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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Latin American festival showcases Mexican potters

World-renowned artisan potters from Mexico were on hand Sunday afternoon at the annual Latin American Festival in Old Town.
The outdoor event is designed to bring talented Latin American artists and their authentic folk art collections to San Diego where attendees can purchase items for sale.
Bazaar del Mundo has held the event for about 25 years. This year, there were about 35 artists showcasing their wares at the weekend event, including folk artist Irene Aguilar Alcántar of Oaxaca and Mata Ortiz potter and principal artist Jorge Quintana.
Named after a town in northwestern Chihuahua, Mata Ortiz pottery was developed in the 1970s by Juan Quezada, who learned to re-create ancient pottery near the archeological site of Paquimé. The struggling village has been transformed as a result of the resurgence of this traditional art form.
“The economy (in Mata Ortiz) has changed,” Quintana said. “But the most important part is that the people go to school. In the past, they only went to elementary school, and a few people went to secondary school. Now, more people go to college and university.”…
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Latin American Women’s Association helps Latino students succeed in Charlotte

By Katya Lezin
Correspondent
Violeta Moser came to the United States in 1974 as an exchange student from Peru.
She studied at New Jersey’s Montclair State University and earned a degree in business administration.
“I was supposed to stay for only one semester,” Moser said. “And it has turned into 42 years.”
Moser, 60, knows the obstacles faced by students who are new to the U.S. educational system…
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Hispanic Scholarship Fund

Founded in 1975, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund provides scholarships to Latino students, as well as related support services. HSF seeks to give students all the tools they need to apply to college, do well in their course work, graduate, enter a profession, excel, help lead our nation going forward, and mentor the generations to come
As the nation’s largest not-for-profit organization supporting Hispanic American higher education, HSF has awarded over $470 million in scholarships and provides a range of ancillary programs for candidates, scholars, and their families.
HSF further strives to make college education a top priority for every Latino family across the nation and to mobilize our community to proactively

Link to web site

Deals Flow to Contractor Tied to Mexican President

SAN FRANCISCO XOCHICUAUTLA, Mexico — Armando García has filed lawsuits, joined protests and gotten arrested trying to stop a highway from slicing through his hilly backyard in a nature reserve.
But even with a court order on his side, bright green pines have been stripped away and tree stumps dot the hillside. Parts of protected forest have been slashed, exposing the path of a 20-mile highway to the new airport in Mexico City that is demolishing…
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Study Finds Latino Entrepreneurs Are Driving New Business Creation

Latinos and immigrants helped drive an increase in new business creation nationally, according to an annual measure of U.S. startup activity released on Thursday.
According to research conducted by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, immigrant entrepreneurs launched 28.5% of the new businesses in 2014 — up from 25.9% a year earlier and 13.3% in 1996. Immigrants account for 12.9% of the U.S. population, according to the most recent data by the U.S. Census Bureau…
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Latin America’s middle class grows, but in some regions more than others

As a whole, Latin America enjoyed solid economic growth in the first decade of this century, with a fall in poverty, a decrease in income inequality and a rise of its middle class. But in many respects, it was a tale of two Americas, with South America and Mexico seeing more of these gains than Central America and the Caribbean…
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Nationwide Grants Give Groups Chance to Learn Latino Culture, History

Latinos may be the largest minority group in the U.S., but many are not familiar with the fact that they have been an integral part of the U.S. since the country’s beginnings, and that different nationalities have their distinct history, culture and roots.
To celebrate and inform on the diversity and achievements of U.S. Latinos, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association created Latino Americans: 500 Years of History, a nationwide initiative grant to educate communities around the country…
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Opinion: America’s unlikeliest Latino

(CNN) –

Now everybody wants to be Hispanic. Last week, in an exchange on Twitter, one of the country’s most xenophobic lawmakers made the bizarre suggestion that he is as Latino as Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro. In response to a tweet paraphrasing Castro as warning that the “GOP could kiss the Latino vote goodbye,” Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, tweeted, “What does Julián Castro know? Does he know that I am as Hispanic and Latino as he is?”…

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The Association Between Affective and Problem-Solving Communication and Intimate Partner Violence Among Caucasian and Mexican American Couples: a Dyadic Approach

JF Hammett, DM Castañeda, EC Ulloa – Journal of Family Violence, 2015
… Marital conflict and acculturation among Mexican American husbands and wives. …
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 40(3), 249–256.View Article; Huston,
TL, Caughlin, JP, Houts, RM, Smith, SE, & George, LJ (2001). …
Link to abstract

Self-Reported Parenting of Clinic-Referred and Non-referred Mexican American Mothers of Young Children

KM McCabe, M Mechammil, M Yeh, A Zerr – Journal of Child and Family Studies, 2015
… Risk, conflict, mothers’ parenting, and children’s adjustment in low-income, Mexican
immigrant, and Mexican American families. … Eyberg child behavior inventory and
sutter-eyberg student behavior inventory-revised: Professional manual. …

Link to abstract

Mexican American and Other Hispanic Couples’ Relationship Dynamics: A Review to Inform Interventions Aimed at Promoting Healthy Relationships

RE Orengo-Aguayo – Marriage & Family Review, 2015
… Marriage & Family Review. Mexican American and Other Hispanic Couples’ Relationship
Dynamics: A Review to Inform Interventions Aimed at Promoting Healthy Relationships. …
RELATIONSHIP DYNAMICS AMONG MEXICAN AMERICAN AND OTHER HISPANIC COUPLES. …
Link to abstract

How One Law Banning Ethnic Studies Led to Its Rise

The irony is that if Arizona lawmakers had never squashed one Mexican American studies class—in a single district in one city—Curtis Acosta would have no interest in duplicating that same class across the country. Certainly, California and Texas public schools would not be considering to offer the course in all its high schools. And Tony Diaz would never have become the book smuggler…
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Donald Trump’s false comments connecting Mexican immigrants and crime

Data on immigrants and crime are incomplete, but a range of studies show there is no evidence immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans. In fact, first-generation immigrants are predisposed to lower crime rates than native-born Americans. (The Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for restrictive immigration laws, has a detailed report showing the shortfalls of immigrant crime data.)…
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Why-Mexican-Americans-are-making-more-progress-than-other-minorities

“Tiger Mother” Amy Chua claimed in a recent book that there’s something special about Chinese immigrants, who usually end up ahead of other newcomers both economically and academically. But researchers in the University of California system say Chinese immigrants have a head start, but when it comes to making progress, Mexican immigrants lead the pack…
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Cultural, Media, and Peer Influences on Body Beauty Perceptions of Mexican American Adolescent Girls

LF Romo, R Mireles-Rios, A Hurtado – Journal of Adolescent Research, 2015
… Beauty Perceptions of Mexican American Adolescent Girls Laura F. Romo1, Rebeca
Mireles-Rios1, and Aida Hurtado1 … Page 2. 2 Journal of Adolescent Research Keywords Mexican
American, Latinas, adolescent girls, body image, self-esteem, appearance …
Link to abstract

Cerritos College a model of boosting Latino students’ success, study finds

Michelle Mancilla enrolled in Cerritos College three years ago on the advice of her father. Impressed with the school’s academic programs, he told her she would have the best chance of success there.
He may have been right. According to a study by New America, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit, Cerritos College was singled out for increasing the number of Latinos who are eligible to transfer and who do well academically…
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America redefining its identity for 21st century

WASHINGTON
As it marked another birthday, America is forging the outlines of a new century.
It’s moving with now remarkable speed to cast aside some of the traditions and mores that dominated American life for centuries. The Confederate flag is coming down, 150 years after the end of the Civil War and a half-century after it was raised in defiance of civil rights. Marriage is being redefined. Whites are fast becoming a minority. And after electing its first African-American president, the country is poised to elect a new leader from among a roster including a woman, two Cuban-Americans, and the scion of an old Yankee family married to a Mexican-American…
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Poem

“…And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while…”

T.S. Eliot
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Mexican American Proarchive Annual Report for 2022

The American Community Survey is an annual survey administered by the federal government to help local officials and community leaders and businesses understand the changes that take place in their communities. It includes percentages of our population’s graduate school attainment and the employment of Mexican Americans in various occupations.  These important factors influence the allocation of federal resources. Mexican American Proarchives uses the data provided by the American Community Survey to better understand how Mexican Americans compare to the general population.

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