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 Chinese-Mexican Cuisine Born Of U.S. Prejudice
If you ask people in the city of Mexicali, Mexico, about their most notable regional cuisine, they won’t say street tacos or mole. They’ll say Chinese food. There are as many as 200 Chinese restaurants in the city.
North of the border, in California’s rural Imperial County, the population is mostly Latino, but Chinese restaurants are packed. There are dishes in this region you won’t find anywhere else, and the history behind them goes back more than 130 years…
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Immigrants In NYC: More Mexicans And Fewer Italians
In New York City, 60 percent of residents are immigrants or children of immigrants, according to the city’s planning department. One of the fastest growing groups is Mexicans, and one of the fastest shrinking groups is Italians.
Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson discussed some of the issues and challenges facing Mexican and Italian immigrants with Eduardo Penaloza and Angelo Vivolo.
Penaloza is the executive director of Mixteca, a nonprofit focused on providing services to Mexican and Latin American immigrants. He was born in Mexico and came to the U.S. in his 30s. Before Mixteca, he worked for the Mexican consulate in New York City…
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Mexican American Opportunity Foundation
The mission of the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation (MAOF) is to provide for the socio-economic betterment of the greater Latino community of California, while preserving the pride, values, and heritage of the Mexican American culture.
We advance our mission through an array of programs in early childhood education, job training, financial literacy and senior services provided throughout California…
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Artist On Artist: Gary Sweeney Interviews Adan Hernandez
Adan Hernandez is one of the seminal figures in San Antonio’s Chicano art movement, which began to get attention in the 1970s. His parents were migrant cotton pickers. The family eventually settled in San Antonio, where Hernandez became interested in drawing. It wasn’t until he saw a painting show by Jesse Treviño in 1980 that it occurred to him that he could be a serious artist, and his big break came when film director Taylor Hackford chose 30 of Hernandez’s paintings for his 1993 crime-drama Blood In, Blood Out…
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Inside Voxxi’s Closure: 6 Lessons to be Learned
Voxxi, the site catering to acculturated Latinos that launched in November 2011 backed by investor Dr. Salomon Melgen, has closed. The site was not able to get enough revenues and/or get a new round of financing. It is not being updated but current content is still being monetized via ad networks. The site’s closure offers interesting lesson for other English-language media targeting acculturated Hispanics, including Fusion. Portada talked to former Voxxi employees. 6 Lessons to be learned…
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Hot topic: ‘America’s Hispanics’
The linked issues of immigration and America’s growing Hispanic population have generated what has become a permanent public argument. Everybody in the country, it seems – especially in Arizona — has an opinion, and often a fierce one. So it might be worth hearing what the issue looks like from outside the U.S., especially from a viewpoint that prides itself on a rational, balanced approach to even the hottest of topics…
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Chuck Ramirez: Outsider Objects
Chuck Ramirez, a graphic designer for H-E-B, a Texas-based grocery store chain, spent his workdays communicating ideas through the products he promoted in glossy advertisements and posters. His professional career undoubtedly influenced his artistic endeavors, which revolved around producing images of everyday objects. He often photographed his subjects out of context, isolated against a stark white background, thereby provoking the viewer to reexamine them. What was it about coconuts, grocery bags, pillboxes, piñatas, raw meat, wilted flowers, and worn brooms that enthralled Ramirez? What ideas was he communicating through the idiosyncratic objects he chose to photograph? …
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Robert Rodriguez Sits Down with “Father of Chicano Theater” & ‘Zoot Suit,’ ‘La Bamba’ Director Luis Valdez
This Sunday, March 29, Rodriguez sits down with the award-winning film and theater director, who also wears many hats as a university professor, author, activist, and political organizer in “El Rey Network Presents: The Director’s Chair,” (premiering at 8 p.m. ET/8:15 p.m. PT). The insightful interview will be followed by “La Bamba,” the Golden Globe-nominated film for Best Motion Picture drama in 1988, at 9 p.m. ET/9:15 p.m. PT.
In the revealing hour-long special, filmed at the historic Ricardo Montalban Theatre in Los Angeles, Rodriguez delves into Valdez’s impressive career and how he became known as not only a trailblazer for social justice, performing arts and film but also the “Father of Chicano Theater.”…
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College welcomes distinguished Chicano writer for reading March 26
CHESTERTOWN — On Thursday, March 26, the Sophie Kerr Lecture Series at Washington College will present “An Evening of Fiction with Helena María Viramontes.” The event will take place at 4:30 p.m. at the Rose O’Neil Literary House, 407 Washington Ave., and is free and open to the public.
Viramontes is admired as one of Chicano literature’s most distinguished craftspeople. She began her career working for the innovative magazine ChismeArte and published her first book, “The Moths and Other Stories,” in 1985, quickly becoming a force on the Chicano literary scene. She has since published numerous essays and two novels, “Under the Feet of Jesus” and “Their Dogs Came with Them.”…
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Growing Chicano studies program gets votes from faculty senate
UNM’s Chicana and Chicano studies program recently continued to gain recognition when the faculty senate voted for departmentalization of the program, allowing for more structure and opportunities for students interested in the field.
Irene Vasquez, director of the program, said that growing the program has been an ongoing process since 2011. In 2013 a bachelor’s degree was installed, and in the fall it will get even bigger.
Departmentalization allows for better infrastructure, something that Vasquez said was a huge obstacle for success when developing the plan for a major…
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A majority of English-speaking Hispanics in the U.S. are bilingual
By Jens Manuel Krogstad and Ana Gonzalez-BarreraLeave
About six-in-ten U.S. adult Hispanics (62%) speak English or are bilingual, according to an analysis of the Pew Research Center’s 2013 National Survey of Latinos. Hispanics in the United States break down into three groups when it comes to their use of language: 36% are bilingual, 25% mainly use English and 38% mainly use Spanish. Among those who speak English, 59% are bilingual…
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Viva Gentrification!
LOS ANGELES — FOR years, our family journeys have taken us from our hillside home, in the multiethnic Mount Washington district of northeast Los Angeles, into the flatlands of the Latino barrios that surround it.
My wife, Virginia Espino, who is Mexican-American, knows these neighborhoods well, especially the community called Highland Park. She grew up there in the 1960s and 1970s, when it was still integrated, before “white flight” was complete. In the decades that followed, Spanish-language ads took over the billboards, and the complexions of the locals became almost exclusively cinnamon and café con leche…
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On representations of race
Given the sheer volume of conversations that occurred on this campus regarding students at the College wearing stereotypical costumes that specifically depicted Mexicans and, more generally, Latinos, I was struck by the lack of depth to these conversations. Most of the debate focused on the question: Do Latinos on this campus have the right to be offended? At that point the issue became divisive, and those who felt that these costumes were not offensive did not give more than a cursory glance at the more important and revealing question of why these costumes were offensive to some. Conversations failed to move beyond this flat discussion because many people were preoccupied with who does and does not have the right to offend and be offended. Catholics? Pilgrims? The Irish?! What separates an appropriating and damaging costume from good, harmless fun?
Personally, I find “taco” and “mariachi” costumes to be offensive and bigoted in their depiction of Mexicans. Period. However, the problem with these costumes does not stop with their attack on a racial identity. The issue…
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NBC Series ‘California’ Will Trace Latino Family’s Roots In The Area Over 200 Years
A new NBC series will delve into the history of a Latino family in California, following their roots to before the area was even part of the United States.
Jennifer Lopez will reunite with director Gregory Nava, who gave the star her breakthrough role in “Selena” almost 20 years ago, to bring to life the limited series, Deadline.com reported this week.
The website added that the upcoming show will be titled “California” and follow the fictional Latino family’s “journey over 200 years in California from Spanish, to Mexican, to American rule.”…
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Hispanic YouTubers Are First To Benefit From Google Advertising Initiative
Hispanic is the new Preferred on YouTube. Last year, Google introduced Google Preferred, a system of targeting specific top tier channels that would jibe with advertisers’ intents of reaching maximum audiences. This year, it’s all about being selective — and first up is the Hispanic audiences…
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Mexican Engineer designs robots for NASA
LOS ANGELES – Mexican-born engineer Luis Velasco works at NASA on the digital design of robots visualized in 3D images before they are built, and he will provide his expertise to the Mars 2020 automatic rover…
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From minor to major
One American in six is now Hispanic, up from a small minority two generations ago. By mid-century it will be more than one in four. David Rennie explains what that means for America
IN THREE TERMS representing Colorado in Congress, John Salazar got used to angry voters calling him a Mexican and not a proper American. During fights over the Obamacare health-insurance law, a constituent told him to “go back where you came from”. The attacks were misplaced. Mr Salazar is proud of his Hispanic heritage, but he comes from a place with deeper American roots than the United States. One of his ancestors, Juan de Oñate y Salazar, co-founded the city of Santa Fe in New Mexico…
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Chicano studies professor dies after battle with cancer
Camille Guérin-Gonzales, a former UW-Madison professor who focused her teaching and research on Chicano and Latino history and social movements, passed away at age 70 Feb. 24 after more than a year-long battle with cancer.
Colleague Karma Chávez said Guérin-Gonzales’ love for Chicano culture and her passions for history and labor brought the two co-workers together…
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REPORT: Single Issue Syndrome: How Sunday Shows Undermine Hispanic Inclusion
Sunday shows in both English and Spanish treat Hispanics as a single-issue constituency focused on immigration, according to a Media Matters analysis that examined the shows’ discussions and guests from August 31 to December 28, 2014. While Latinos make up more than 17 percent of the U.S. population, the report found that only 7 percent of guests on English-language Sunday shows were Hispanic, of which 46 percent spoke specifically about immigration. The report also found that while the Spanish-language Sunday shows devoted great attention to immigration, they gave much less coverage to issues of similar importance to the Latino community. Confining Latinos’ perspectives to a single issue damages their ability to engage in discussions about the other equally important issues that affect them and the general electorate…
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Adopting the American Racial Lens: A history of Mexican migration to Chicago from the town of Arandas, Jalisco
R Alvarez-Pimental
… Although wealthier merchants, professional men, rancheros56, and hacendados57 largely
refrained from joining the ranks of the emigrants, it would often be the case that their sons, driven
by economic incentive, would become part of large regional migrations to the United …
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