No, the “bamboo ceiling” is not just another way to green your home. It’s a term from Jane Hyun’s 2005 book, Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Career Strategies for Asians, a guide for Asian Americans who want to move higher up the (white American) corporate ladder.
Hyun, an executive coach and diversity strategist, argues that there is a simple reason why Asian Americans make up a depressing 0.29 percent of corporate officers and 1 percent of board seats in Fortune 500 companies: culture.
Asian Americans are risk-averse, avoid conflict and prefer collective decision-making instead of taking initiative. While common Asian American traits like humility, modesty self-effacement and aversion to self-promotion may be beneficial in social settings, they are a detriment to advancement in white corporate America, Hyun writes. The model minority myth has penetrated the workplace, according to Hyun, influencing execs to see Asian Americans as quiet, obedient hard-workers, but not management material.
But perhaps it isn’t square-peg Asian Americans who need to fit into the round hole of macho, aggressive corporations. Look where our attempts at assimilation have gotten us: internment camps during World War II, and being put under suspicion as perpetual foreigners for spying. Is it sacrificing the morals we were raised with an equal trade with a larger paycheck? There is a thin line between self-improvement and self-hatred.
Getting that big corner office should not mean having to “act white.”
Former Old Navy CEO Jenny Ming herself ascended to the top of a major clothing retailer. She said recently in AsianWeek that Asian Pacific American women have “soft skills” of being communicative, nurturing and supportive. In contrast, it’s not the old “white man dominating or dictating a group of people,” said Ming, reacting to a trend of grooming APA women for corporate leadership.
If Ming made it, future APA corporate leaders can do so without sacrificing their values as Asian Pacific Americans. Being APA in corporate America is an asset, especially when billions of dollars are at stake nationally with 14 million APA, or globally with 4 billion Asians and Pacific Islanders.
We could all toot our own horn a bit more. Maybe Mom and Dad weren’t all wrong about being humble and considering others before oneself. Let’s seek to find a balance between Asian American values and white corporate American culture.