Episode 8 – Time to Get Loud
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Full Transcript
Jesse Lin 0:09
Aloha, I’m Jesse Lin.
Angela Lin 0:11
And I’m Angela Lin. And welcome back to another episode of But Where Are You Really From?
Jesse Lin 0:16
This month is May, which means it’s Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. And the reason that May is designated Asian Pacific American Heritage Month is for a number of reasons. But the two primary reasons are May is the first month that Japanese first immigrated to the United States in the 1840s. And it’s also the anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, which was primarily fueled by Chinese laborers.
Angela Lin 0:45
So we were inspired by this year’s theme of uniting through equality and wanting to interpret that our own way in terms of a topic to focus on. So today’s topic, in celebration of our heritage month, we’ll be talking about the equality or lack thereof, of the Asian American community within the context of the workforce.
Angela Lin 1:18
So in talking about Asian Americans’ place within the workforce, I think the broader theme here is around our history as a community of fighting against this concept of breaking the glass ceiling. Breaking the glass ceiling as a concept first came out within the context of women in the workforce, and it’s called the glass ceiling because the concept is that you can see where you’re trying to go, but there’s this quote unquote “invisible barrier” that is, it’s keeping you down. As this concept has evolved, it’s also started to encompass any group that is facing some sort of inherent bias or prejudice that’s keeping them from being able to excel as fast and as as easily as basically a white man.
Jesse Lin 2:10
So the first thing we really wanted to dive into are stereotypes of Asian American workers in the workforce and in general, and how that really affects us. So I know a lot of you guys will probably thinking like, well, I’ve never been stereotyped in the workforce, like “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But I think if you really walk back your experiences professionally from when you first started, you can start to realize that there are kind of opportunities or pathways or interactions that you’ve had with people that probably are not really above the board and are related to your race. You may not have had an experience where it’s like in your face racism or saw a comment about your race specifically, but I think in the workforce, there are definitely a lot of smaller things that people do jokingly that can make people feel really uncomfortable.
Jesse Lin 3:03
You know, some of the things that I’ve personally noticed specifically in the professional sphere, let’s say for example, in hiring, a lot of the times people who submit a resume for a new position that have foreign names, it can immediately trigger basically kind of a vetting process like do they need a visa? Do they need to be sponsored? And that really happens before you even have the chance to evaluate the merit of the person. So I think that from that perspective, that’s really one of those small things that kind of occurred immediately that limits the opportunity that a Asian American person with a more foreign name can get.
Angela Lin 3:41
First of all, having a quote unquote “foreign name” doesn’t even mean you came from like you’re born in China, born in Japan, born in whatever, like you could be third generation Korean or whatever, but like, you know, your parents wanted to name you a traditional Korean name to honor the culture, but your English was like perfect. But no one would know that just based on seeing the name on a resume, they would assume you’re not super westernized. So I think there’s other prejudices of like, assuming that that person then would not have good enough English or that, like I think a lot of times in hiring, what you’re hiring for is quote unquote, “culture fit.” Like if you can imagine that person fitting well into your team. And like, even just seeing a foreign name someone could project like, “I don’t know if I would hang out with that person,” just because they’re already thinking it’s like someone from a different country and not like someone they could relate to easily. So I think there are other implications coming from the foreign name besides the visa.
Jesse Lin 4:45
As we were talking, it just triggered in my memory that there was this really interesting paper done where it was basically like “Are more ethnic names subject to higher levels of rejection in the applicant process?” Basically, the end the day, the same applicants with different names get rejected outright, like literally, I think they submitted the same exact resume with different things. So there definitely is a ton of bias on all these different things, as you mentioned, and also in the workforce, when you’re looking at managerial positions, or C suite positions. A lot of the times, we don’t really see ourselves represented there. And I think that that can make you feel like you don’t really belong at that level of the company, right? You don’t see yourself there, you don’t see a clear pathway to get there.
Angela Lin 5:35
I definitely feel that very strongly. Prior to my current role I worked in tech and there’s already like a very bad rap around the tech industry at large and where women fit in to that, but outside of being a woman also being a minority, what’s interesting is that within tech, within the world of like engineering, it is largely like a lot minorities, there are a lot of Asian people and Indian people there. But when you look at more of the business functions, that’s where it gets a little less minority driven.
Angela Lin 6:09
So I was in a role that was very closely adjacent to sales and sales is a super like white man driven function. And I distinctly remember being in a, walking up to a client presentation, like in the elevator with a bunch of my extended sales team. And when I looked around, I like, immediately realized that I was just surrounded by a bunch of old white men. And I was like, oh fuck, like it had never been that clear to me as when I was like, stuck in that elevator with them. It was like eight of them and then me, and I like I made a joke where I said, like, “Oh, I feel like Meryl Streep in The Post,” where she’s like, she’s a woman like trying to like fight against a bunch of men essentially. And like, I got just a bunch of really uncomfortable chuckles and stares from these men who like hated it. And that was obviously in the context of like just being a woman amongst all these men, but in my mind it’s like, it’s like double whammy because as a woman, I was the only woman and I was the only minority in that elevator. So it was just like “God, privileged white people,” is all I could think about when I was in that elevator, and it definitely did not help me feel like I belonged in that situation. I was like, “One thing here is not like the other, and that’s that’s me.”
Jesse Lin 7:35
I think there are also a lot of different verticals where we don’t quote unquote “belong,” where you see very few people of color represented or very few women represented. And usually for Asian people, I think it’s generally stereotypically split on those roles which have a lot more logic or mathematics or engineering built into them versus those roles, as you mentioned, which are like business, or creative industries, or media industries, we typically, as we’ve discussed, seen a lot less Asian representation there.
Angela Lin 8:14
I think that is a stereotype we’re reinforcing, right? Because we’re not seeing a lot of Asians represented in those more creative left brain type roles. So so people could argue like, oh, Asians aren’t good about them, but because what we’re like what we were saying before, when you don’t see people who look like you represented, you’re not encouraged to then pursue that yourself. It’s like a self fulfilling.
Jesse Lin 8:39
Exactly.Yes, exactly. The other thing regarding is, regarding these positions, I also think that these left brain fields or like business, creative, media, they’re also fields that have more risk involved, and I think for most of us and what our parents want for us, they don’t really want us to be part of fields like that where there’s a lot of personal risk being involved because you don’t get paid as much. You might be working in creative on a contract position instead of like a full time position. So I think there’s also that aspect of it where I don’t want to say destiny involved in it, but there’s like a pathway defined for you, and those roles don’t fit as well because there’s no clear route to success there.
Angela Lin 9:26
And to the point of like, so you were discussing this within the context of Asian people being in certain industries or functions. I think there are other types of roles that Asians are also more stereotypically associated with. I think Asians are constantly thought of as these kind of quiet, put your head down worker bees, and are not as often considered as top managerial candidates. I do think part of that has to do with our cultural upbringings. Like we’re saying like, of course, you and I were born in America and we have inherently in our minds this like idea of individualism and like making a path for ourselves and that comes from being born in America. But we’re still raised by Asian parents that came from Asia. And in Asia, the culture there in the workforce really is kind of a like, shut up and do the work. You need to like show respect and deference to the people who are higher up than you. And generally just like don’t rock the boat there. Even if we’re American, and we’re like, trying to do the opposite of that of like, being independent, like being strong and vocal and whatever. We’re constantly fighting against our nature of what how our Asian culture was bringing us up to think of like, you aren’t supposed to be loud. You’re supposed to be like, quiet and just do the work.
Jesse Lin 10:55
I agree. I mean, honestly, even when I was about to come out to New York to go to school. So for those who don’t know, Angela and I went to the same like temple growing up, and the lead pastor basically had a conversation with me when I told him that I was going to go to NYU to study hospitality. And he was like, “You shouldn’t do like hospitality or business functions, because you don’t have this ‘stature’ for it,” quote, unquote, he was like, “You’re not like, you don’t have a commanding enough presence to succeed in an industry that’s dominated by white individuals.” And this is such an interesting story. I think we discussed it before, because it’s not a person that’s outside of our community, keeping us from that it’s a person inside of our community, keeping us from that. So when we’re talking about the pressures that you feel in the workforce, it comes from both sides. So you kind of are, you end up like squeezed in the middle you don’t, you have pressure from people who are not in your community and you also have pressure from people who are in your community to walk the same same kind of path.
Angela Lin 11:59
So along the same train of roles that people don’t necessarily associate with Asian people. So you don’t necessarily think Asians are meant for managerial positions because they’ve thus far only proven that they are worker bees. The other role that people are kind of hesitant to allow Asians to play is if you are not like as fluent in English, but you just happen to have an accent. I think there’s been a lot of unspoken prejudice, maybe even unrecognized by the people who are making these decisions that like they’re not willing to put those kinds of people in front of client facing or like presentation heavy type situations. I hated when the leaders that were making these decisions were also minorities themselves. Like, shouldn’t you understand that like you shouldn’t be pumping us, pumping all of us up because you’re not a white man either. Like shouldn’t you know that every opportunity matters and to like, try to give us an equal playing field when we deserve it all. Also, like, it’s not like, this person was like demanding to be the face of this presentation just because they felt like they should be. It was like they did all the work and they like knew it best and would be able to convey it the most clearly out of all of us.
Jesse Lin 13:23
Well, so what do you think about workplace groups that are meant to foster diversity and inclusion specifically for Asian Americans?
Angela Lin 13:32
I don’t think we do enough. So I have been in companies big enough that have like Asian diversity groups within the company. And like, I sign up, I’m like in the group, I get the occasional email. But I kind of feel like we, again with a self fulfilling prophecy type thing like of risk aversion a little bit like, I don’t think Asian groups compared to other diversity here. Like, like the Black diversity groups, our African American diversity groups are always like super loud and proud and like do a lot to not only celebrate their community but also to continue educating and like pumping up the community with things like panel discussions with like prominent African American folks across the industry or like, I don’t know, debates or whatever that like actually have kind of more intellectual contributions and are like challenging the way things are structured now and trying to provoke the community to like figure out ways that we can keep elevating the rest of the community.
Angela Lin 14:42
I feel like with Asian diversity groups, at least the ones I’ve seen, like they tend to stay with the safer stuff. So like, I remember they like put on the like, Chinese Lunar New Year’s celebration or whatever and like, you know, had social gatherings Yay, that’s fun. But like, yeah, I think we went to like dim sum one night or whatever. Like, it’s nice to do the community building, I think that’s important too. And like, so you can network with other Asians in the community. But I don’t see so much of those groups doing the things like having famous Asian celebrities or journalists or like other people in media on a panel to discuss kind of like, how they got to where they were, what challenges they face being Asian and like, their ideas for how we could better elevate the rest of Asian people in media. I didn’t see any of that kind of programming happening. And that’s the kind of stuff I I wish we would have had and I thus far have not seen that in any Asian group that I, that I’ve been part of at least.
Jesse Lin 15:46
Yeah, I agree. I think that they don’t come out and represent as visibly as some of the other groups too. So I have, again, the same experience like actually, in my last job, I had a friend who was part of the women of color group and they have tons of events, like they had one event every month where I think there was like a speaker, and it was like an hour people with drinks like they would talk about, the speaker would talk about their professional experiences and how they got to where they got to, which I think is such an empowering thing, because we were just talking about how we don’t see people in the places where we want to go with our careers and having a person come in and talk to you about how they got exactly to where they are and be there to represent for you, it’s very clear, like you can then say like, Okay, I understand how you got to where you got to and I can make the appropriate steps to try and do the same.
Jesse Lin 16:43
And also in my organization, the LGBT group was also the same like they represented very loudly and clearly for their group. And I think part of that is, goes to some of the things we’re talking about. We have to, in order to try to get the visibility we have to kind of break the cycle in a sense and break out and be more of those things that people don’t expect us to be to get the kind of visibility that we want in the workforce.
Angela Lin 17:11
My opinion is that the reason why African American diversity groups and LGBTQ community groups are much more vocal, loud, and like, will not shut up type groups are because they faced a lot of backlash and like harm to their community. They’re staying loud to say like, never again, like we will not deal with that, again. Asian communities are so disparate because we are made up of many different ethnicities. We’re not all the same so like they’re, there are Chinese people. Sure. There was like the Chinese Exclusion Act like we talked about before, like Japanese will have like the internment camps and things like that, but we’re not all the same. So it’s kind of hard for like the broader Asian community to say like we all banded together at some point because there was like massive Asian shut down of some sort, and now we’re going to say never again. So I think that’s like, that’s my opinion was like one big reason that we’re not as loud.
Angela Lin 18:17
And the other reason is what we already just talked about, which is like Asian cultures, even though we’re all different, there is like this uniting factor of that thought of like, just shut up and do the work. Like, don’t don’t rock the boat and so like, Asians aren’t trained to want to be loud and fight for what they want. And so that perpetuates again, self fulfilling prophecy, it perpetuates the model minority stigma, right? Like why do people think we’re model minority because they understand that we have had prejudice against us, we have had inequality, but we just don’t bitch about it because we’re holding ourselves back.
Jesse Lin 19:05
Welcome, welcome, welcome to the closing section of our podcast, “Fortune Cookie.” We hope you really enjoyed this week’s episode about how we feel as Asian Americans in the workforce in the context of Asian Pacific Heritage Month. And if you really like the content in this episode and what we were speaking to please let us know, let us know if you have similar experiences different feedback, or you just want to comment on how lovely we sound. You can email all of these comments to our email telluswhereyourefrom@gmail.com, that’s y-o-u-r-e.
Angela Lin 19:46
In the context of equality in the workforce and celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. We wanted to talk about modern day Asians in the community that are paving the way forward. So, in celebration of this month, there was a list that came out called the A100, where they were highlighting the top 100 most impactful Asians and they separated these honorees out into the different categories that they were under. So there was, someone was named for activism, finance, lifestyle and sports, things like that. We thought it’d be really fun for each of us to highlight one of these honorees and what they’re doing for our community to help move us forward. Jesse want to start it off?
Jesse Lin 20:37
I picked Bowen Yang. I don’t know how many of you guys are familiar with him, but he is a recent addition to the SNL cast. And he’s a comedian and writer that lives in New York City. I think what I really take a shine to about Bowen like, what I really relate to is that he’s a queer Asian man and he’s like living that as openly and proudly as he can. And that’s kind of like what I aspire to like to a level of confidence where I can be like, these are these, these are these two weird intersectionalities of my identity. And I’m just gonna celebrate the eff out of that all the time. And also, he went to NYU, which we also went to NYU, and I saw a party once and I saw him on Zoom, so super connected. How about you?
Angela Lin 21:27
Well, in the context of people we have like loose connections to, the woman that I’m choosing I have a super loose connection to as well. Her name is Michelle Lee and she is the Editor-In-Chief of Allure Magazine. And I met her in passing in like I don’t know one meeting ever in my life but when I was at VH1, and I think she was working for a different magazine or online entity at that time, but like it’s kind of cool that like we’ve crossed paths because she has taken such strides since then, and like made such a name for herself to be the editor in chief of like a major fashion magazine is fucking huge. And last time we were talking about media representation, right and like for her to be in such a powerful position is the reason why she has been able to progress our community forward so much. So she is the one who’s making the decisions about who gets to be on the cover of Allure and thereby who gets to represent what normal is and what beauty is right. She put the first model in a hijab on the cover in 2017. That was huge. And she’s also since put a bunch of Asian stars like Gemma Chan, who we love from Crazy Rich Asians on the cover as well to celebrate Asian American beauty, and what’s more, so beyond getting to decide who’s on the cover, she also hosts the podcast for the magazine. And apparently, he’s been super vocal about like Asian American issues. And she’s had tons of conversations on the podcast with other prominent Asians in the fashion world like Philip Lim and all these other folks. So she’s a perfect example of one of the few Asians that has like, infiltrated the media industry, and used her platform to give us opportunities to be in the spotlight, and make us more normalized within the broader context of society and what beauty could mean. So I love that.
Jesse Lin 23:37
Well, speaking of normal lives, we hope that you enjoy listening to our experiences on how we live as Asian Americans. As always, if you like this episode’s content, please give us a plug. Send us a DM, share our stories, drop us a note in our email. And as always, there will also be a new episode next week. So with that said…
All 24:03
Zai jian, bitches!