NY Times: When Linsanity happened

Restaurateur David Chang was interviewed in the New York Times video about Jeremy Lin.

THE NEW YORK TIMES put together yesterday (Oct. 25) a video (see below) about Linsanity that talks about the impact basketball player Jeremy Lin had on all Asian/Americans that goes way beyond the basketball court.

He's not the greatest b-ball player, not even among the elite, but his play is good enough for the NBA and there are times when he can be spectacular. But it is his mere presence in an arena where you rarely see Asian/Americans that is significant.

You talk about a bamboo ceiling, Lin's journey is circuitous but something that will be talked about for generations!

RELATED:

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• What's up with Jeremy Lin's hair?
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• Lin opens up about race

In a commentary accompanying the video, NYT writer Andrew Keh said:

"An absence of reference points for Asian identity in popular culture has helped create a perpetual stream of hackneyed encounters, for men and women, children and adults.

"'In elementary school, it was Jackie Chan,' my friend Daniel Sin, a fellow hoops addict and Korean-American, told me about playing pickup ball. 'In high school, it was Yao Ming. At the gym now, it’s Jeremy Lin. When it first happened, around Linsanity, I thought: Nice. At least I’m a guard now.'”

The remarks by the interviewees that featured some prominent Asian/Americans such as Eddie Huang, Jeff Yang and Randall Park put Lin's ascendancy in the context of where Asian/Americans fit into today's pop culture.

Lin himself has often expressed the burden of being one of the few Asian/Americans in the NBA and the racial taunts and slights that go along with that.

“You can just take the racial element alone,” Lin said on the Brooklyn Nets media day last month. “You can add on so many other factors, but really anything I do is hyper-magnified in a good way or a bad way. People are quick to discount me or say certain things because of my race. And when I do well, people are quick to say he’s so amazing, he’s the truth, whatever, because of my race, because of the way I look." 

"There's this whole thing where it's OK to make fun of certain guys more than it is other guys," Lin tells Pablo S. Torre of ESPN. "And Asians are very easy to make fun of. We're the model minority. So everyone can joke about Asians: They're nice people, respectful people; they won't do anything." He thinks about this dynamic often. "People look at me, and they've always jumped to conclusions. They don't see toughness. But how do you define that?"

Lin is back in the nation's biggest media market that drives much of what is written about across the nation's newsrooms and delivered to U.S.'s readers. You can expect the scrutiny that he receives in New York City, where Linsanity began when he was with the New York Knicks, to only intensify. 

Jeremy Lin's journey is not over but even if he doesn't make the NBA record books or into the NBA Hall of Fame, he's already made his mark in the world. Somewhere on hardwood courts or outdoor playgrounds, there are Asian/American kids dribbling basketballs or  shooting hoops dreaming of becoming a pro-basketball player - just like Jeremy Lin. 

ESPN's Pablo Torre wrote the first indepth article about Jeremy Lin that touched on his race and stereotypes.
Read it here.

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Ellen Pao refuses settlement but drops discrimination lawsuit vs. Silicon Valley firm

Ellen Pao

AN ASIAN/AMERICAN woman's historic lawsuit that exposed Silicon Valley's dark underbelly is over.

In a statement released yesterday (Sept. 10) to Re/Code, Ellen Pao said she would not pursue an appeal against her former employer, the storied venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Her suit claimed gender discrimination and retaliation from her bosses.

Pao lost the case in a jury trial in San Francisco earlier this year and was weighing her next steps.

“I think I brought these important issues to the forefront of the conversation, but the online aggression has had a toll on me and my family,” she said. “That so many people heard what I had to say, against all that was brought to bear against me, is a testament to the depth of the problem related to women and tech … [But] I have gone as far as I can go and cannot commit the resources and time that would be needed to continue.”

Pao's full statement.

As part of the end of the lawsuit, Pao said she would pay Kleiner Perkins close to $276,000 in legal fees, which carried a 10 percent annual interest. But Kleiner had previously said it would waive those fees if she dropped the appeal, so it is not clear if Pao will be on the hook for those costs that included witness fees.

Pao did not settle with Kleiner Perkins because she didn’t want to be prevented from speaking about the case, she said. "Settlement might have provided me with financial benefits, but only at the great cost of silence," Pao said. "I refuse to be silent on these important issues."

That means she’s still liable for $276,000 in legal fees, though Kleiner previously said the firm would waive the fees if Pao dropped her appeal.

Still, Pao underscored that the court system in California is stacked against her and others who claim discrimination against their employers. In California, plaintiffs must prove intent, a very difficult process, especially if the discriminatory processes are institutionalized as the way of doing business. 

RELATED: Three Asian/American women challenge Silicon Valley bias

“I think it is wrong that employees have to pay in this situation, but I simply cannot afford the risks of more costs to fight a firm with massive PR and legal resources,” she said. “The court system is not set up to create an even playing field.”

Kleiner has asserted since it won the trial earlier this year that Pao had no grounds for appeal, which Pao did not agree with. In a statement, she said: “To be clear, Kleiner and I have not reached any agreement to settle this matter. Settlement might have provided me with financial benefits, but only at the great cost of silence.”

naisaglobal graphic

Kleiner Perkins issued this statement: “We are glad to put this trial behind us. There is no question diversity in the workplace is an important issue. KPCB remains committed to supporting women and minorities in venture capital and technology both inside our firm and within our industry.”

The high tech industry's problem with diversity has been a hot topic in boardrooms since they released their workforce numbers a few years ago. What the records of their hiring practices showed was an overall lack of Latinos and African/Americans and the small number of high-level Asian/American executives and managers even though Asian/Americans make up a large portion of their workforce. 

"I have a request for all companies: Please don’t try to silence employees who raise discrimination and harassment concerns," Pao wrote in her op-ed. "Instead allow balanced and complete perspectives to come out publicly so we can all learn and improve. I and many others are eager to hear more stories being shared by women and minorities. I turned down offers to settle so I can keep telling mine. We need to keep telling our stories and educating people on how it can be that women and minorities form such a small fraction of our investor base, our tech workforce and our leadership."

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#ILookLikeAnEngineer sparks new look at Silicon Valley workforce and board room diversity

SOMETIMES, the stars align and a couple of unrelated events occur that by themselves would create a spark, but put them together and you get a supernova.

• When OneLogin launched an advertising campaign for engineers, they didn't expect to create an Internet star. When she agreed to let her company use her picture to recruit engineers, platform engineer Isis Anchalee, didn't expect the reaction her post would cause.

• At about the same time, Black Congressional Caucus visited several firms in Silicon Valley to encourage them to do more to hire more African Americans and other minorities, including women so that the tech industry would better reflect the population.

• In the nation's capitol, President Barack Obama launched Startup America, a campaign to increase opportunity for a wider demographic and to increase diversity in Silicon Valley's workforce and board rooms.

"Just three percent of America’s venture capital-backed startups are led by women, and only around one percent are led by African-Americans," the White House announcement read. "At present, only about four percent of U.S.-based venture capital investors are women."

President Obama meets with some of the innovators who took part in the Demo Day.

The announcement was made at the first annual White House Demo Day as part of the President’s new initiative to celebrate, inspire, and accelerate technological entrepreneurship. 

Some 40 venture capital firms have joined the president's initiative, promising to boost opportunities for underserved minorities. Institutional investors like CalPERS, the state pension fund, committed up to $11 billion in investments for emerging and transitioning managers. High-tech companies said they would adopt a variation on the National Football League’s “Rooney Rule” for coaches, a requirement that they consult a diverse applicant pool for senior executive posts.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article29994513.html#storylink=cpy

Meanwhile, a survey of the top 20 U.S. technology firms found that of the 189 members of corporate boards, only three directors are African/American. “African/Americans have been, quite frankly, locked out of the tech workforce,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oaklalnd, part of the congressional delegation that met last week with tech giants in a 3-day tour of Silicon Valley. 

Indeed, the numbers released from the tech companies seem to support her statement. 

Africa/Americans, Latinos and women are severely underrepresented in every aspect of the industry.

Asians, although 17 percent of the tech workforce, have found it extremely difficult to break through the bamboo ceiling. Despite  their numbers in the workforce, few have been able to climb into the ranks of management and board rooms. 

"The 'bamboo ceiling,' as author Jane Hyun terms it, is hardly limited to technology, but its existence in a sector where Asians are thriving illustrates the intractability of the problem. Hyun blames the workers for the promotion gap, arguing that they need to take a page from Sheryl Sandberg and 'lean in,'" wrote Kevin Drum in Mother Jones.  "But other observers, such as Lisa Lee, a senior diversity manager for Pandora, point to the need for companies to curb their preconceptions about who will make a good leader."

RELATED: Study: Asians hit the bamboo ceiling in high-tech workforce

White males make up the majority of the workforce and almost all of the board members. The few minorities and women who have managed to make it to the highly visible or influential  positions have been the exception, rather than the rule.

Part of problem has been the dominant image of the typical high-tech employee as a white, hoodie-wearing, social awkward white male.

OneLogin's campaign asked Anchalee, one of their employees, to pose for a poster intended to recruit more engineers. The reaction was not what the San Francisco-company expected.

The ad — one of several her company posted in BART stations — received an unexpected backlash of frankly, sexist, critiques, where some people questioned the authenticity of the advertising based because they thought the company used a model instead of a real engineer. (Editor's note: She prefers to use her middle name over the name used in the poster.)

Some of the more printable reactions that was written online include: "This is some weird haphazard branding. I think they want to appeal to women, but are probably just appealing to dudes," reads one typical example Anchalee pulled off Facebook. "But I'm curious people with brains find this quote remotely plausible and if women in particular buy this image of what a female software engineer looks like." 

“The negative opinions about this ad that strangers feel so compelled to share illustrate solid examples of the sexism that plagues tech,” Anchalee wrote in her short blog that she felt compelled to create to answer the doubters and critics.

Isis Anchalee responds to her critics.

In response, 22-year old Anchalee took a photo of herself (above) with the Twitter hashtag #ILookLikeAnEngineer. The reaction to her response has been amazing. Engineers - women and minorities - began taking pictures of themselves with the Twitter hashtag. 

"News flash: this isn't by any means an attempt to label 'what female engineers look like,' " she wrote. "This is literally just ME, an example of ONE engineer at OneLogin."

"I doubt that most of you know me. I am a passionate self-taught engineer, extreme introvert, science-nerd, anime-lover, college dropout, hip hop dancer, yoga teacher/hoop-dance teacher, really authentic friend and HUMAN(omg?!). In fact, if you knew me you would probably know that being famous is one of my biggest nightmares; seriously right up there with falling into a porta potty. I keep to myself most of the time and generally prefer when others mind their own business too," wrote Anchalee.

Her hashtag has absolutely skyrocketed beyond her expectations. A fundraising campaign has been started (with Anchalee's approval) on Indiegogo to raise enough money to put up a billboard in San Francisco celebrating and encouraging diversity in the high-tech industry. 

“People have taken the message I started and are continuing the conversation themselves,” Anchalee says. “I am absolutely taken with gratitude.”

#ILookLikeAnEngineer is going beyond the Internet. There are now poster, t-shirts and socks with the hashtag.

There's definitely a movement to increase the diversity of the high-tech industry's workforce. Industry giants like Apple, Google, Pinterest, Yahoo and others are - frankly embarrassed by their statistics in hiring - have pledged millions of dollar in initiatives to improve their workforce diversity. Besides an implementation of the Rooney Rule, the companies will expand their recruitment efforts at colleges and universities outside of the Bay Area, employees will be sent to job fairs that attract minority applicants, and internship programs will be widened to include more African Americans, Latinos and women.

In a few years, if these efforts work, the companies' business will improve and competitive in the world stage, we will be able to draw our best and brightest from a wider pool of applicants, colleges and universities and America will be better off for it. 

If you, your daughter, niece, sister or any of the women in your life want to be inspired, or just want to bust open those old stereotypes, check out #ILookLikeAnEngineer, or Anchalee's Twitter account.

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Study: Asians hit a bamboo ceiling in the high tech industry

 Diversification efforts at Google are underway.

BAMBOO is pliant, but strong. According to a new report, Asian men in Silicon Valley find it difficult to break through the Bamboo Ceiling if they try advancing to the leadership ranks.

Lest we forget, besides the gender gap exposed in the Ellen Pao lawsuit, the high tech industry is still grappling with its well documented diversity divide.

It is most evident in the well-stocked cafeterias and coffee cafes of the high tech headquarters in San Francisco and down the peninsula in Silicon Valley. While you see a plethora of beige-skinned Asian faces downing the gourmet fare offered by the companies, in the board rooms, the shade is a good deal paler.

Google, Yahoo and other major technology companies are far more inclined to hire Asians as computer programmers than to promote them to become managers or executives, according to a study released May 6.

The analysis brought to light what is obvious to the Asian American community, the high tech giants have no problem in hiring Asian as workers in non-management positions, but when picking managers and executives, human resources prefer to hire European American men.

RELATED: Three Asian women challenge Silicon Valley culture

To be clear, there are more minorities in executive positions than there were three years ago, but progress is moving at a snail's pace. Fixing Silicon Valley's apparent preference for white males won't happen quickly.

"We have a lot more work to do," said Laszlo Bock, Google's head of human resources or as Google would say, 'people operations.'For a long time we'll have a lot more work to do."

Ascend, a group focused on Asian business issues, based its conclusions on 2013 data filed with U.S. employment regulators by five Silicon Valley companies — Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. Intel Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and LinkedIn Corp.

Minorities seek a place at the table in Silicon Valley.

"If you step in the cafeteria of any of these five companies, you will see plenty of Asian talent around," said Denise Peck, a co-author of the Ascend study and former vice president at computer networking equipment maker Cisco Systems. "It's only when you walk into the executive suites at these companies that you might see a problem."

Google knows it's got problems with diversity among its ranks, and it was one of the first in Silicon Valley to say so.

The search giant first released statistics last May about women and minorities in its workforce, and by its own admission they were bad. So, it's tried to find fixes, and it's talked about some of those programs publicly. One of them focuses on what it calls "unconscious bias," or cases of discrimination that aren't overt or even intentional, and it now has a program devoted to the problem.

But fixing Silicon Valley's preference for white males won't happen immediately.

"When we released the composition of our workforce almost a year ago, it confirmed what many people suspected: the tech industry needs to do a lot more when it comes to diversity," says vice president of people operations Nancy Lee in her official Google blog.

After their workforce report was released, Google launched several long-term initiatives and spent $115 million to diversify their workers. Other tech firms such as Intel and Apple followed Google's lead and began their own programs. 

The Ascend report found that Asians held 27 percent of the professional jobs yet only 14 percent were executives. For whites, the percentages are reverse: whites held 62 percent of the professional jobs at the studied companies, but filled 80 percent of the executive jobs. Hmmm.

Ascend, a group focusing on Asian business issues, concludes that the lack of Asian executives may be partly blamed on cultural differences. It's curious that a group focusing on Asian issues should bring up that old stereotype of the nonassertive Asian male. I could never understand how the self-promotion and braggadocio is admired in white males, but the nose-to-the-grindstone, lead-by-example and working as a team are seen as weaknesses in Asian males.

What should have been concluded is that the top leaders tend to prefer seeing themselves in their underling managers. The current leadership want to surround themselves with people with whom they feel comfortable, with whom they can indulge in common pursuits, have drinks, play video games, share joke, play golf. You know, sort of like a buddy.

In many ways, Asian males face the same double standard often placed on women in the workplace: assertive males good, assertive women bitches.

"With an organization of our size, meaningful change will take time," wrote Lee in her blog.  "From one year to the next, bit by bit, our progress will inch forward."

The nerd culture that spawned many of the innovators who in turn gave birth to Silicon Valley, also gave rise to the 21st century version of the old boys club. In extreme cases, that environment allowed, some say even encouraged, distorted values of privilege, exclusiveness and misogamy.

Once the high-tech industry can find ways to develop leaders from its Asian workers, then they can begin to grapple with the even worse plight of African Americans and Latinos, who constitute barely a blip in the industry's workforce.  

Though there are signs of change - such as Satya Nadella as Microsoft's CEO - that shift is coming slow. The industry is trying to compensate by investing in education, expanded recruitment efforts and bringing in foreign workers but it will never truly have permanent, institutional change until it can look at itself in the mirror and see an image, not only of its  workforce, but also the world market where lies its future. That, is the bottomline.

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TIME: The Real Problem When It Comes to Diversity and Asian Americans

The lack of Asian leadership in tech sheds light on a larger issue: Asians are excluded from the idea of diversity

Magazine cover, August 31, 1987

THIS WEEK'S Time Magazine (Oct. 14) has an article by Jack Linshi about the lack of Asians in the leadership ranks of Silicon Valley tech firms. Let me pique your interest with the opening paragraphs:

"Years ago ... they used to think you were Fu Manchu or Charlie Chan. Then they thought you must own a laundry or restaurant. Now they think all we know how to do is sit in front of a computer."

It was 1987 when Virginia Kee, then a 55-year-old high school teacher in New York's Chinatown, said the above words. She was one of several Asian-Americans who discussed the perception of their race for TIME's cover story, "Those Asian-American Whiz Kids." The cover story would elicit small-scale Asian boycotts of the magazine from those who found offensive the portrait of textbook-clutching, big-glasses braniacs. To them, the images codified  hurtful beliefs that Asians and Asian-Americans were one-dimensional: that they were robots of success, worshippers of the alphabet's first letter, study mules branded with their signature eyes. 

Today, Kee is 82 ... And yet Kee, who still recalls the words she told TIME nearly 30 years ago, maintains that not much has changed.  ... Read more, my friends.

And check out TIME's fun graphic that clearly shows the disparity between workforce and leadership: (If you cannot see it, click here.)

This topic generated a lot of conversation in the San Francisco Bay Area, the home of Silicon Valley and is the center of the world for techies and the venture capitalists who turn dreams into multi-billion dollar companies. Unfortunately, whenever you talk about inequalities or anything resembling affirmative action, it brings out the racists hiding underneath their hoodies.

Several news outlets have written about this topic, also known in the Asian community as the Bamboo Ceiling. For more articles, read Read Bloomberg's "The color of money in Silicon Valley" and a great piece by Mother Jones: Silicon Valley firms are even whiter and more male than you think. 

Whenever Americans talk about race, the vast majority often think only in terms of black and white. This myopic view is evidently not limited to the less educated. Through sheer numbers and the media focus on the border issue, Latinos have nudged their way into the conversation. The TIME article asserts that Asians are overlooked.

Why? I think Asians are saddled with the "model minority" stereotype. Asians are already successful. 

Asian men, who make up a larger portion of the workforce, also must also overcome the non-leadership qualities often associated with Asian males: being unassertive, too meek  and not being self-promoting. 

Asian women have one other hurdle to overcome  -- no matter how talented and intelligent they are -- their gender. Despite the rise of Carly Fiorina, Marissa Meyer and Sheryl Sandberg, technology is still a male-dominated field.

One other gargantuan barrier stands in the way for both Asian men and women: not being "one of the guys." You know, the back-slapping, drink-after-work, golf-buddy, trash-talking, take-home-for-dinner, be-my-wingman, share-an-off-color-joke, type of guys.  

The over-riding lesson here: When you are always looking for the next Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs, you keep coming up with people who look like Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs.

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