ASA -- A04-- Lele Bian -- Week4

While I was reading the poetry “Who Killed Soek-Fang Sim”, I was really shocked to see how Asian Americans are being treated by their provosts, and how their colleagues, who worked with them every day, betrayed them when it's time for promotion. It's heartbreaking to hear the author saying that she is not working hard enough to get the promotion even if she already tried and attributed all her time to the work and even if she had worked harder than other white colleagues. 

When I see how Asian Americans struggle to be tenured, I am wondering if Asian Americans in other industries. According to a diversity and inclusion report from a large Silicon Valley company, Its 19 pages never specifically address Asian Americans; Asian men were grouped with white men, and Asian women were being in the category with all other races. According to the Harvard Business Review, Even though Asian Americans are the most likely to be hired into high-tech jobs, they are the least likely racial group to be promoted into Silicon Valley’s management and executive levels. 

When the author encountered the same thing as Spel-Fang Sim, she started to realize that those rumors, which she never doubt about, against Soek- Fang Sim were all lies. These rumors are just like negative comments under social media posts when these negative comments were not targeting you, you will never doubt the authenticity of those comments. Whatever you do, you will always be told that you are not good enough. This also reminds me of a podcast I recently listened to by a team called "Asian Enough". This team is held by 3 Asian Americans, who mainly talk about the Asian American identity, and also about the struggle to feel "we're enough".  "Enough" is mentioned in almost every episode. For example, their parents' would say that I have spent so much money to take you here, and you are not working hard enough to make it worth. They also mention that when they do something, they would question themselves that is it "Asian" enough or is it "American" enough? The word "enough" can crackdown any Asian American's heart to get themselves be involved in the US. 

"Asian Enough" Podcast

My question raised based on this week's reading is that if the provost doesn't want to promote or tenure Asian Americans, why they are being hired in the first place? If they do hire Asian American, it means that they know Asian Americans are good; Also, there would be no harm or lose when they promote Asian rather than white, why would they promote white even if they know that person is not the best one? 

Reference: 

Asian Enough: A new podcast from the L.A. Times. (2020, March 10). Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-10/asian-enough-podcast

Peck, D. (2018, May 31). Asian Americans Are the Least Likely Group in the U.S. to Be Promoted to Management. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2018/05/asian-americans-are-the-least-likely-group-in-the-u-s-to-be-promoted-to-management