As Asian Americans continue to climb the corporate ladders, something continues to prevent them from breaking through to the top.

By Harsh Vathsangam

The bamboo ceiling has made the promotion of APAs to senior managerial roles at top companies a rare occurrence. Art: Margaret To.

Stereotypically Asian Pacific Americans are known to enter careers as meticulous engineers, life-saving doctors, and mad scientists. But how many Asians become CEOs?

Although Asians make up only 5 percent of the U.S. population, according to a study by the Center for Work-Life Policy, they’re highly represented at some of the most prestigious universities, making up between 15 and 25 percent of Ivy League enrollment.

Yet the impressive credentials and achievements that have caused them to be dubbed “the model minority” aren’t reflected in senior leadership positions.

Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics, Inc., recently released a report that stated Asian Americans constitute only 2 percent of board members in Fortune 500 companies, and within these companies there are only nine Asian American CEOs.

The numbers point to a phenomenon known as “The Bamboo Ceiling,” a term that refers to the fact that while Asian Americans find no problem in acquiring prestigious academic degrees, they find it difficult to take the next step up and into senior managerial roles at top companies.

Why can’t Asians break through that bamboo ceiling? It’s certainly not for lack of interest. The CWLP researchers found that 64 percent of Asians compared to 52 percent of their Caucasian counterparts aspire to hold top seats at a company.

Asian family values have stressed hard work, avoiding confrontation, and humble respectfulness. Although these characteristics are positive on their own, these cultural values don’t necessarily match up with success in the cutthroat corporate world.

A popular argument is that these very same characteristics that put Asians on the top of college admissions stacks can work against them when gaining a foothold in corporate America. With these values as the cornerstones of their academic successes, thoughts such as putting one’s ideas forward in meetings, self-promotion, or taking credit for achievements end up being alien concepts.

The result? Often, silence is mistaken for arrogance and unwillingness.

A reason could be lack of mentorship. The CWLP study also found that only 46 percent of Asians say they have a mentor in their professional life compared to more than 60 percent of Caucasians. You can find strategies to help with breaking the bamboo ceiling here.

Another possible cause is that Asian culture places emphasis on eldercare, an activity that could for better or worse take time away from career advancement.

Taking a look at the issue from another perspective reveals more. There are now 61 Chinese and eight Indian companies in the Fortune 500.

With that said, companies with a largely Asian top brass are steadily rising up the rankings and making their presence felt. These numbers are only slated to increase. Conversely, according to Fortune magazine, the number of American companies on this list has been declining from 197 in 2002 to 133 in 2011.

I find myself asking how is it that these companies with Asian CEOs who have the similar cultural values are thriving. But, there is a key difference. It is important to note the distinction between Asians working in Asian companies and Asian Americans working in U.S. companies.

Thus, I argue that it has more to do with the clashing of cultures than any innate inability to perform. Asian Americans need to understand these significant cultural differences and recognize the corporate atmosphere in which they operate if they hope to break through the bamboo ceiling.

Or perhaps we should all book one-way tickets to corporate Asia?

Related Stories —

Science: Breaking through the “bamboo ceiling” for Asian American scientists

NPR: Looking at the ‘bamboo ceiling’

Cornell Chronicle Online: Model minority? A ‘myth of the American dream,’ says panelist at Asian American discussion

Inside Higher Ed: ‘The Myth of the Model Minority’

In the past 50 years, Asian characters in television and film have made small strides towards an honest interpretation of real APAs, but the clichés are not behind us.

By Jeffrey Ledesma

Best

Gold: Dr. Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), “Grey’s Anatomy”

The ever-intimidating Dr. Yang is anything but subservient. Photo: ABC.

Hands down and scalpels up, I had to give the gold medal to the fictional surgeon on ABC’s hit television series the number one spot. Yang is a bad-to-the-bone doctor who isn’t afraid to speak her mind. She goes against the grain and defies the subservient Asian woman stereotype.

Silver: Michael “Mike” Chang, Jr. (Harry Shum, Jr.), “Glee”

Mike moonwalks onto the number two spot because he’s a football player who can dance like nobody’s business. While it isn’t hard to find an APA on the football team and busting a move on the dance floor, it’s rare to see one doing both on television.

Bronze: Kumar (Kal Penn), Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

Although Penn’s character is extreme, the portrayal is extremely funny and not what’s expected in East Indian roles. Unlike Dr. Rajesh Ramayan “Raj” Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) of “The Big Bang Theory,” Kumar can talk to girls without drowning himself in alcohol (although alcohol isn’t prohibited) and that is worth a medal in my book.

Worst

Gold: Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong), The Hangover

Most APAs would not be proud of any association with Mr. Chow. Photo: Warner Bros.

Mr. Chow highlights the stereotypical emasculation of Asian men. When the three Caucasian protagonists find Chow’s shoe in their car, they comment on how unusual that it is “a men’s size six.” This is later followed by Chow jumping out of the trunk, naked and yelling in a cookie-cutter Asian accent, “You gonna f*** on me?” Overall, it’s distasteful portrait of Asians.

Silver: Ms. Swan (Alex Borstein), MADtv

While Ms. Swan makes me laugh every time, she gets the laughs and the silver medal by pulling from a bunch of stereotypes: slow speech, hard to understand, distrusting, and cheap. My mom would get mad if people saw her this way – so this is for her.

Bronze:  Tricia Takanawa (voiced by Alex Borstein), “Family Guy”

Takanawa speaks in a nasal monotone cadence that Borstein has described as “all presentation and no substance.” She was revealed to be Japanese in “Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story,” but will always be know as “Asian reporter Tricia Takanawa.”

Don’t agree with the ranking? Think another APA character should be thrown into the mix? Join the conversation by leaving a comment below.

Philip Yu, the creator of AngryAsianMan.com, confesses he’s not really angry. But, the media’s overuse of racist Asian stereotypes does get the Korean-American blogger and his followers fired up.

By Ivana Banh

It has been 10 years since Angry Asian Man first emerged on the blogging scene. Today, thousands of people flock to the website daily to update themselves on the Asian American representation in the media.

Philip Yu, the Korean-American mastermind behind the website, covers anything ranging from YouTube’s Chinese American comedian KevJumba to a shooting at San Jose State University that killed a Japanese American student.

Photo courtesy of Philip Yu.

Yu’s master’s degree in critical studies coupled with his passion for pop culture has created an online hub that is both intellectual and entertaining.

Yu said he began AngryAsianMan.com in his early college years with the intention of establishing a personal space to voice his thoughts. Little did he know, his insight on the media’s lack of Asian presence would become an Internet sensation.

Readers appreciate the coverage Yu provides on a population that is usually neglected. His witty perspective on Asians in politics, sports, entertainment, and news has gradually built up an extensive fan base.

Yu’s observations have chronicled the evolution of the portrayal of Asians in the media within the past decade. When the blogger first began, Asians were almost invisible in film and television. A decade later, Yu said he’s grateful to see the presence of Asians in the media increase in number.

However, despite the increase in exposure, the way that Asians are depicted on the big and small screens have changed very little. Stereotypical roles such as the socially inept nerd or the kung-fu karate kid are still prevalent in the current entertainment industry.

It is rare to see actors such as Harry Shum, Jr. star as a football player on Glee and Nikita’s Maggie Q as a rogue secret government agent.

While Yu said he’s not strongly against stereotypical roles as long as they are well-drawn, he does not foresee the formulaic characters disappearing anytime soon.

In addition, the fashion in which Asian America children are brought up plays a major role in the media. Immigrant parents often prefer their children to take the “safe” route in becoming doctors and lawyers.

Acting, or any other artistic careers for that matter, is not a profession that has been deeply rooted in traditional Asian culture. Yu acknowledges that the lack of parental support in any creative field is definitely an additional hurdle that Asian Americans face.

Yu said he’s glad to have raised awareness for the Asian American community through AngryAsianMan.com.

His dedication to the website has earned him a cover on KoreAm magazine and a job as the Asian Pop journalist at the San Francisco Chronicle.

However, Yu does not consider the fame or any title his biggest reward. “The biggest compliment that I receive is when someone comes to me and says I didn’t really know about this issue before and now I want to do something about it,” he said.

What initially began as a channel for Yu to express his personal thoughts has blossomed into a highly influential online hub.

With AngryAsianMan.com’s concoction of political coverage, comedic YouTube clips, and Yu’s personal opinion pieces, Yu said the website’s ultimate goal is to inform, entertain, and activate.

It is safe to say Yu has accomplished his goal as his readership continues to multiply.

Related Stories —

International Examiner: How a blogger created Asian America’s most influential site

Racebending.com: ComicCon 2011 panel video

By Eli Chau

Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou plays the Green Hornet's (Seth Rogan) faithful sidekick and chauffeur Kato, originally played by Bruce Lee. Photo: FilmoFilia

The casting of Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou as the sidekick Kato in “The Green Hornet,” released January 14, raised eyebrows among Bruce Lee fans skeptical of Chou’s ability to follow in the kung fu master’s footsteps, and among Asian American audiences skeptical about Chou’s assigned role.

Bruce Lee’s disciples need not worry, as Chou said in an interview that he wasn’t trying to be a “replacement Bruce Lee.”

Chou supposedly steps aside as he plays the Green Hornet’s Asian sidekick Kato. In the original television series, Kato is more subservient as Britt Reid’s chauffeur. Just as “The Green Hornet” was supposed to introduce Bruce Lee to American audiences, its 2011 remake is supposed to introduce Chou to the American mainstream.

The difference is that Lee was originally from the United States, fled to Hong Kong to find success, and was reintroduced to America in an Oriental package, with a fake accent and kung fu mastery. Being born and raised in Taiwan, Chou’s accented English is genuine, which gives him the foreign mystique without being offensive. In fact, Chou revealed that before “The Green Hornet,” he barely knew any English.

However, Chou’s portrayal of Kato demonstrates an enduring stereotype of Asians in Hollywood films that reflects upon Asian Pacific Americans. Their representation in films has historically been spotty at best. While Asian characters are becoming more common in television and in films, the actors that play them more often than not hail from Asia, while APA actors are snubbed. This is especially true with more important characters.

Asians are often depicted as superhuman, asexual, robotic geniuses born with kung fu abilities.  “The Green Hornet” is not immune to this stereotype. Kato is almost completely impervious to bullets, bombs, and fists. He even slows down time and space in his mind while defending himself and Reid (Seth Rogen), not unlike a machine. He is able to produce amazing inventions, from a gas gun to a car equipped with torpedoes and a flamethrower. When Reid brushes him aside with a raging libido while wooing Kato’s love interest Lenore (Cameron Diaz), the Green Hornet’s sidekick steams silently and doesn’t react openly until much later.

And as with many other films that feature prominent Asian characters, Kato and Lenore never share an on-screen kiss.

However, APA audiences don’t have to despair that “The Green Hornet” sets their representation back several years. While Kato is the Green Hornet’s sidekick, it is obvious throughout the whole movie that the sidekick is calling the shots. Lenore’s character doesn’t demonstrate obliviousness towards Kato’s advances nor a preference for Reid’s bumbling, macho flirtations.  During the inevitable emotional climax, Reid acknowledges Kato’s contributions and gives credit where it is due, although he keeps the Green Hornet mantle for himself.

It seems that “The Green Hornet” sacrificed progress for entertainment value, but it also shows that there is hope yet for more APA representation in American cinema.

Watch The Green Hornet official trailer here.

Taiwanese American Jeremy Lin is the first Asian American to join the NBA since 1947. Art by Stacy Kwok.

By Aly Owyang

Jeremy Lin should challenge the all-too-common racial bigotry and stereotypes that often show up on the basketball courts of the NBA. It’s not easy to fight racism on the court, but then again it surely couldn’t have been easy for Lin to get to the professional status he has today, either.

Lin, who signed with the Golden State Warriors in July, graduated from Harvard, where he studied economics and sociology. He is the devout Christian son of parents who emigrated from Taiwan.  With such a colorful background, Lin has fallen into countless stereotypes as the “smart Asian,” but he has also debunked some, as evidenced by his professional basketball player status.

But the 22-year-old says he just wants to be known as a basketball player.

Let’s be real: Asian Americans in the NBA are a rarity (the last was Japanese American Wat Misaka in 1947, and he played only three games). Well, you might ask, what about that 7-foot-6 giant Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets? First, Ming was born in Shanghai, China, and second, fewer than 0.5 percent of men’s Division 1 basketball players in the NBA are Asian American.

Since Asians are so sparse in the NBA, it’s all the more reason for the successful ones like Lin not to sit idly by as racist stereotypes are perpetuated. Battling stereotypes and generic labels might make it awfully hard to focus on the task at hand – that is, to play basketball.

But somebody has to speak out against them.

Lin has undoubtedly had to tackle racial boundaries to get into professional basketball. He has said he’s been called all sorts of racist names and jokes that deal with anything from “sweet and sour chicken” and “broccoli beef” to “go play the orchestra” and “slanty eyes.”  (And just so we’re clear, “slanty” isn’t even a word.)

“In America, basketball is predominantly (seen as being) for black and white people,” Lin told NPR in February. “I think in general Asian Americans are looked down on the basketball court.”

Lin said is no longer surprised by the Asian jokes on the court. Instead, he’s “used to it.”

Hard as it may be, Lin needs to actively challenge the Asian jokes and racial bigotry in the sport, not just make the realization that there are barriers.

If Jeremy Lin should be known for something, it shouldn’t be just as the “Harvard kid” or the “tall Asian American dude.” He should strive to be known for showing kids everywhere that being Asian doesn’t have to narrowly fit into stereotypes.

And he should do it while sinking a three-pointer for the Warriors.

By Kevin Kim

A scene from "Ninja Assassin." Photo: perry_marco, Flickr

In Hollywood, Asian men don’t exist – not normal Asian men, at least.

Average members of society have jobs that aren’t about martial arts or killing for hire. In “Ninja Assassin,” produced by the Watchowski Brothers, Korean pop star Rain stars in his first American film as Raizo, a ninja assassin.

Here goes another movie inexorably tying Asian men to some form of martial arts. However, it’s not even that these types of mindless action films reinforce ethnic stereotypes; it’s also just that they are plain awful. The film has a comic book mentality that may appeal to young teenage males, but outside of that particular demographic, this film lacks intellectual stimulation.

Aside from the problem of stereotypical portrayal, the film also upholds Hollywood’s reluctance – or refusal, rather – to choose actors to play characters of their actual ethnicity. Although the film is about ninja assassins, the very word “ninja” being Japanese, the film casts predominantly Korean actors in the title roles, with Rain, a Korean pop star who speaks very little English, in the titular role.

This may not seem to matter in terms of the film, which is primarily action-based, but without many lines spoken, Raizo, and by extension Rain, is denied a voice. If Asian American male actors are never given ways to speak out, change will not happen.

Is negative representation better than no representation? Not at all.

By Andrea Chin
Art by Andrew Dang

Achieve perfect SAT scores while maintaining a 4.0 GPA. Go to the best college. Enter med school or investment banking or software development. Don’t fail your family.

So many Asian Pacific American students bear the burden of the model minority stereotype as academic advisers and hiring managers make assumptions about the nature and extent of their intellectual abilities and potential for professional advancement. When opportunities for economic and social advancement are progressively dictated by test performance and job security is shakier than ever, competition becomes increasingly cutthroat in a system that mythologizes the virtue of merit to guarantee success.

The system has been designed to enable people designated as intellectually gifted to attend college, traditionally assumed to lead to white collar ¬work and higher tax brackets. As a group, APAs are more likely to have finished postsecondary education than Americans overall. Half of Asian Americans ages 25 and older have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to a quarter of all Americans in this age range, and are twice as likely to have a graduate or professional degree, according to the 2007 American Community Survey.

These numbers, however, mask significant differences among APA groups. Among Asian Indians, 68 percent ages 25 and older has at least a bachelor’s degree.  Another 36 percent has a graduate or professional degree. The same study found that only 15 percent of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders of the same age group, however, have at least bachelor’s degree and just 4 percent have a graduate or professional degree.

Asian immigrants’ self-selection can account for the disproportionate educational attainment rates of the overall APA community. Having more highly educated immigrants settle and start families in the U.S. has raised the general intellectual profile of APAs. The Immigration Act of 1965 brought over a stream of highly educated scientists and technical professionals, mostly from India and East Asia, to meet post-Sputnik America’s labor needs. In the early 1900s, APAs, like Jews, scored much lower on IQ tests than whites whose families had lived in the U.S. longer. Both groups’ overall tests scores improved over time as more highly educated immigrants came to the country.

What about the controversial claim that APAs are inherently smarter than others because of their high IQ scores? Racial differences in test scores are at the core of affirmative action debates, which generally exclude APAs. Some reformers advocate modeling American curriculums on East Asian ones, hoping that “average” Americans can match Asians’ high math and science scores. Unfortunately, as anyone who has taken Psych 100 knows, correlation does not imply causation.

Intelligence is associated with higher test scores, which improve access to elite colleges, which are pipelines for well-paying jobs. But as the recession has demonstrated, college graduates of all races are discovering how difficult it is to find and keep a job.

The evidence for ethnic Asians’ above-average test performance has been called into question. Some studies in which East Asian students outperform European and North American ones on math tests have been criticized for using limited samples of urban Asian students from elite schools. Intelligence expert James Flynn argues that historically, people of Asian ancestry actually possess slightly lower IQ scores than whites but have excelled in math despite this difference. IQ scores can be best described as limited measurements of cognitive ability shaped by complex interactions among genetics, health, psychological attitudes, education, socioeconomic status, and possibly cultural bias.

Studies examining racial differences in intelligence have an ugly history of promoting discriminatory policies based on racial stereotyping. It would be more valuable to look at general “nurture” factors that activate genes critical to intellectual ability and psychological functioning, such as parental involvement in children’s education. APA parents are infamous for pressuring their children to excel academically and enter well-paying, stable professions. In a study of 7,836 San Francisco high school students, APAs spent 40 percent more time on homework than non-Asians.

The portrayal of “Asian American whiz kids” suggests that APAs overachieve through uncanny ability and their immigrant parents’ hard-earned sacrifices. Making model minorities out of these successful individuals, however, overlooks those who struggle. Southeast Asians such as the Hmong and the Laotian are some of the poorest Americans and least likely to graduate from high school, yet they rarely receive adequate governmental assistance because of the model minority perception.

The ignorant conflation of Asian students’ academic performance with Asian Americans’ is problematic given the heterogeneity of the APA population. International students, whose ability to study in the U.S. is often predicated on their scientific and technological expertise, can be mistakenly included in these evaluations.

To make the field more equitable, we must examine what actually determines outcomes for most players. Richard Herrnstein’s and Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve launched the IQ craze in 1994 by contending that IQ scores are better predictors of future success than one’s socioeconomic status at birth.  But this is the myth of the American dream: that our inherent abilities, assessed by the limited proxy of IQ tests, combined with dedication will lead to success. Instead of pitting marginalized groups against each other in a draconian struggle for socioeconomic security, we’d be smarter to look beyond our flawed reliance on tests to dictate the extent of our abilities.