in your face:
intersectionality, identity, and architecture alan Mota
architecture through the eyes of a mexican undocumented immigrant
biography My name is Alan Mota and I am a Mexican born immigrant born in Puebla , Mexico. I am a third year architecture student coming from the accelerated program. I think my interest stems from my fathers profession in construction and remodeling. I would go help my dad since a young age and would see a different house almost every other day, big houses, small houses, modern houses, old houses, apartments, lofts, office buildings, and animal hospitals. Growing up I was always confused where I belonged because being born in Mexico makes me an undocumented immigrant. This title definitely made me experience many political struggles as a person in this country. For example, I could not get a license without the DACA status that I hold, which for the moment is the only thing allowing me to stay in this country legally. Being an undocumented person also means I have to pay out of state tuition in a state in which I have lived in since about 9 months old and from hard working parents with low paying jobs. One last thing I strive for in my every day is to inform the latinx community that there are opportunities out there for everyone after high school, and seeing as to many latinx people live have worked in construction in some way, architecture is a very viable path that can be taken to provide for a better living, which in short is all my family and I are here.
face mask: a call to abolish ice
manifesto:
the lost immigrant architecture
Architecture is about the representation of ideas into sketches, sketches into models, models into plans, and plans into construction. Architecture has seen the ideas of more and more diverse communities as time has advanced, however, there is a large set of minds that architecture has not seen the ideas of. Architecture must know that there is a small representation of the Latinx community both in architects as well as architectural projects. Architecture must see a bigger presence of Latin American countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Colombia. Architecture could have a bigger presence of immigrants, undocumented immigrants, Daca status immigrants, Mexican immigrants. Architecture needs more representation of unheard ideas, because life experiences are the driver of the architect’s ideas.