Immigrant architect results from gritty, focus-driven upbringing
When professional architect and immigrant Andrea Pardo Spalding first arrived in the United States as a 15-year old, she was encouraged to take easy courses, something that would be more accommodating to her developing aptitudes as a new U.S. student. Less college prep and more say, visual arts.
While she preferred to get in to difficult subjects early, Andrea remembers “this is too much for you,” from her academic advisors telling her back then, a message she’d continue to hear for the rest of the academic career until she graduated from Kansas State University with a master of architecture degree.
Her grit has won her a rare place in society as both a first generation immigrant with an advance degree as a working professional in a field where women are chronically underrepresented. A 2012 survey of working professionals in the American Institute of Architects showed an overwhelming gender imbalance in that field. While nearly half of architecture students are female and close to 40 percent of interns are women, the institute’s membership is only 16 percent female. A similar number are firm principals or partners.
Andrea is currently with HMN Architects Inc.
She explains that some of her auspicious position is just raw effort, but added immigrants like herself have a talent for leveraging experience. “I can say that truly immigrants value the opportunities a lot more,” Spalding said.
Spalding said her parents were key in showing her the value of hard work early. They own Pardo’s Grand Buffet, 904 Southwest Blvd., and had her work there as a cashier and in any other roles the restaurant might need. Managing the restaurant required not only the effort, but the focus and mission-centeredness to craft a working business strategy, Spalding said. “My dad has always worked a lot, but he was visionary in terms of what he really wanted to do,” she said.
It’s that sense of being strategy centered that carried her through the plight of being what in friendlier terms is known as a “New American,” a political term woven into progressive politics identifying the recent inductees in U.S. society. The term obfuscates the more difficult pieces of that journey: the cultural shock, sense of estrangement and fear of engagement with a capricious seeming immigration system.
Andrea said becoming a U.S. citizen hasn’t changed the anxiety that comes with being a New American. “I always lived in fear,” she said. “Right now, I’m a citizen, but that (fear) will never be completely erased.” It’s a feeling that’s strengthened with the hardening language from the political class targeting immigrants and the tough talk directed at those like Spalding and her family.
She knows it’s out there but she doesn't return the tone.
“This love that I have for this community, for me it would mean a lot if I could contribute so that my community is better,” Andrea said adding she’s like to one day build libraries, police stations and other community centers in her hometown.
