Deep Asian Americansrose Dickeyprotocol – There’s been a lot of controversy in recent years about how Asian Americans are treated in the tech industry. Some have argued that it’s because they’re not seen as “passionate” or “aloof” enough when pursuing their career and that they get overlooked for higher-level promotions. Some have even gone so far as to claim that the Asian American “bamboo ceiling” is real.
But what’s rarely talked about is what these Asian Americans are really saying about their experiences.
(I was recently a panelist at an event in San Francisco with several other Asian American tech leaders like Adam Lerner, CEO of 3 Balls Media, and Emily Chang, Co-founder and VP, Product of Glowforge. We talked about the uphill battle Asian Americans face, and the things they said shocked me. Some even called me out in front of others who were sitting in on the panel for not being fair to them.)
Thinking about this and writing about it caused me to rethink how I would go about talking about this topic. What do Asian Americans themselves want you to know? How do they say it? I needed to hear what other people were saying, and how they were talking about the experience. So I took to Inforum and conducted a survey with all of the community members who had completed it to get their thoughts on the issues. Here’s a breakdown of all the responses, many of which will be discussed in greater detail later in this article.
I sat down and did a deep dive into what these Asian Americans were saying about the issue, how it was affecting their lives, and how they were coping. I found that not only did I want to hear from them, but I also wanted to share their stories with others so that other communities who may be facing the same issues can talk about it too.
(This post is not meant to speak for all or even most Asian Americans. The viewpoints of some people in this group may be different than yours. So let’s just use the grouping of Asian Americans here as a shorthand to illustrate what their responses are. Please take this post as a look into their experiences, but not as an authoritative or final word on the topic.)
So let’s talk about what the community had to say about some of these issues.
1. Leadership
The first issue that I sought to understand was how Asian Americans viewed the leadership of their companies. In the U.S., it’s well-known that women and people of color are not making up 50% of leadership roles at tech companies (while Asians make up about 22% of tech employees and Hispanics are about 16%). This is a big issue for Asian American communities because they make up a large portion of the population in tech. How do they feel they fit into this picture?
I asked the survey respondents what they thought about the leadership of their companies:
2. The Asian American “Bamboo Ceiling”: Is It Real?
The second issue that I wanted to understand was how Asian Americans view their place in the larger tech community. Two years ago, people started talking about a possible “bamboo ceiling” for Asians in tech — that Asians were getting passed over for leadership roles.
Many people have been discussing the possibility of this “bamboo ceiling” and debating whether it’s true or not. However, we rarely hear what Asian Americans themselves think about it. I asked my survey respondents if they feel there is discrimination against them because they’re Asian:
3. Asian Americans in tech are underserved & underrepresented
Many people want to talk about Asians and tech, but they don’t understand what it means to be Asian in tech. They don’t realize how underserved and underrepresented technology companies may be; they don’t understand the technical skills that Asian Americans bring to the table. And they don’t realize how infrequently Asians have been seen at tech conferences. So I asked my survey respondents: What do you think of the issues surrounding Asians in tech?
4. Unheard
Next, I wanted to understand how Asian Americans experienced being in tech when hearing from the very people who could hire them. I asked survey respondents if they had ever been ignored by someone in senior management:
5. Getting Passed Over For Promotions
Another issue that we don’t hear a lot about is how Asian Americans experience being passed over for promotions. Many people believe that the Asian “bamboo ceiling” is about being overlooked for higher-level roles, but this is just one issue of many. I asked survey respondents if they had ever been passed over for a promotion: