Updated: Aug 25, 2023
Date: Summer 2020 Design Research Internship
Location: Milwaukee Tool - Milwaukee, WI
As the first fluent Spanish-speaker part of the Milwaukee Tool Design Research Team, I researched safety and communication needs of Latinx tradesmen.
Through virtual interviews, I compiled qualitative data and shaped insights to better serve the Latinx collective.
The project gathered enthusiasm around more inclusive research at the company.
ethnography | interview design | virtual interviewing | virtual presentation | qualitative data synthesis | Spanish
Timeline: 10 weeks
What I Learned:
Desk where I conducted all my virtual interviews
Scope
Meeting with my mentor and supervisor, we established milestones for interviews, data synthesis, and presentation deadlines. We created an interview guide with input from various members of the team and stakeholders in the company.
Virtual interviews
with 11 tradesmen throughout the country
Interviews were held through phone, in both Spanish and English
Questions regarding safety, communication, upbringing, and immigration challenges were discussed, to the extent the users felt comfortable sharing.
Practicing assuring verbal cues and speaking in the language they felt most comfortable created a space to actively listen and reflect on their needs.
Cities: Los Angeles, Houston, Austin, Milwaukee
Samples notes from interviews with users
Synthesizing Data
After interviewing the users, compiling all the data into MURAL led to easy clustering.
Keeping the cohesion of the stories shared, especially the more personal narratives, led to a higher-level picture of who this collective was.
Fragmentation relating to safety and communication led to actionable insights.
Picture of clustering of data from interviews.
Insights
Key trends surrounding safety and communication were presented to executives & researchers.
Centering the story around spectrums of identity brought a personal lens to the research.
Quotes I always came back to navigate the space
provided by mentors
"Let the data guide you."
"Never simplify an experience."
"Sometimes the best way to ask is to just ask."
Location: Cambridge, MA
Date: Spring 2019 - Present
Following a desire to mix both my love for service and music, I founded an acapella group called Singing for Service to perform at vulnerable communities around the Boston area (i.e. retirement homes, shelters, and rehabilitation centers). As founder, I outreached to students, raised $1450 from the Center for the Arts at MIT, structured the scope and intention of the group, and served as music director for two semesters.
What I Learned:
How to initiate a project from the ground up
Juggling of logistics (room reservations, t-shirt acquisition, outreaching to shelters/hospitals)
Communicating expected level of commitment to an emerging group
The joy and gratitude of sharing music
Inspiration
One time while volunteering at a retirement home during high school, my mom thought it would be a good idea to bring an old record player and play some tunes. That day I observed in wonder how an elderly man sat next to the record player and would not leave its side for hours, exclaiming every so often how much joy it brought him to remember his music. Another time, my choir came and sang Christmas carols at that same retirement home, creating a joyous exchange of gratitude between us and the residents.
These experiences brought more purpose into my love for music. I began to see music as not only a way to bring healing to myself, but also bring connection and joy to others. During a particularly disillusioned day at MIT where I struggled to find meaning in the technical work assigned to me in my mechanical engineering classes, I decided to take a small step and start organizing a club dedicated to performing in these communities.
Breathe...
At the start, I realized I needed to create a structure to SFS (Singing for Service) that would allow people to be involved at a small capacity. A common obstacle for singers at MIT to join an acapella group was the expected time commitment, usually 6 hours/week or more. Learning from my experience of taking part in an acapella group my freshman year, I set guidelines for our new group:
No more than 3 hours/week would be asked from each member (2 hrs/rehearsal + 1 for practicing with the section).
No more than 5 performances per semester to keep our scope small.
No more than 15 people would be join the group to keep collaboration & team-bonding a priority.
And to encourage singers from varying degrees of music experience to join,
Passion for service and music experience would be weighed evenly in the audition process.
This structure would encourage members of the community to audition even if they had little experience or time and keep the level of informality high. I wanted the experience of SFS to be as organic as possible - the club only facilitating the connections we personally built with our audience.
Logistically, I organized auditions, applied for funding from Center for the Arts, reserved rooms for rehearsals, and chose music that would uphold a positive and encouraging message.
Spring 2019 - One of our first rehearsals as a group.
And then perform!
As Music Director, the main challenge I faced was commitment from my members. Because the club had explicitly been publicized as low-commitment, it became a struggle to keep members accountable for coming on time and committing to weekend performances. Also, by welcoming both experience and inexperienced singers, I didn't realize some members came to SFS with differing levels of expectation regarding the quality of our singing. A result of that was some members had to put more time into learning music than others, which became an issue in providing everyone support they needed without singling them out during rehearsal.
Establishing section leaders was an attempt at creating small spaces where singers with less experience could receive personalized attention.
Spring 2019 - SFS singers getting ready for first performance.
Spring 2019 - Performance at The Boston Home, a rehabilitation center for people with neurological disabilities.
Spring 2019 - SFS singers performing at Winchester Retirement Center "When I Was Your Man" by Bruno Mars. Diego Barea at the piano.
But once we managed these challenges, the joy and gratitude from the communities we visited were as vibrant as I remembered from high school. We performed in a variety of locations that semester - ranging from a crowded woman's shelter to an upscale retirement home. After every performance, we made sure to stay for a while and engage in conversation with the residents. At the Winchester Retirement Center, we met the first women to graduate from MIT with a mechanical engineering degree. At the women's shelter, we met multiple women who had gone through unimaginable pain and need who still smiled and sang along when we all harmonized to Amazing Grace together.
These experiences with SFS have taught me the importance of reaching out to the elders in my life to make sure they know they are loved and appreciated, as well as served as a constant reminder to my team and I of the privilege we hold inside our MIT bubble. SFS was also a way for me to connect with people who reminded me of the community I grew up in - my grandmother in LA and listening to her stories, women in my life who underwent painful obstacles, close family members unable to speak at rehabilitation centers but eyes gleamed at the sound of music.
In Summary
To mix my interests in music and service, I founded and managed Singing for Service starting in Spring 2019. As founder, I learned how to structure a singing group that would be welcoming to all different levels of singers while as music director, I felt challenged in encouraging commitment from the members. At the end of the semester, our group successfully performed at five locations in the Boston area ranging from retirement homes to women's shelters.
Singing for Service keeps growing as a club, recently receiving official recognition from MIT and now at 14 members. I currently aid the club as treasurer and advisor.
Spring 2020. SFS Rehearsal.
Thank you to Center for the Arts at MIT for funding our transportation and food costs in 2019.
Thank you to Diego Barea, Alyssa Wells-Lewis, Tim Gutterman and all the founding members of our group for making this project possible.
Updated: Sep 1, 2023
Location: Cambridge, MA
Date: Spring 2020
With the help of close friends, the Latino Cultural Center put together a production of the musical In the Heights, written by Lin Manuel Miranda. In the Heights tells the story of a Latinx community in Washington Heights, NYC weaved in with homages to immigration, identity, and alegria (joy). My role as artistic director was to lead artistic vision, bring together a team of artistic staff, aid producers in obtaining funding, and shape all acting rehearsals.
What I Learned:
The importance of a cohesive artistic vision from staff at the beginning of an artistic (or any) project
The importance of asking for mentorship when embarking on a new, complex project
Teaching a "feeling" during rehearsal
Building relationships with the cast as a director
The joy of Latinx representation!
Our performance was cut short by COVID-19 MIT evacuations two weeks before our performance. To honor our work, we held an informal run-through the day before we left campus. Read more about the experience here: https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/a-last-minute-rehearsal/
Here are some rehearsal videos from the experience:
Inspiration
I have loved Lin Manuel Miranda's work for a very long time. During the peak of Hamilton, the musical he wrote about Alexander Hamilton tumultuous life, I performed as "Hamilton" for my high-school show choir by rapping "My Shot". The lyrics about perseverance and resilience appealed to me in a very personal way.
My dream soon after was becoming involved in an In the Heights production at MIT. However, there was always the issue of Latinx representation - were there enough students at MIT who identified as Latinx and wanted to perform to put on In the Heights? Theater groups on campus grappled with this question and hesitated proposing musicals that focused on narratives from communities of color because of the lack of diversity in existing pool of actors. However, the more I performed with musical groups, I looked around and realized a number of my close friends both were Latinx and involved in music. We often bonded over our love for In the Heights, showering each other in excitement about how the musical captured a part of ourselves. So I proposed starting our own production.
Music director Diego Barea and Producer/Actress Natasha Stark after our last night at auditions.
Cohesive Scope
The planning for this production started January 2020 while I was traveling with MIT Global Teaching Labs in Israel-Palestine. Thus, communication among the planning committee occurred across erratic time zones - impeding us from coming together in the same room and defining a cohesive scope for the performance. We realized one-month in, rehearsals well under way, that we all had differing ideas of how big or small we wanted the final performance to be. Our bandwidths were also different. Looking back, having a clear and candid conversation at the beginning of the year to define our scope would have saved us miscommunications later on. Nevertheless, during this time we did our best to communicate deadlines, deliverables, and artistic choices through text, email, and late-night/early-morning calls.
Hitting the Ground Running
When choosing the date of the performance, my team agreed that performing for the incoming Latinx students during Sin Limite, a fly-in program for adMITted Latinx students, would be amazing. That gave us 1.3 months after auditions to put on our performance. I flew back from the Middle East to campus on February 4th and hit the ground running with planning auditions, gathering publicity materials, organizing team meetings, and most importantly reaching out to the Latino Cultural Center and Latinx community for support.
Expectations and Asking for Help
The excitement over the project was the most fulfilling part about directing this production - the cast was always talking about it, and as far as I know, it was the first time the Latino Cultural Center had engaged in theater since the existence of Teatro MIT, the Latinx centered theater group on campus that shut down in 2012. After many generations of Latinx students, this was a chance for the community to rise up and show our presence to the rest of campus, loudly and boldly. And so, because In the Heights was a conglomerate of firsts, it also came with a conglomerate of expectations.
We wanted to do an amazing job. We wanted for our voices to be heard and for our presence to be felt powerfully through this art form. But as director, I realized well into the production that we had no adult mentor. As a team, we tied in all our theater knowledge together, like a lattice of wisdom about deadlines and methods for engaging the cast, organization, etc. But there were so many gaps - how do we hold challenging conversations around Latinx representation? As I painfully learned, a Latinx production will not hold a monolithic perspective around what it means "to be" Latinx, even when most of the artistic staff identifies as Latinx. How do we figure out copyright challenges? And personally, how do I manage and communicate effectively with a team of actors? I had observed directors many times in their work, but accomplishing that task myself was a very unique challenge fit to my own inhibitions. I needed a mentor. We did receive support from the Office of Minority Education but that came later in the production, when the situation was more critical and I reached out to a trusted leader. This is why a large part of what I am taking away from this project is the need to lean on a mentor when engaging with a new project. Directing a team of 15-20 actors and producers and designers was no easy feat for one person to do on their own - it escapes me how I didn't really think of asking for help as an option at the beginning.
COVID-19
On March 3rd, we received notice that MIT was going to cancel fly-in programs and move classes virtually. That night, In the Heights team gathered in a conference room in one of the dorms and talked candidly about what our next steps would be. There were rumors that our performance would be completely cancelled because no crowds were allowed to gather anymore. Diego foreshadowed that we probably would be leaving to our homes the following week. We agreed that we would continue our production until we got a confirmation that this was the case.
On March 10th, we received final confirmation that MIT was evacuating all students in one week. As a team, we hurriedly took the time to decompress, spend time with all our loved ones, and say painful goodbye to seniors. But as that Friday approached, the cast asked if we could please meet one last time before leaving campus. We decided to host an informal run-through in one of the empty classrooms of what we had worked on thus far, and invite some of our closest friends as the audience.
That memory is one of the dearest I hold in my heart. I gave a welcome speech to the audience in the room, asking them to please hold this space as one of celebration and beauty, a shelter from the chaos and uncertainty ensuing outside. The run-through was a success. Most of the cast actually remembered their blocking (!!!) and the show, with a few gaps in between, was basically whole. Lots of laughter and dancing. I sat on the front row with the co-music director, Lani, arms around each other, crying and laughing and celebrating the production everyone had created.
In Summary
Pursuing a long-time dream, I initiated & directed an MIT In the Heights musical theater production with the help of close friends. Our team, around 20 artistic staff and actors who mainly identified as Latinx, independently obtained rights, raised money, ran rehearsals, outreached to performers, and built an artistic vision to powerfully raise the voice of the Latinx community on campus. Our performance, while cut short by COVID-19 evacuations, still culminated in a heart-warming informal run-through.
I take many lessons from In the Heights, a couple of which are the importance of a cohesive artistic vision and seeking mentors before engaging in a challenging project.
Thank you to Natasha Stark, Diego Barea, Vanessa Gonzales, Kiyah Willis, Jose Zavala, all of our wonderful actors and the rest of the artistic staff who helped make this production a possibility.