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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MC Dawson – 2015
… that have conflicting interests and ideologies. Blacks and Latinos (particularly Mexican Americans,
who have been targets of increasingly vile and racist anti-immigrant attacks), are becoming
increasingly disillusioned and angry due to the escalation of white supremacy within …
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Growing up in Boston Public Schools, Felix Arroyo got to know the University of Massachusetts Boston through the Talented and Gifted (TAG) Latino Program, a program for young English language learners.
“In middle school I was running around those hallways at UMass Boston,” he says. “I’m looking forward to being a partner with UMass in my role now, while I have it, to make sure that the school is successful.”…
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By Humberto Gutierrez
Edited by Kristen House
The 2014 American Community Survey shows low enrollment numbers for Mexican American students in the 2014-2015 school year.
In 2013, graduate and/or professional degree achievement rate was 11.2% of the total population but only 2.8% of Mexican Americans. In 2014, the graduate and/or professional degree achievement rate grew to 11.4% of the overall population and 2.9% of Mexican Americans.
Graduate and professional degree achievement has increased slightly between 2013 and 2014. Degree achievement rates among Mexican Americans also increased slightly, from 2.8 to 2.9 percent. This is an improvement from the 2012-2013 rates, which showed a .1% drop in college enrollment among the total population and a .5% drop in Mexican American college enrollment.
In 2013, only 2.8% of Mexican Americans and 1.5% of foreign-born Mexican Americans completed a graduate or professional degree. This number is up .1% since last year’s statistics.
Research has shown that many Mexican Americans are getting their associate’s or bachelor’s degrees, at 21.8% and 7.3% respectively in 2013, but are not moving on to pursue a graduate or professional degree.
References
Mexican Nationals seeking an opportunity in the United States typically face an extra barrier when it comes to visa sponsorship through employers. But one San Antonio startup hopes to ease that entry and help fill local bilingual information technology jobs.
Jesus ‘Tito’ Salas ran the San Antonio Mexican Entrepreneurial Challenge competition for Geekdom last year that sought to connect South Texas to Mexican startups…
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Fifty years after founding the influential theatre company, El Teatro Campesino, Luis Valdez visited USF last Tuesday to give a lecture called “The Power of Zero.” The talk focused primarily on the connection between the Mayan zero and the influence it holds on different aspects of life, especially its capacity to allow for change. Being at ground zero holds great potential and is the root of development, which Valdez related to the Chicano movement…
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Conductor and pianist Alondra de la Parra is in a league of her own. And come next year, when she steps onto the podium as the first female chief conductor and musical director of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, one of Australia’s three largest orchestras, she will live in a more rarefied space—one of the few females directing a major orchestra…
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T Freytag – Ethnic and Cultural Dimensions of Knowledge, 2016
… The Hispanic population in New Mexico includes two particularly large subgroups: (a) immigrants
from Mexico (“Mexican Americans”) and (b) “Hispanos,” who represent the descendants of Spanish
immigrants and settlers from the sixteenth century until the end of the Spanish …
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Written by Andrew S. Vargas It’s widely known that the University of Southern California boasts one of the world’s greatest film schools, with notable alums among its ranks, including Judd Apatow, Ron Howard, and George Lucas standing out on a list of the literally hundreds of Hollywood big shots who have graced its halls. But much like the Hollywood dream factory that plucks its recruits directly from each graduating class, USC’s alumni list also happens to be pretty damn white, and while there are undoubtedly myriad reasons for this imbalance, it probably has a little to do with the school’s exorbitant private university tuition…
A year ago,“Somewhere Over El Arco Iris/ Chicano Landscapes, 1971- 2015” – the most recent exhibit at the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach – wouldn’t have been on display. The 25 piece exhibition, featuring artists whose styles range from experimental expressionism to urban street art, is inspired by the Chicano experience of the last 40 years. Collectively, its mixed-media, photographs, drawings and paintings make evident how instrumental some Chicano artists have been in creating and defining LA’s contemporary… Link to article
By Humberto Gutierrez
There have been several longitudinal studies on Mexican American mobility showing that although the monetary movement of Mexican Americans is not quite as rapid as that of whites, there is still a steady accumulation of wealth across generations.
This mobility is evidenced by the progress made by Mexican American professionals. As evidence of this success, we have witnessed the birth of several prominent professional associations. Most notable are:
The latest American Community Survey shows year-to-year progress, or lack of it, on the survey’s annual census.
Prominent among this year is the continued progress of Mexican American college enrollment, which has jumped from 18.1% in 2013 to 18.7% in 2014. Unfortunately, graduate or professional degrees remain low with a small gain. For 2013, the graduate or professional degree was 11.2% and for 2014 this percentage climbed to 11.4% for the total population, while for 2013 it was 2.8% for Mexican Americans, and 2.9% for 2014.
Occupations in management, business, science, and arts showed a nice increase for Mexican Americans, from 16.7% to 17.4% while for the total population percentages went from 36.3% in 2013 to 36.9% in 2014. Mexican Americans still lag far behind the total population but there is a slight gain as compared to the total population.
For industry, numbers have gone up slightly for the total population but have remained stagnant for Mexican Americans.
References
L Salazar – Journal of the Vernacular Music Center, 2015
… Due to low expectations, poverty, and possible language barriers, Latinos, particularly
Mexican-Americans, are plagued with low academic achievement and high high-
school dropout rates (Torres and de la Torre 1997:100). …
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Economies of 26 Latin American countries show signs of weakness and … TN for Mexican professionals: A list of 61 designated professions and the …
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LB Welter – 2015
… for Meaning-making …..122 and Guidance …..122 Theme 3. Mexican-American Cultural Values …
215 Positive Outcomes from Abortion …..219 Expanded Academic, Professional, and Financial …
Link to dissertation
VA Herrera – 2015
… 5 Thomas Sheridan, “Peacock in the Parlor: Frontier Tucson’s Mexican Elite,” The
Journal of Arizona History 25, no. 3 (1984): 187. 6 Ibid., 34. Page 6. 6 … races in one
space; Mexicans, Americans, Castilians, and Native Americans all …
Link to thesis
While many San Francisco residents are aware of California’s teacher shortage, a second shortage threatening our schools may be less familiar: We don’t face just a numbers gap, but also a demographic gap. Statewide, 73 percent of students in California schools are nonwhite, compared with only 29 percent of teachers.
It’s the largest demographic gap between students and teachers nationwide…
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RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) – The University of California, Riverside Library received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Library Association (ALA) to participate in the Latino Americans: 500 Years of History initiative…
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CRPM Greenfield, B Quiroz
… There werc fifteen teachers from this school, including-eleven European Americans, two African
Amer- icans, and two Mexican Americans [one was born in the United States. and one had
immigrated thirteen years before). School “2 was an urban public school. …
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JM Merritt – 2015
… indicative of a class II malocclusion. Whites, Blacks and Mexican Americans had a varying
prevalence of 57.6%, 64.4%, and 66.4% respectively for >2mm overjet.10 Class III malocclusion …
Blacks and Mexican Americans. Racial Disparities in Orthodontic Use for Children …
Link to thesis
Over the summer I highlighted 9 books by emerging Latino voices, but it’s as important to acknowledge that Latino literature’s more familiar names are also gracing the covers on display on bookstore shelves in 2015.
Many of these prominent writers produced the foundational texts that shape the Latino literary canon such as The House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros), The Latin Deli (Judith Ortiz Cofer) and The Devil’s Highway (Luis Alberto Urrea). Others listed here include the Poet Laureate of the United States, Juan Felipe Herrera, and three younger writers (Joy Castro, Lorraine López and Urayoán Noel) whose prolific and stellar output has earned them a place among these legends of Latino letters. In celebration of Latino Heritage Month, I invite readers to consider the following new books from these established Latino authors…
Link to news report
Following the success of Soledad O’Brien’s Black in America tours, which foster conversations on issues plaguing the Black community, the award-winning journalist launched another tour: I Am Latino in America.
While Black in America’s main focus has been overpolicing in the Black community, I Am Latino in America takes a look amplifying Latino voices leading up to the 2016 presidential election….
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