Perez Parkway

"I need signposts on the Perez Parkway to guide me along these important and insightful arguments." - part of first ever grad school writing feedback

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Reflecting on my undergrad internship: HEB Information Solutions, Summer 2018

Lately I've been holding space for the lyrics of defyi... I mean reflecting on my 'professional' experiences so far in life. Between my dissertation and my unequivocal belief that Wicked's Elphaba is a textbook example of women of color in tech, I've had plenty of reason (I will stop making Wicked references now, I promise). I'm writing this blog post, though, because I was recently explicitly asked for more information on one part of my professional development, which was my internship with HEB corporate back in undergrad. So, this blog is a way for me to hold space for that experience in case it is helpful for anyone else down the road! I will say up front that I don't know if the internship is still structured in the way I experienced it, and so if you are someone reading this looking to be in this exact internship, I would look into the current website or see if you can talk to recruiters! I am also not employed by HEB currently, I just have lots of good things to say from that experience.

How did I find/get the internship?

The short story is that I was at the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) in 2017, and connected with a recruiter there for HEB. I exchanged information, applied, and then was invited for a phone screening and then a technical interview. In December 2017, I was extended an offer for the Summer 2018 internship cohort. The longer story, to provide context, is that I was at the beginning of my third year of a Computer Science (CS) bachelor's degree, and trying to decide how I wanted my career to look. I had just started dipping my toe into research (which is what I do now), and I had spent the summer before as a teaching assistant for a Girls Who Code Summer program in Austin (they used to be in person--note my experiences are pre-pandemic!). My degree program was absolutely geared toward getting students into tech companies/positions (so not so much teaching or research) so I felt that I was missing this part. When it came time for GHC, which includes an extensive job fair for all levels of job seekers, I was trying to seek out companies where I had some idea of what they did. Growing up in Texas, I was intimately familiar with HEB, so seeing them at the career fair nearly made me jump for joy. I was able to have an actual conversation with the recruiter, which I think helped my case. I unfortunately don't remember too much about the specifics of the application and interview process, but I know there was a screening, a manager phone call, and then a technical interview. It was very similar questions to what you'd see anywhere else, like these. If GHC was in September, then I would have done all of this in October or November. Found out in December and then started preparing for that!

What did it entail?

Structurally, the internship was 10 weeks, though mine had a different start time than most because I was at a school on the quarter system (as opposed to semesters, which are more common in Texas). It was entirely in-person in San Antonio, and they provided and paid for all the housing. On Friday mornings, we (the interns) also had free breakfast while we heard talks from people across the company. This was always fun and educational! Otherwise, we were in our designated departments, which would each have a handful of interns.

I was hired to work with the Information Solutions department, which to my understanding was in charge of many of the digital products, both internal and external. We didn't start on projects right away; instead, they had us do starter projects so we could learn more about some of the tools they used. What was cool about this though was that they still treated it like it was part of an actual project, so we had code reviews and used git to manage our projects. In theory these were things we were already doing in school, but seeing them be used with best practices on actual teams, it was eye-opening.

Those took about the first two or three weeks (we had 3 projects), and then we were assigned to teams. I can't go into detail about the projects (mostly because I can't remember) but I can say that I definitely got a taste of agile development. Also, this was the stage where I had more hands-on mentoring and conversations about the big picture of why certain technologies were used. On a day-to-day basis, I would have been in a stand-up meeting in the morning, get back to my desk to work on my part of the project, or use Jira to find other things to work on. It was like this for a few weeks before I was put on another project, my final one, to come up with a script that could be run once a month or so that would report on some... I don't know, some metrics? It's so funny that I don't remember what I worked on because I learned so much in this process. I also was working with a mentor a few times a week on this, which was incredible.

At the end of the internship, all of the interns gave 10-minute presentations about what we worked on. I gathered a few people in the department to help me make mine, and I think I did a good enough job.

How did it fit in my larger career trajectory?

Towards the end of the internship, those of us in IS had the opportunity to interview for full-time positions once we graduated. I was pretty set on this job if I hadn't ended up liking research as much as I did. This may sound cheesy, but it was really the best version of an internship I could have done: close to family, great working environment, and mentorship from people of color in tech. All of these things also matter to me now as a researcher. This experience did tell me that coding/technical skills, while important, are only part of what makes a computer scientist. Your ability to mentor, serve the community with your skills, and work on diverse teams is equally if not more important. This idea is one that I have taken up in one of my research papers, and I think this interest can be partially attributed to my time in this internship.

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La Frontera: Camiones de Mexico

Back in April, I presented some of my current research at the Latinx Studies Association Meeting in Tempe, Arizona. It went really well! The trip also doubled as an opportunity for my friend Akilah and I to travel through the southwest, which I had been to a few times but never really through. This blog post is to highlight one of my favorite parts, which was this interactive exhibit at the Mingei International Museum in San Diego (quite the drive from Tempe, let me tell you!).

I'll share the info with you that I got about the exhibit:

" La Frontera: Camiones de Mexico Designed by papier-mache artist Manuel Urueta and photographer/filmmaker Celina Galicia of Xingaderas as an interactive activity for our exhibition La Frontera, this bus is for you to help us adorn it both in and outside with the provided embellishments. Infuse vibrant colors and unique designs to showcase your individuality, drawing inspiration from Mexican culture, symbols, and personal experiences." (from the Museum)

Image: The bus as I walked up to it in the museum. A cardboard bus about 4 feet long rests across two tables. The bus is covered in foam stickers from people who added their own designs.

I didn't get to go into the museum to see the full exhibit unfortunately, but I did get to have a lot of fun adding in my own contribution. I even asked for a copy of the poster that accompanied it, but they didn't have any extras.

Image 2: Me adding some parts to the inside of the bus. Why the inside? Great question! I wanted to crawl into the bus. :)

Personally, I really loved the combination of a small maker activity with the context of Mexican culture. I also was into the amount of color inside and outside the bus; that was what initially drew me to it. If you know me, you know that lots of color, culture, and crafts are my jam. The activity was a fun little surprise on our trip to Balboa Park, which is home to a vibrant art community.

Anyway, I just wanted to share something that brought me joy recently. I was going through my pictures looking for something else when I was reminded about this. It definitely feels like its been longer than a few months since then!

[mez-rperez]

Sharing Space & Taking Time: Reflections on Conference Going in 2023

My friend, the brilliant Stephanie T. Jones, said something casually insightful on Friday night, at the social event marking the first day of the Learning Sciences Graduate Student Conference (LSGSC). We were talking about how the pandemic completely upended our programs and how we are learning how to work as scholars when they said:

"As an adult, the end of the world is a recurring event."

Our table of other grad students in LS laughed at first, until the truth of her statement set in. She was right! And while shared within a light-hearted, getting-to-know-everyone context, the weight of it is something I'm carrying with me.

Part of why her comment stuck with me was that she used the word "recurring," which for me conjured imagery of adding "end of world" into a google calendar invite that gets set as an event that takes place every week. Advisor meeting, co-writing, end of the world, flexibility class. And sometimes, to break up the routine, we have conference travel.

Yet, I had the nagging feeling: should we really even be here? I ask now this in light of the ongoing colonization of Palestine, which is experiencing a surge of violence leaving millions displaced, and thousands physically harmed or dead.

Of course, this wasn't the first time I've asked myself this question. In 2020, it was pandemic-induced lockdown. Between now and then, this question has rung in my ears as I consider my own individual actions. I have accepted that institutions will not make my decisions easy either. The conference must go on, the class must be in person. "We" (read: able-bodied people with the means to get around) "have to" (read: there is money involved) "move on" (read: start subscribing to magical thinking). But "moving on" is getting harder and harder, and is already impossible for some.

My friend's wisdom did not end with her quip. Contemplating, I shared my question: should this conference have even happened? Or framing it another way, should we have still made the decision to be here?

In her consideration, she offered me this: people coming together is always an opportunity. In a venue like LSGSC, we have the opportunity to be in dialog, to change things up, to really take seriously the work of reimagining, in a space that is constantly becoming something new. The AERAs, the CHIs, even the ISLSs of the world that obliquely shape my academic life do not have the ability to turn as quickly, which makes this space even more valuable as a site for growing something new.

So, moving forward I am holding myself accountable for doing my part to hold space for difficult, emotional, or precarious conversations. I'm figuring out where I can take action and change my personal decision-making. And I'm also asking that organizations and organizers do the same.

The Revolution Will Not Be a Re(oc)curring Event: some concluding thoughts on what conferences can be:

What would it look like to plan for the seen, unseen, and unforeseen world events that differentially impact members of our communities? What are ways we can hold space for the events that we cannot put on our calendar?

In a post-academic twitter world, where and how can we hold space as scholars invested in examining power, politicization, and presence?

What are we willing to ask of each other when we come together physically? In a world where COVID-19 is far from over, where collective immunity to other diseases is questionable, and where disabled people have long been relegated to the margins, we need to start taking collective responsibility for the conditions of participation. Masking up, hybrid options, and testing are small ways we can do this.

These questions came up for me because I had the opportunity to listen to my wonderful mentor give a keynote talk, and because Stephanie and I co-faciitated a space on public pedagogy in the learning sciences. Being in conversation with others has had an immesurable impact on my development as a scholar and person. In sharing my reflections, I hope that it can be a point of consideration as we come up with new ways of being together.

[mez-rperez]

Sites for Learning About Black History in South Texas

This list of sites came about when I was hosting a friend over the summer when I was visiting my home in the Rio Grande Valley! It all started when we went to the new HEB-sponsored wing of the Harlingen Arts and Heritage Museum, where they have exhibits on the development of Harlingen (the city I was raised in). In their section on the schools of the city, they had a small tribute to the Black-only school that operated from the 1930-50s until Harlingen High School (my alma mater) de-segregated.

Image: Museum exhibit featuring some of the Black students of Booker T. Washington School. There is a caption that reads "In 1934 the Booker T. Washington School was erected to serve Harlingen's African American children in the 800 block of W. Filmore. Harlingen integrated its schools in 1959. Circa 1955. Photos courtesy of Lonnie Davis, information courtesy of Harlingen's First 100 years, 1910-2010."

Admittedly, when I had planned her visit originally I focused on the Mexican American history and heritage that are already prominently displayed across the Valley. So, reading this set in motion our attempts to visit as many sites that make visible the Black history of South Texas as possible!

This is obviously an incomplete list, so I've added some resources at the end to help direct you to other resources if you are interested!

Callandret Black History Museum - San Benito, TX

Image: Black sign with white letters reading: "Callandret Black History Museum." The sign stands on a corner by an empty street.

Our first stop was the Callandret Black History Museum in San Benito. It is named after Joe Callandret, whose family is known for starting the Callandret school which educated the Black community, who weren't allowed to attend schools with White or Latinx people, in San Benito. It had many different locations until it opened up where it is to this day in the El Jardin neighborhood. When we visited, we saw a video about how this museum came about to begin with, which highlighted the efforts of members of the community to preserve and educate people about the history of the Black community, the operation of the school, and the Callandret family.

Booker T. Washington School - Harlingen, TX

Image: Behind a chain link fence is the plaque commemorating the Booker T. Washington School. The plaque reads: "Booker T. Washington School 1934 / The Booker T. Washington School, named after the great civil rights leader and educator, opened up in 1934, serving African-American students until 1959, when the Harlingen schools became integrated. / Born into slavery April 5, 1856, Booker T. Washington was a dominant figure of African-American public affairs during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He worked toward equalizing public education opportunities for African Americans, and in 1881 Washington founded Tuskegee Institute, now known as Tuskegee University. Washington remained influential in civil matters until his death on November 14, 1915."

This stop was supposed to be our first, but when we drove around looking for the building supposedly on the 800 block of W. Filmore in Harlingen, we didn't see anything obvious. At the time, we didn't know about the plaque, just that the building existed. Luckily, we were staying close enough that we decided to try again after doing some more research. We found that the building has been repurposed as a head start center and that there had been efforts to create a commemorative plaque for the history of the building. One of the same community members involved in the Callandret museum, Lonnie Davis, was also spearheading this effort.

Littles-Martin House - Corpus Christi, TX

I wanted to show my friend different cities across South Texas, so naturally Corpus Christi was our next stop up north. Here, we attempted to visit the Littles-Martin house, the home of one of the first Black families in Corpus Christi. It currently sits in Heritage Park, where there are multiple historic houses that now house museums or information centers. I'm not sure if it is open for public visiting, but even being able to walk around and see the park was very fun. The Littles-Martin building currently houses the NAACP chapter of Corpus Christi.

San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum - San Antonio, TX

Our last stop was in San Antonio, where we visited the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum in La Villita. While it's a small space, it contains multiple different histories of Black people in San Antonio more widely in Texas and the United States. When we went, they had a special exhibit on a historic Black magazine active in San Antonio. On our visit, I even learned something new about the school my dad, his brother, and their mom (my grandma) had gone to. See, my grandma went to the original Brackenridge High School in San Antonio's south side, which in the 70s changed name and location to Phillis Wheatley High School, after the famous African-American poet. At the SAAACAM, I learned about the original Phillis Wheatley school, which served as San Antonio's all-Black school from the 1930s on (I'm not sure when it would have been dissolved as a segregated school). It's now Phillis Wheatley Middle School, at the same location where it originally served as an all-Black school.

So, these were the places that we visited in South Texas that surface the Black history of the region! I hope this can be helpful for other people from the RGV looking to understand the lesser-known history.

Extra Resources on Black History in the Valley

Blackness (and Anti-Blackness) in the Borderlands Words by Nat M, edited by Gisela Zuniga

UTRGV Special Collections & University Archives: African American History & Heritage

Black History in the RGV by Pamela Morales, on a presentation given by Jillian Glantz

African American Heritage Sites of Interest by Village in the Valley

SAAACAM Green Book for Negro Motorists

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Data Visualization Fellowship Final Presentations

Data Visualization Week 11

On Monday, August 14, we presented our summers' work with the broader UM community! Everyone did a great job presenting, and I just wanted to share my slides and notes from this presentation.

Putting together the story of my project was surprisingly tricky, even though we were given a good set of guidelines on what we should include. I got most hung up on if I was properly motivating my reason for looking at this data/area to begin with, but you can only do so much with 10 minutes! I will say that I did have an article published today that is also about this topic, that does a way better job of motivating my work than I do in my script. So if you want a fuller picture, check it out!

Anyway, I am adding my script and the slides below in case you wanted to see how I summed up my project work over the summer! Thank you to Justin and Tal, the incredible mentors for this project, and to Sienna, Maggie, Dominique, Brittany, Michelle, and Alex, my cohort mates, for this wonderful experience!

Data Visualization Fellowship - Final Slides and Script

Article: “¡FUERA SPACEX!”: IMAGINING NEW STEM FUTURES IN LATINX COMMUNITIES

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SpaceX and STEM education: By the numbers

Data Visualization Fellowship Week 7

After a few weeks pause on working due to an unexpected road trip back to Ann Arbor, I am thinking that I finally have an idea of how to put my data story together.

I recently gathered some info on school districts in the RGV, and I focused in on looking at how much money had been donated to the ones in Cameron County, to begin to track where the promised donations from the Musk Foundation where going. I got farther than I thought I would, but not far enough to draw any conclusions. Based on what is publicly available via news coverage, I can only account for a little over 5 million out of the promised 20. So I'm going to keep going with that, but working on this is giving me an idea for how I want to organize the story here.

The key part of the organization comes from my insights as a STEM education researcher. For better or worse, one of the core values in this area is to encourage learners go on to STEM majors in undergrad, and then on to STEM careers. So, I'm going to go ahead and take this stance and ask questions relevant to this argument, such as:

What kind of jobs are SpaceX making available in the RGV?

What is the $20 million that they donated in 2021 being used for? How was it being dispersed?

What are the other educational experiences being developed in the Valley as a result of SpaceX's expansion?

These are just a few of what I'm thinking, mainly because I have already begun to answer them with the data I'm collecting. As I've done some research, however, I have found some interesting stories on how companies that own wind farms in the Valley are also donating to schools (here, and here), specifically their STEM programs. Further, I saw that United Launch Alliance, which had existed in Harlingen long before SpaceX moved in, is one of the biggest tax contributors to Harlingen CISD (the school district I grew up in).

What these remind me is that it is not a captivating, or even sensical argument to say "contributing money to STEM programs = BAD." What is questionable is how that money both changes how that STEM learning occurs, and if it reifies power imbalances between companies and the communities they live in (or in SpaceX's case, are colonizing).

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Testing a visualization and setting goals

Data Visualization Fellowship Week 4

Last week I spent a lot of time trying to find some interesting visualizations for my data, which is job postings in different areas across 2014-2019. I used raw graphs to do this since it is such a simple way to explore multiple different options.

During this search, I really got a picture of how important it is to make sure that my visualizations are not only based on good data, but that they are reflective of the main points of interest.

For example, one of the things I'm interested in seeing is where the SpaceX job postings are over time. I tried out two different alluvial diagrams that gave very different impressions!

Diagram 1: Year to City

Diagram 2: City to year

Both show you that over time, the proportion of job postings in Hawthorne goes down compared to some of the other places, but you cannot see the other cities well in either of them. I am trying to get a sense of relative proportion, so I might choose a different way to show this part of it. Still, it's interesting to see how the two give slightly different impressions/experiences to the viewer!

This week, I'll not be working on the visualizations as much in favor of spending time with my family while they are on vacation. However, I do have goals set up through the end of this fellowship, such as pitching whatever I end up making to Trucha, a multi-media platform centered around art and social justice in the Rio Grande Valley!

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Reviving my coding skills

Data Visualization Fellowship Weeks 2 & 3

If there is one thing I got out of my Computer Science degree, it is audacity. I'd say it is what helped me survive that major (and all it entails). Turns out, it comes in handy for my research as well!

So I'm in week three of the data visualization program and I have begun to really test my coding skills, which I haven't used (strictly speaking) in years. I spent most of week 2 reading/thinking, mostly because I was in the middle of travel and presenting at a conference.

The space was helpful! I read two insightful (and short!) articles recommended by the mentors, which were Feminist Data Visualization by Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein, and The Theory/Data Thing Commentary by Geoffrey C. Bowker. Both were extremely helpful, but the D'Ignazio and Klein piece really helped with my thinking around how I go about constructing this work. Namely, acknowledging the standpoint that I am taking and how that is reflected in the work/final visualization. This is something I've thought about a bit with regard to positionality statements in writing, but it is different (for me) to be undertaking this sort of project with that in mind.

This week, however, was spent trying to re-learn Python syntax. I'm sure I'm not the first person to experience this, but it's funny that I can remember what I'm able to do with that language/the libraries and then proceed to Google "how to launch jupyter notebook" because while I know what it is and what it can do... I can't remember what to type in on the terminal.

So I'll say that while it took a little longer than I expected, I have a first draft of a data set I can use for my project! Using the Wayback Machine Internet Archive, I collected job titles, locations, year posted, and links to SpaceX job descriptions for a given day in June for 2014-2019. There are still some major limitations to this set, and I'm still trying to figure out how to get 2020-23 since they changed up the page in 2020. Its a start though! I'm adding a screenshot of my excel file so you can get an idea of what I'm working with.

While I work on this technical aspect of my project, I am still turning over in my mind how I want to define a "STEM job," if I still want to. There are a lot of pitfalls to this, most importantly being that I am personally against the idea of delineating this. Of course, I'm still going to think this through, but it's challenging.

Up next will be getting the rest of the data (2020-23) and to start visualizing it. A big question for me is what is missing, as in where can I possibly expand beyond how I'm thinking of this project. I hope to be able to share soon my first visualizations to see what comes up for people!

Anyway, thanks for reading!

[mez-rperez]

New Project: SpaceX, STEM education, and Data Visualization

Data Visualization Fellowship Week 1

This week marked the beginning of working with the University of Michigan Library as part of their Data Visualization Fellowship. Our cohort is made up of students from all over the university, mostly working on different self-directed projects. I'm excited to get started!

My project is something that I started a while back and am now trying to take the time to work on as part of my dissertation research. For this project, my aim is to visualize the impact of SpaceX on STEM education in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, where their launch site is located. The motivation for this project is to see if (and how) the promises of economic development and technological innovation are holding true in any way.

I'm starting out with a dataset of job postings that I pulled from their website, and am now working on ways to visualize this data and tell a story with it. Week by week, I will be posting a blog post as an update on how this project is going and what I'm hoping to accomplish within the next week.

Next week's goal: Expanding the dataset and defining a heuristic for a "STEM job"

After talking with the mentors for this program, I've decided two things need to be done pretty immediately: 1) I need to operationalize (somehow) what a "STEM job" is so that I can use it to categorize the job postings, and then 2) apply that definition to an expanded dataset. Currently, I have a snapshot of job data from a random day in May of last year when I first conceptualized this project. What I need is to expand that by looking at multiple years, starting probably around 2014 (when they broke ground in Texas). I'm still working out what this will look like, but by next week I intend to have at least this and my working definition of a STEM job.

Anyway, let me know if you have any questions or suggestions on the project. Thanks for reading!

[mez-rperez]

Quiet! At The Conference

Thinking about how academic conferences need to do better for attendees.

I don't like crowds; I never have and I probably never will. The time I spent in quarantine has only made this worse. Heading back into in-person conferences where no one is required to mask and I'm still expected to "network" completely overwhelming. To calm myself, I spent some time thinking about what I might like to see in terms of spaces where I can get away from the hustle and bustle, and have decided to share in case it resonates with anyone.

So I imagine a few things need to be separated out, especially at the larger conferences:

Sensory room(s)

Low sensory room(s)

Quiet room(s)

Lactation room(s)

Meeting/zoom room(s)

Each of these has different use cases, and shouldn't be set up to "accidentally" be used for something else (by people who are probably working with limited options).

So first and foremost for me is the sensory room (and its distinction from a low sensory room or a quiet room). A sensory room is a place where your senses are gently stimulated intentionally based on a person's individual needs/preferences. You may see something like a bubble tube, soft lighting/adjustable lighting, several types of places to sit/lay, and soft-to-the-touch surroundings.

A low sensory room would be a room where the senses are just not as engaged as they may otherwise be (like in a crowd). The furniture and other setup may otherwise be consistent with the rest of the outside setting, but this may be a dimly lit or dark room, that is kept quiet or to a whisper.

A quiet room could be a room where the lighting and seating are consistent with the rest of the conference (or whatever setting) but is intentionally left quiet (no speaking, playing music, etc.). The door may or may not be closed in order to help with this.

While these are similar, I see the use cases for these rooms as being notably different. Someone who uses the quiet room may just need a space to work on something in a low-distraction environment (like you would get in a library). However, a low-sensory room would be used by someone who needs a reprieve from an overstimulating environment. Similarly, a sensory room would be a place people could use in case of overstimulation, but it would be a space to more actively recover using the various features of the room. A little can go a long way (just changing up the seating for instance). Also, a sensory room may not necessarily be completely quiet, depending on the needs of the people using it. There may be an area where it is quiet, and another where it allows talking or other types of noise-making.

The purposes for a lactation room should be self-explanatory, yet based on my experiences people tend to take advantage of it being an empty room (for a bit) and use it. Or worse, take all the chairs from it, making it so that a breast-feeding person would have to sit on the ground to do what they need to do. I think it is worth talking to breastfeeding people about what kinds of things they may want to see in this room (besides privacy and chairs). Key to this room, and probably others, would be an air filtration system to maximize safety in this space from airborne diseases.

Finally, I include a meeting/zoom room (or other area) for a few reasons. Firstly, more often than not, people who need to meet in a quiet spot that isn't a hotel room will take over one of these other spaces listed above for this purpose. I can easily see how this might happen, especially given that these rooms will not always be filled with people using them for the intended purposes. Secondly, we live in a world where virtual meetings can happen anywhere and at any time. For conference purposes, it could be used for meet-ups between virtual and in-person attendees, or for interviews for jobs when people have complicated schedules and can meet on zoom. It has the added bonus of being a place where you can take meetings outside of the conference that may have been difficult to do otherwise.

In any case, having just two of these spaces would go a long way in my experience. However, in such a limited situation they are hard to maintain without surveillance because when people get together, all of these spaces (or some version of them) are needed. It ends up working more like a "first come first served" situation, which is neither equitable nor ideal. I don't want more surveillance, so we clearly need more resources!

I'd be interested to know what others think of these ideas or their experiences. Things really need to change and these room ideas are really just a starting point. I'll probably write up some of my ideas for making these happen soon!