A Teachable Moment

I recently read a short post from my LinkedIn connection about him standing with our Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the fight against hatred after the tragic event in Atlanta. Some immediately responded with statements like, “Well the local official said this was not a hate crime.” Whoever said such words totally missed the point and revealed how insensitive they were, which led me to write this post. I know LinkedIn is a professional social platform so I will not mention my personal experiences outside of my work, I will only talk about our personal experiences at work. If you just think this is political, please skip it and have a great day. If you have curiosity and empathy, please continue. If you have shared similar experiences and wish to talk, please reach out to me. I consider this tragic event to be a teachable moment for all of us.

I always wonder how much people really understand about Asians, especially Asian women in the workplace, aside from the superficial knowledge about us being hardworking, good at math, low-key, accommodating, and without good communication skills. Many of us feel that we are less of human beings than others in the workplace, that we are misunderstood and frequently mistreated, and that in some cases, we created our own struggling reality (to be brutally honest). If you wish to understand why, please read on. Here are some personal stories from me and my Asian friends.

Asian Names

In many Eastern cultures, a person’s family name comes first, and their given name comes last. This is the complete opposite of Western naming order. Western culture is very much focused on individualism and risk-taking, while Eastern culture is very much focused on family and community. Because of this, we respect our elders even though they are sometimes wrong, we try to accommodate the needs of our family and community above our own, we are discouraged or even shamed for being special, we are respected for our modesty, and we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves in a crowd as we should fit in just like everyone else.

Having grown up in this culture, many of us changed our Asian names to American ones. Why? Because people had a hard time pronouncing our names, and because people have no patience to spend just a little bit of time learning our names. A good friend of mine who adopted an English name told me that I must change my name to have a better professional future. When hiring managers look at our names, they seem weird and foreign, so we are immediately discounted and might not even get a first chance. 

This is a true story. An Asian friend of mine who married a White American man had extensive working experience in California. When she moved to the south and applied to a job, she submitted her resume with her American first name, Chinese middle name and American last name, but received no response. A few months later, she submitted the same resume by removing her Chinese middle name, and, lo and behold, she got a call from the hiring manager. Since she was an American-born Chinese (ABC), she had no accent, and the phone interview went well. Then when she got a chance to interview in person, she obviously surprised the hiring manager when they met. The interview was short, and she never heard back from the hiring manager. She became so depressed and hopeless after a few more tries with similar results. In the end, she decided to have more kids and not return to the workforce.

The reason I didn’t change my name because it is actually quite complicated—you have to go through the process of changing your passport, your driver’s license, your HR system record, and so on and so forth. Since my name is relatively simple, I decided to keep it. Of course, people call me “Can” all the time, but I don’t actually mind. Thinking back, I think I might have had better fortune if I have changed my name to an English name.

This story shows that the unconscious biased against us at work is real even at first contact through names. 

We Asians Talk Fast in Presentations!!

In my performance reviews, I frequently received constructive feedback from my colleagues that I talk fast and tend to not to pause. Of course, there is no excuse for me and I continue to remind myself of this. In fact, I put a note on my desk in front of me every day that says, “Slow Down and Be Calm.”

I have been studying psychology for years, and I recently read Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow. Fundamentally we have a powerful unconscious mind that drives many of our behaviors. I noticed a similar tendency to speak quickly in many of my Asian female colleagues, so I contemplated about what caused this behavior and what its unintended consequences may be.

My conclusion is that my anxiety of being interrupted manifests itself in our rapid manner of speech. I wrote about this in my article where I was furious that my colleague interrupted and criticized me multiple times while I was presenting. After I fought back, he has since called me “that Asian b****.”

Throughout my professional life, I have been interrupted countless times, often to the point where the message I wanted to convey was completely altered into something else before I could make my point. Sure, we all should improve our communication skills through practice, but if we are constantly interrupted and discouraged, how can we even practice?

Deep inside, I know that when I give a presentation or when it is my time to speak, I have that creeping anxiety, so if I can make my point before anyone can interrupt me, I deny them a chance to interrupt me by not pausing at all. On the other hand, I know it is not what I say that matters in the end, it is what people understand. Unfortunately, it is not easy to fight that fear after you have been relentlessly interrupted for years in this competitive industry.

In his book Give and Take, Adam Grant revealed that the highest performers at work are disagreeable givers. Interestingly enough, I love disagreeable givers because they challenge the status quo and ask tough questions before giving up their time, and I strive to be a disagreeable giver and to challenge assumptions so we can together make a better decision as a team. However, during performance reviews in my career, there were a few times that I was considered ineffective and disagreeable. I see men in the workplace that are always disagreeable and talk fast and loudly, but it is totally acceptable and in fact respected. I feel that we as Asian women are less than full human beings, so we don’t have the right to be disagreeable even for the most critical issues. When we talk fast and talk passionately, we are considered “not effective.”

Promotion & Optics

Many years ago, I was promoted to Distinguished Technologist (DT) as one of six women in a company of 330K employees. I was honestly so proud, and I knew I worked so hard and sacrificed so much including time away from my family. My colleague then told me that some felt my promotion must have been because of my looks and the optics of being an Asian woman. I was furious, but at the same time I was saddened by those comments. People dismiss us only because we are women and we are Asian. I told my colleague to go back to those gossipers and relay the facts. The fact is that the hardest part of the DT application was the recommendation letters. The minimum requirement was three letters of recommendation from Senior Director/VP-level executives within the company to demonstrate that you had worked on high-profile engagements and initiatives with company-wide impacts, as well as three letters of recommendation from customers who had witnessed your impact and value to their companies. I sent fourteen requests (seven internal and seven external) and received fourteen letters of recommendations within a week. Many people with strong backgrounds and experience failed to be promoted to DT since this was a very hard requirement to meet.

The next time you see a female minority who is promoted, just remember that they have probably gone through extraordinary difficulties to get to this point. Try to understand their story before you judge them.

A Horror Story

As an Asian person, I know that when something great happens amongst our people, we don’t celebrate it in public. We stay low key because we don’t want to make a big deal out of it, or else it might cause more hatred and jealousy. When something terrible happens amongst our people, we all become nervous. All Asians remember when news of the Virginia Tech shooting unfolded, an Asian male was reported to have committed the horrific crime. Every single Asian ethnic group was terrified and prayed that he was not of our race. Why? Because the moment he was identified as Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, or any Asian ethnics, the people of his race would be in danger. This is the unique reality of being Asian. Any evils committed by someone of our race will immediately be linked to us. I really don’t understand why this linkage exists for Asians in America, but not for other races. The logic is basically like if you have a family member who committed a crime, your entire family must be dangerous, or if you have a family member with a mental illness, your entire family must be mentally ill. This is extremely dangerous and unhuman logic!

Here is a horror story from a friend who lives in Atlanta. The names and personal information of those involved and the company have been removed to protect anonymity.

My friend received her PHD in the US and she is a very accomplished professional who is currently working in a high-tech company. After the outbreak of COVID-19, she started to become nervous about people linking her to the virus based on our history and personal experiences in this country. She remained exceptionally friendly, careful, and professional in all her interactions with her team. One day during the beginning of the outbreak in April of 2020, she was with her leader and colleagues in the conference room where her leader held up a newspaper talking about COVID-19. Suddenly in front of everyone, her leader pointed at her and exclaimed, “YOU! YOUR people!! It’s because of YOUR people eating bats that we have this virus!” She was stunned and shaking from head to toe standing in the middle of conference room just wishing there were a hole she could disappear in at that very moment. No one around her said anything, but everyone obviously felt awkward.  She remembered nothing from the rest of conversation, and she went home miserable that day and for the rest of her week.

She called me to talk about this incident and asked me what I would do in that case. I was so angry and sick to my stomach at the moment, so I could understand why she froze at the time. Most of us would not know what to do in such a hostile encounter. I then said that if I were in her shoes at that moment, “I would take my phone out and approach the leader, turn on my camera and begin recording, then I would ask him to repeat what he just said one more time for me. If you can say it once, you can say it again.” 

I encouraged her to report this incident to her HR and her employer since she had witnesses. After thinking it through a few weeks, she didn’t report it because she didn’t believe in her HR, and she was afraid of retaliation and distractions for the rest of her year. I told her that she might have emotional scars and she would lose her confidence in fighting injustice in her life if she didn’t act. I told her that she might regret it. I called her after the New Year in 2021 to wish her a better year. She told me she regretted that she didn’t report this incident, and her emotional wellbeing has suffered tremendously.

End with a Poem...

If you have read all four stories, I hope you now have a better understanding of what it means to be Asian in the US. We have our traditions, we have our culture, we have our names, we have our looks, we have our accents, and we have our struggles and fears, but at the end of the day, we are all human and we are all trying to live our lives just like everyone else. I would like to end this post with a poem. Just think twice, we have more in common than our differences.

If there comes a day

When you’re like me

If you are also mistreated and cursed

What will you think?

What will you do?

Will you feel hopeless and depressed?

If there comes a day

When you’re like me

If you’re misunderstood and bullied

What will you think?

What will you do?

Will you have the blues and feel the pain?

We are not Virus

Discrimination’s a Virus

We’re only parents and children

We need fairness and justice

We’re your fellow beings

We share the same planet

And we are in the same boat

We are all the same

We need a tolerant world

You will have your own lovely baby

You also have your own loving parents

You also have your own sweet family

What will you choose to do when they’re suffering?