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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Elsa Salazar Cade: a Chalkboard Champion
Elsa Salazar Cade, a Mexican American educator and entomologist, was born in 1952 and raised in the Lone Star State of Texas. After earning her bachelor’s degree in science education from the University of Texas, Austin, she was employed for two years as a fourth grade teacher, and for two years as a reading and remedial math teacher. When she completed her master’s degree in public school administration from Niagara University, she continued her career as a junior high school science educator in the public school system in Buffalo, New York…
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The Road to Tamazunchale
Fiction. THE ROAD TO TAMAZUNCHALE is one of the first achieved works of Chicano consciousness and spirit–Library Journal. Nominated for the National Book Award, this classic, first published in 1987, tells the story of Don Fausto, a very old man on the verge of death who lives in the barrio of Los Angeles. Rather than resigning himself to death, he embarks on a glorious j …
Link to review
Ask a Mexican
WHAT IS ¡ASK A MEXICAN! ?
Questions and answers about our spiciest Americans. I explore the clichés of lowriders, busboys, and housekeepers; drunks and scoundrels; heroes and celebrities; and most important, millions upon millions of law-abiding, patriotic American citizens and their illegal-immigrant cousins who represent some $600 billion in economic power.
WHY SHOULD I READ ¡ASK A MEXICAN! ?
At 37 million strong (or 13 percent of the U.S. population), Latinos have become America’s largest minority — and beaners make up some two-thirds of that number. I confront the bogeymen of racism, xenophobia, and ignorance prompted by such demographic changes through answering questions put to me by readers of my ¡Ask a Mexican! column in California’s OC Weekly. I challenge you to find a more entertaining way to immerse yourself in Mexican culture that doesn’t involve a taco-and-enchilada combo…
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At the Core and in the Margins: incorporation of Mexican immigrants in two rural Midwestern communities
J Albarracín – 2016 – books.google.com
Beardstown and Monmouth, Illinois, two rural Midwestern towns, have been transformed by
immigration in the last three decades. This book examines how Mexican immigrants who
have made these towns their homes have integrated legally, culturally, and institutionally. …
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Moctesuma Esparza
August 18, 2010 | By Richard Verrier, Los Angeles Times
On the walls of his office on the second floor of the Los Angeles Center Studios, veteran filmmaker and Latino activist Moctesuma Esparza displays posters from some of the dozens of movies and TV series he has produced in his career. There are banners from the 1988 film “The Milagro Beanfield War”; “Selena,” the story of the slain Tejano singer; and the HBO film “Walkout,” about the 1968 Chicano student walkouts in East Los Angeles to protest school conditions and prejudice. The last one is a particular favorite…
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EXPLORING THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE AND SALUTOGENESIS IN AGING MEXICAN – AMERICAN WOMEN
Intimate partner violence, a serious preventable public health problem affects one in three women in the US and a billion women worldwide, crossing all boundaries including age, ethnicity, religion, and socioeconomic. However, little is known about the experience of IPV in aging women, especially in aging ethnic minorities. Furthermore, there are countless hidden victims including the many children who witness repeated IPV, placing them at risk of becoming a victim of IPV or a perpetrator in their own intimate relationships. The purpose of my dissertation was to explore the lived experience of IPV through the lens of aging Mexican-American women with a history of IPV, to increase understanding of how their experience has shaped their lives today, and to identify the salutogenic factors that may have sustained health in the midst of adversity…
Link to dissertation
Austin Revealed: Chicano Civil Rights-Desegregation and Education
In the aftermath of desegregation, Mexican-American students and teachers in Austin realized the lack of equality in the school system and higher education. In the first installment of KLRU’s Austin Revealed: Chicano Civil Rights series, students and teachers who lived it share their stories about the disparate conditions and the fight for reform…
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Where Are They Now?
AI Conversation – Youth Voices, Public Spaces, and Civic …, 2016 – books.google.com
The Llano Grande Center for Research and Development was born in a classroom at
Edcouch-Elsa High School (EE HS) in rural South Texas as a college preparation program
in response to chronically low levels of college attendance of local youth. The founders of …
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Super Tuesday showcases electorate’s growing racial, ethnic diversity
The U.S. electorate this year will be the country’s most diverse ever, and that is evident in several Super Tuesday states holding primaries or caucuses on March 1 in which blacks could have a significant impact
In five of 12 Super Tuesday states, blacks account for at least 15% of the electorate, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of 2014 census data. Black eligible voters have the largest footprint in Georgia (31%) and Alabama (26%), while Virginia, Tennessee and Arkansas also have sizable black electorates.
In a reversal of historical migration trends, Southern states have seen their black populations increase more than twice as fast as non-Southern states since 1990. From 1910 to 1970, 6 million blacks left the South, with many pursuing industrial jobs in Northern cities in what is called the Great Migration. But since then, blacks have increasingly chosen to live in the South…
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In this town, it’s as if Hollywood tries not to cast Latinos
In Hollywood, there is no Magical Latino.
That honey-tongued Mexican American dude who can help the white guy with his golf game while, more important, imparting life lessons before disappearing over the horizon? He doesn’t exist. That Salvadoran woman wisely guiding the “Chosen One” — another white guy — through an alternate-reality maze to his appointed destiny? You won’t find her…
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Alejandro G. Iñárritu is Best Director Oscar 2016 Winner for The Revenant
This is the sixth Academy Award nomination for Alejandro G. Iñárritu and his fourth win. During his acceptance speech, Iñárritu thanked his father and gave a shout out to Oscar nominee, Leonardo DiCaprio…
Link to Oscars report
INCORPORTATION OF LATINO POLICE OFFICERS INTO THE M ILWAUKEE POLICE DEPARTMENT: HOW A GROUP OF LATINO POLICE OFFICERS SHED THE “BLUE SHIELD” FOR A LATINO IDENTITY
AG Guajardo jr – 2015
… 87 ZERO SUM HIRING 90 CONCLUSION 91 Page 6. v CHAPTER 3 MILWAUKEE POLICE
AND COMMUNITY RELATIONS 94 MEXICAN AMERICANS 100 PUERTO RICANS 104
ORGANIZING THE LATINO COMMUNITY IN MILWAUKEE 105 …
Link to dissertation
Internet Flips Over College Gymnast’s Almost Perfect Routine
UCLA gymnast Sophina DeJesus not only helped her team squeak out a victory against Utah on Saturday, but her floor performance has managed to win the Internet.
Judges gave the 21-year-old senior a near-perfect 9.925 for her magnificent flips, tumbles and splits, according to Popsugar.
But it’s the hip-hop moves she made in between those physical feats that have made her a viral sensation…
Link to video
Mechanisms of declining intra-ethnic trust in newly diverse immigrant destinations [ post-print]
AF Williamson – 2015
… 23 whether the local schools should employ bilingual education as opposed to English immersion.
In Yakima, some prominent Mexican-Americans who experienced the Chicano movement eschew
cooperation with Anglo institutions for fear of co-optation. More recent Mexican …
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Ancestry variation and footprints of natural selection along the genome in Latin American populations
L Deng, A Ruiz-Linares, S Xu, S Wang – Scientific Reports, 2016
… 2. Basu, A. et al. Genome-wide distribution of ancestry in Mexican
Americans . Hum. Genet. 124, 207–214 (2008). …
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Intergenerational Influences in Body Image Among Mexican American Obese Adolescent Females and Their Maternal Caregivers: ¿ Llenita no más ?
YA Marroquin
… Grounded Theory and thematic analysis were utilized to examine interview responses from
Mexican and Mexican American adolescent females with obesity, their … family members, peers
and friends, and medical professionals). In addition, the messages …
Link to dissertation
How being a bilingual speaker might make your brain stronger
During a presentation this past weekend at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington, DC, Judith Kroll, a psychologist at Penn State who studies bilingualism, described how speaking both English and Spanish “changes the architecture of your brain,” and that being bilingual could literally making your brain stronger…
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Jessica Alba’s father is Mexican American. She is an actress and founder of The Honest Company
Jessica Alba is a Golden Globe-nominated actress whose career includes roles in films such as “Fantastic Four” and “Little Fockers,” as well as television series like “Dark Ang Jessica Alba | Founder
Jessicel,” “The Office” and “Entourage.”
The California native comes from modest beginnings, and never lost her zeal to share her good fortune with others. She is actively involved with with charities such as Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, ONE, Habitat for Humanity, Project HOME and more…
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THE INTERSECTION OF AGRICULTURE, LATINAS/OS, AND HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE LAND GRANT SYSTEM: A MIXED METHODS STUDY
SL Archibeque-Engle – 2016
… The life span of a Mexican farm laborer is 56- he lived to be 38.” Gloria Anzaldúa in
Borderlands La Frontera, p. 112 … They went to bed as Spanish speaking Mexican citizens
and woke up as Spanish speaking American citizens (or at least …
Link to dissertation
Writing the Good Life: Mexican American Literature and the Environment
PS Ybarra – 2016
… Writing 3 1 epistemological hierarchy and the environment: erasure of Mexican American
Knowledge in … The professionals at the New Mexico State Archives answered questions before
I … I have met so many colleagues at conferences and through professional organizations …
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