Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling

Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling

Author: Jane Hyun

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2005-05-03

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 0060731192

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You're educated and ambitious. Sure, the hours are long and corporate politics are a bane, but you focus on getting the job done, confident that you will be rewarded in the long run. Yet, somehow, your hard work isn't paying off, and you watch from the sidelines as your colleagues get promoted. Those who make it to management positions in this intensely competitive corporate environment seem to understand an unwritten code for marketing and aligning themselves politically. Furthermore, your strong work ethic and raw intelligence were sufficient when you started at the firm, but now they're expecting you to be a rainmaker who can "bring in clients" and "exert influence" on others. The top of the career ladder seems beyond your reach. Perhaps you've hit the bamboo ceiling. For the last decade, Asian Americans have been the fastest growing population in the United States. Asians comprise the largest college graduate population in America, and are often referred to as the "Model Minority" – but they continue to lag in the American workplace. If qualified Asians are entering the workforce with the right credentials, why aren't they making it to the corner offices and corporate boardrooms? Career coach Jane Hyun explains that Asians have not been able to break the "bamboo ceiling" because many are unable to effectively manage the cultural influences shaping their individual characteristics and workplace behavior—factors that are often at odds with the competencies needed to succeed at work. Traditional Asian cultural values can conflict with dominant corporate culture on many levels, resulting in a costly gap that individuals and companies need to bridge. The subtle, unconscious behavioral differences exhibited by Asian employees are often misinterpreted by their non-Asian counterparts, resulting in lost career opportunities and untapped talent. Never before has this dichotomy been so thoroughly explored, and in this insightful book, Hyun uses case studies, interviews and anecdotes to identify the issues and provide strategies for Asian Americans to succeed in corporate America. Managers will learn how to support the Asian members of their teams to realize their full potential and to maintain their competitive edge in today's multicultural workplace.


Asian Americans in Higher Education and at Work

Asian Americans in Higher Education and at Work

Author: Jayjia Hsia

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

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What drives Asian American youth to pursue excellence in higher education so relentlessly? This volume investigates the motivations, abilities, and achievements of the so called educational "model minority" from native born, fourth generation Japanese Americans to newly arrived Southeast Asian refugees. The educational performance of Asian Americans is one of today's fastest growing minority groups enrolled in higher education programs. This unique resource integrates empirical data from national testing programs, longitudinal studies and academic and extracurricular records along with the higher educational and career aspirations reported by Asian American students. It is the definitive guide for social scientists and educators by informing them of the reliability and validity of standard admissions tests for assessing the potential of Asian Americans students and their subgroups for success in higher education and careers.


Stuck

Stuck

Author: Margaret M. Chin

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2020-08-11

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1479816817

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Winner, 2022 Max Weber Award for Distinguished Scholarship, given by the American Sociological Association's Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Winner, 2021 PROSE Award in the Business, Finance & Management Category A behind-the-scenes examination of Asian Americans in the workplace In the classroom, Asian Americans, often singled out as so-called “model minorities,” are expected to be top of the class. Often they are, getting straight As and gaining admission to elite colleges and universities. But the corporate world is a different story. As Margaret M. Chin reveals in this important new book, many Asian Americans get stuck on the corporate ladder, never reaching the top. In Stuck, Chin shows that there is a “bamboo ceiling” in the workplace, describing a corporate world where racial and ethnic inequalities prevent upward mobility. Drawing on interviews with second-generation Asian Americans, she examines why they fail to advance as fast or as high as their colleagues, showing how they lose out on leadership positions, executive roles, and entry to the coveted boardroom suite over the course of their careers. An unfair lack of trust from their coworkers, absence of role models, sponsors and mentors, and for women, sexual harassment and prejudice especially born at the intersection of race and gender are only a few of the factors that hold Asian American professionals back. Ultimately, Chin sheds light on the experiences of Asian Americans in the workplace, providing insight into and a framework of who is and isn’t granted access into the upper echelons of American society, and why.


Job Expectations and Opportunities of Asian American Clients

Job Expectations and Opportunities of Asian American Clients

Author: Tom Lun-nap Chung

Publisher:

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13:

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... study of the increased demand of employment services from Asian immigrants in Boston's Chinatown / South Cove neighborhood; provides survey of clients' job experiences and expectations, quantitative analysis of job openings advertised through community newspapers and attempts to identify better opportunities based on personal characteristics and current employment patterns and job projections; this item was in the BRA collection ...


Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling

Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling

Author: Jane Hyun

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-10-06

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 0061983527

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An essential career guide for every Asian American—and all their co-workers and managers—that explains how traditional Asian cultural values are at odds with Western corporate culture. Leading Asian American career coach and advocate Jane Hyun explains that the lack of Asian Americans in executive suite positions is brought about by a combination of Asian cultures and traditions strait-jacketing Asian Americans in the workplace, and how the group’s lack of vocal affirmation in popular media and culture, afflicts them with a “perpetual foreigner syndrome” in the eyes of Americans who don’t know enough to understand the challenges placed on Asian Americans in the corporate environment. Filled with anecdotes and case studies from her own consulting experience covering the gamut of Asian Americans from various backgrounds, the book discusses how being Asian affects the way they interact with colleagues, managers, and clients, and will offer advice and real world solutions while exposing the challenges encountered. For the Asian reader, the book will help them to see the cultural barriers they subconsciously place in their own career paths and how to overcome them. For the non-Asian reader, the book serves as a primer for promoting optimal working relationships with Asians, and will help start a dialogue that will benefit all.


Asian American Social Workers

Asian American Social Workers

Author: Soon Min Lee

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13:

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Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing minority groups in the United States. One of the stereotypes associated with Asians is that they are more likely to choose careers in science, medicine, and engineering rather than social science, inclusive of social work, mass communication, or humanities (Leong & Serafica, 1995; Tang et al., 1999). This occupational stereotyping of Asians is not just a myth in that descriptive studies have shown that only a few Asians choose social work as a career (Lennon, 2005; NASW, 2006). Few studies exist on Asian Americans who do not choose Asian stereotypical career choices, such as social work. Acknowledging this lack of research, the present study was developed to explore the relationships between factors that may influence Asian Americans who choose social work as their career. Based on social cognitive career theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994), it was hypothesized that acculturation and family immigration status influenced parental involvement, perceived career barriers, and career outcome expectations of Asian American social workers. A cross-sectional survey design utilizing mixed methods was used in this study. The sample was derived from the members2 database of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). Among 1,802 of Asian American social workers in the NASW database, those aged 65 or older were excluded and 900 Asian social workers were randomly chosen for this study. A total of 370 Asian American social workers participated in this study with 41 percent of a return rate. Quantitative data were collected through standardized measurements: the Social Work Career Influence Questionnaire (Biggerstaff, 2000); Suinn-Lew Asian Self-Identity Acculturation Scale (Suinn, Rickard-Figueroa, Lew, & Vigil, 1987); Career Barriers Inventory Revised (Swanson, et al., 1996); and eight items from Tang et al.2s (1999) Asian American Career Development Questionnaire. Also, qualitative data were obtained through two open-ended short questions. The data were collected through a combined method of an online survey with option of a paper mail-return questionnaire. Results of the study found significant group differences among family immigration status groups on perceived likelihood and perceived hindrance of career barriers. The 1st generation group perceived the greatest career barriers and the 3rd or higher generation group perceived the least career barriers among the family immigration status groups. However, there was no significant multivariate effect of acculturation on perceived likelihood and hindrance of career barriers, parental involvement, desire to be a therapist, prestige of the profession, and social change mission of the profession. Qualitative data included participants2 diverse perspectives on what factors influenced Asian Americans2 selecting or not selecting social work as a career. Implications and limitations of this study, as well as suggestions for future research, are discussed.


The Minority Career Guide

The Minority Career Guide

Author: Michael Kastre

Publisher: Petersons

Published: 1993-01-01

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 9781560792581

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Discusses job hunting and success with an emphasis on minority concerns


The Loneliest Americans

The Loneliest Americans

Author: Jay Caspian Kang

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2022-10-11

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0525576231

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A “provocative and sweeping” (Time) blend of family history and original reportage that explores—and reimagines—Asian American identity in a Black and white world “[Kang’s] exploration of class and identity among Asian Americans will be talked about for years to come.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, NPR, Mother Jones In 1965, a new immigration law lifted a century of restrictions against Asian immigrants to the United States. Nobody, including the lawmakers who passed the bill, expected it to transform the country’s demographics. But over the next four decades, millions arrived, including Jay Caspian Kang’s parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. They came with almost no understanding of their new home, much less the history of “Asian America” that was supposed to define them. The Loneliest Americans is the unforgettable story of Kang and his family as they move from a housing project in Cambridge to an idyllic college town in the South and eventually to the West Coast. Their story unfolds against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding Asian America, as millions more immigrants, many of them working-class or undocumented, stream into the country. At the same time, upwardly mobile urban professionals have struggled to reconcile their parents’ assimilationist goals with membership in a multicultural elite—all while trying to carve out a new kind of belonging for their own children, who are neither white nor truly “people of color.” Kang recognizes this existential loneliness in himself and in other Asian Americans who try to locate themselves in the country’s racial binary. There are the businessmen turning Flushing into a center of immigrant wealth; the casualties of the Los Angeles riots; the impoverished parents in New York City who believe that admission to the city’s exam schools is the only way out; the men’s right’s activists on Reddit ranting about intermarriage; and the handful of protesters who show up at Black Lives Matter rallies holding “Yellow Peril Supports Black Power” signs. Kang’s exquisitely crafted book brings these lonely parallel climbers together and calls for a new immigrant solidarity—one rooted not in bubble tea and elite college admissions but in the struggles of refugees and the working class.