. While the story went viral and brought tears to the eyes of millions of Americans, I couldn’t help but wonder how that same man felt watching the Golden Globes that evening, and if he was wondering where the Latino nominees were who looked and sounded like him.
Now extend that experience to his kids and grandchildren, and the more than 40 million American Latinos in the U.S. who often feel invisible, non-existent, and irrelevant in the eyes of media – despite their spending power in movies and entertainment. And needless to say, this lack of Latinos has nothing to do with lack of talent or beauty, but with the lack of Latino hires on and off camera…
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Colorado Hispanic Bar Association celebrates 40
The Colorado Hispanic Bar Association (CHBA) will hold its annual gala and fundraiser on January 21, 2017, at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Denver. The event will raise operational funds for the organization, as well as scholarship funds on behalf of its Foundation. The gala begins at 5:30 p.m., with a cocktail hour and Latin Jazz played by Freddy Rodriguez. Dinner begins at 7:00 p.m., with a three-course meal. During the dinner program, the CHBA will honor outgoing President Arnulfo D. Hernández and swear in incoming President Ruth N. Mackey…
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Hispanic Latino Affairs launches mentorship program
A new UF mentorship program is helping Hispanic and Latino freshmen adjust to college life.
The Latino Educational Advancement Program, started by Hispanic Latino Affairs this Spring, is a five-week program that aims to help freshmen succeed in college classes and get involved on campus, said Carissa Cullum, the coordinator for LEAP. The program began Friday when the first 20 mentees and 10 mentors introduced themselves in the Multicultural and Diversity Affairs suite.
Cullum, a 24-year-old UF Latin American studies graduate student, said the program will host workshops every Tuesday starting this week. The workshops will teach students about on-campus resources, study tips, scholarship opportunities and Hispanic and Latino inclusion in higher education, she said…
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