Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Chapter One

Your Asian American Roots And You

Asian Americans: A Mosaic of Backgrounds --

The 2000 U.S. Census reported that there are 11.9 million Asians in the United States, a 72% increase since the previous census. Compare that to the total U.S. population growth of 13% for the same period. Even though Latino Americans are the largest minority group in raw numbers, Asians are the fastest-growing minority group, and the population is expected to double by 2020 and triple by 2030. Forty-four percent of Asian Americans over age 25 have graduated from college, the highest percentage for any racial group. These numbers imply a success story. However, these statistics don't always tell the whole story of what really happens to Asian Americans once they leave the halls of academia for corporate America.

Who are Asian Americans? Far from being homogeneous, we are of varied Asian ancestry. We represent multiple nationalities and languages as well as many social and political viewpoints. At last count, there were over 80 distinct Asian languages spoken in the United States. Even within each specific Asian group, there is considerable variability in education, class, and acculturation level. In addition, there is a long history of war, political unrest, and resulting prejudices in many Asian nations. What further complicates matters is that non-Asian Americans often think of Asians as a homogeneous group of people. Companies tend to view us as the Asian Pacific American constituency and do not necessarily categorize us by our specific nationalities.

The Many Facets of Personal Identity --

An Asian American woman who works at a large distributor of home appliances notes: "I used to be quite involved with Asian networking group activities. But lately, I find a much deeper sense of community with the multicultural women's networking group. As a new mother attempting to juggle home and a very demanding job, I identify myself as a woman and mother first, then take my ethnicity into consideration next." You can define yourself along a continuum of factors, your cultural heritage being one of them. Most people describe themselves differently throughout the stages of their lives, such as oldest daughter, father, mother, Catholic, manager, Asian American, cancer survivor. Yet we know these tags don't fully define us or what we are capable of. We're each composed of so many qualities, skills, ideas, emotions, values, and behaviors that a few descriptors won't do anyone justice. We also know these self-ascribed tags aren't necessarily how we are perceived by others, especially those who don't know us well or who know us in other contexts.

When Perception Becomes Reality

In workplace scenarios particularly, perception is often reality. As a result, what they don't know can hurt you. An assessment of your character and how you perform is based not solely on the quality of your "work deliverables" but also on how you interact with your colleagues. It's not what you say but how you say it. How confident do you sound? How articulate are you? How well do you motivate others on your team? Do you take the time to chat with colleagues, whether it's to discuss a project more thoroughly or to just socialize? Other cues that may brand you can be as superficial as how you dress, how you carry yourself, and what your facial expressions are. Behavior is often misinterpreted by people from different cultures, because it is visible, unlike motivations, feelings, intentions, and thought processes. At the most basic level, an underrepresented group like Asian Americans will stand out more.

To manage your career then, you must manage your personal brand -- your image, how you come across. And knowing yourself is the first step in shaping the impression you make and in achieving your professional goals. You must understand your personality, strengths, weaknesses, and internal driving forces to guide how this all plays out in a work environment.

You may already know that your Asian background is integral to your identity. But not fully realizing how that background manifests itself in your attitudes and behaviors may cause misunderstandings in a Western corporate setting. Your Asianness doesn't have to work against you, however. In the process of deciphering your Asian cultural values and integrating them into your workplace persona, you can leverage your natural talents and maybe even learn new skills. You will learn the tools to help break the bamboo ceiling without compromising yourself. Training in selling, presenting, negotiating, and assertiveness can tap and channel your knowledge to enhance your presence and capabilities.

Keep in mind that professional upward mobility requires action on your part. It's unrealistic to expect that your managers and colleagues will automatically want and know how to unearth the true you and understand all you are capable of offering. People miscommunicate and misunderstand one another all the time; there will always be inaccurate perceptions of underrepresented emplyee populations. You have to take the initiative in clarifying the issues to effect change.

The corporate world is also recognizing that it's up to them as well. By 2050, the majority of Americans will come from non-Caucasian backgrounds. When a managing director from a top financial services institution went to a Harvard recruiting luncheon in 2002 to identify candidates for the investment banking training program, she was surprised to see more than 50% of the students who attended were of Asian descent, including a majority that were students who resided in Asia. She realized then that if this was the future of her company, she had better start understanding Asians better as her new recruiting targets -- as the pipeline of potential bankers at her firm.