Satya, Sundar, Arvind?
Only East Asians are underpromoted. As and East Asian myself, I believe
(1) You should read this article and study: https://www.economist.com/business/2020/02/29/indian-v-chine...
(2) there are plenty of Asians in tech. The real under presentation is in sports and entertainment. Yet no asian parents are lamenting that their kids didn't get an audition are they?
This rather specious argument comes up so often I am going to start calling it the "Satya-Sundar fallacy" (sorry Arvind!). Do you also dismiss the concerns of women not being promoted into management roles by citing the examples of Mary Barra and Marissa Meyer?
The US as a whole is very different from Silicon Valley. If the number of people making cow worship jokes at various jobs (here in the middle US) I have heard is any indication, I have a hard time believing they are also simultaneously giving Asians a fair shake at promotion.
Regarding your points – I do believe that East Asians are likely underpromoted relative to their number in tech. One question that's not covered in there is language – of my friends who are first-generation immigrants, the South Asian ones generally have better English than the East/South-East Asian ones.
> there are plenty of Asians in tech.
I...wasn't arguing otherwise. My point was about not being promoted as fast as their counterparts, and into management roles.
> Yet no asian parents are lamenting that their kids didn't get an audition are they?
I don't know about parents, but plenty of South Asian actors have had problems getting auditions. Read about how Kalpen Suresh Modi's auditions skyrocketed when he Anglicized his name to Kal Penn [1], and how Aziz Ansari has had trouble with roles where he's required to fake an accent [2]. East Asians have had a hard time with getting roles in movies that are about East Asians, which was why Crazy Rich Asians was such a landmark (in that it actually had an Asian cast). [3]
[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/obama/articles/2009/04/08/10-thi...
[2] https://ew.com/article/2015/10/25/aziz-ansari-transformers-a...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/08/movies/crazy-rich-asians-...
Companies don't simply give away promotions easily - you have to ask for it and also show why you deserve it. Otherwise whoever speaks up the most and is willing to ask for it gets it.
One thing I learnt at one of my work places from one of the senior managers was how to climb up the ladder. He said the most important thing is to keep a folder on your computer/email where you forward all customer emails who thank you for the outstanding job you did or coworker feedback on how helpful you are or team leader feedback on how awesome you have been. It's very similar to resume except this is the resume for climbing up the ladder at your existing work place. And ask for promotion as soon as you think you deserve it. Also be humble but don't be a door mat where you give away the credit of your work to someone else. Take credit yourself. I did these for many years and always climbed up. I also improved my english and got more confident at speaking up (I am a South Asian immigrant and could barely speak english when I first arrived).
Jordan Peterson's advice has helped me tremendously too:
> Across nine studies (n = 11,030) using mixed methods (archival analyses of chief executive officers, field surveys in large US companies, student leader nominations and elections, and experiments), East Asians were less likely than South Asians and whites to attain leadership positions, whereas South Asians were more likely than whites to do so. To understand why the bamboo ceiling exists for East Asians but not South Asians, we examined three categories of mechanisms—prejudice (intergroup), motivation (intrapersonal), and assertiveness (interpersonal)—while controlling for demographics (e.g., birth country, English fluency, education, socioeconomic status). Analyses revealed that East Asians faced less prejudice than South Asians and were equally motivated by work and leadership as South Asians. However, East Asians were lower in assertiveness, which consistently mediated the leadership attainment gap between East Asians and South Asians. These results suggest that East Asians hit the bamboo ceiling because their low assertiveness is incongruent with American norms concerning how leaders should communicate. The bamboo ceiling is not an Asian issue, but an issue of cultural fit.
As for Hollywood - obviously there is plenty of discrimination based on names, accents, and much worse. My point is, if Asians tried as hard getting into Hollywood as they did in getting into Harvard, we would be in a completely different place right now. It's hard and unfair (just like getting into and ivy) but not impossible.
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339227693_Why_East_...
Accuse is a strong word, but basically yes. Maybe it's a visceral reaction to something I have hear one too many times, that Asians don't face discrimination in tech because "Look at Satya and Sundar" (not exactly what you said).
But the point is that Satya and Sundar have little in common with the Midwest of America. Here, we can be shot by random guys in bars because they think we're Iranian [1]. You can guess that this kind of atmosphere might not correlate with a particularly equitable promotion process. If it helps, my intention is not to propagate a "woe is me" narrative, but to examine the possibility that Asians are treated differently (to their disadvantage) during promotion, just like other people of color.
Ironically, our discussion here and your linked study already led to a better insight than I had previously! As an admirer of Confucian values, it also makes me a little sad :|
Also, thanks for the study link! I see now that it was controlled for language, and consequently, my guess about language being a factor was simply wrong.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/world/asia/kansas-attack-...
Cherry picking a single occurrence where someone shot someone for racist reasons is not how science works plus this has nothing to do with the discussion.
Microsoft, IBM, Google, Adobe, Nokia, Harman, MasterCard and PepsiCo etc all have Indian (minority) CEOs. Apple has a gay CEO. Claiming there is some bias against minorities is absurd.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
whites kill whites, blacks kill blacks, asians and south asians kill their own.
Have a good evening, I guess :)
I think it's more (2) and (3) than (1). It's hard being Asian - you have the weight of all other Asians practicing confucian values dragging you down.
Time to get rid of those values - If not for yourself then for others who don't want to be weighed down by the stereotype.