Host a Diversity Discussion at Work... as an Intern

Personal Background

When I started writing this post, I had typed up a large chunk of the 'inspiration' section before realizing that to understand why this first is so important to me, I had to explain why diversity is something I care about.

From the age of 2, I've been raised in good ol' Edison, NJ - a town plopped in the middle of the state (Central NJ exists, please discuss with me in the comments section if you don't agree). But beyond the excitement of its centrality, what really stands out is the town's demographic breakdown.

Thank you Wikipedia, the best pal to a high school student writing an essay, for accurately explaining Edison's uniquely high percentage of Asian Americans. Because I was just going to describe the town by my high school, where I felt like 80%+ of us were Asian American...which might not be false either.

Long story short: I've grown up around Asians my whole life. And as a result, it made me resent being an Asian American.

I felt like I was viewed as "just another Chinese girl" throughout high school and didn't find that we were valued for what made each and every one of us unique. For example, I was always interested in pursuing a career in fashion business, so at Asian family parties when other parents would go around the kid's table and ask "what do you want to do in the future?" and I answered "fashion marketing!" I actually had people tilt their heads in confusion and laugh it off by responding to me with "haha, fashion is just a hobby. what do you really want to do?" Thus, being a Chinese American was not something I wanted to highlight about myself. So I enjoyed the fact that my family didn't eat white rice at every meal or that I barely spoke Mandarin in the house. There were even multiple instances where I asked my parents "are you sure I'm 100% Chinese? there's nothing else in my background???" I'm not sure what I was expecting them to say, but all I could wish for was that I could confirm my belief that I wasn't a typical Chinese American.

Now you're probably questioning how the girl who hated being Chinese ended up hosting an event at work all about Chinese pride. Good question.

Entering college I was surprised by how many of my Asian peers had been the only Asian people in their high school classes, how many were excited most to meet other people like them in college, how many had felt alone for the past few years of their lives. And there I was - seeing the Chinese part of my identity as a flaw, never thinking that it could be something I should be lucky to have.

Fast forward a few years and I'm proud to say that I've truly learned to be proud of being Chinese. I'm lucky to be tied to a culture brought up on determination, hard work and variety. We are more than engineers and quiet nerds, and I aim to help people realize that.

Inspiration

Before I started my marketing internship at IBM this summer, one of the things I was most excited about was the company's known diversity. You don't hear of "Asian marketers" too often so I was curious to see if this company would be any different. From the day I started my internship in the city, I looked into the company's "business resource groups" to see how I could learn more about the Asian diversity group.

And to be quite frank, I was a bit underwhelmed initially. I didn't see as many Asian marketers in the building as I had hoped. And I certainly didn't see much Asian representation in leadership. During on-boarding, slide after slide of leadership org charts overall looked like the same homogenous bunch.

Slightly thrown off, I now really needed to find out more about the company's diversity groups.

I was connected with the leadership of the Asian business resource group (BRG, for short), and then pieces were starting to click. She explained to me that the company's diversity was one of its strongest, valuable aspects and that. And hearing her elaborate on how diversity at most large companies is never perfect, but at IBM, it's probably a lot better than most was reassuring. For some reason, just hearing from her made me really believe it. And since then I've noted each time I see an Asian American in executive positions or leading initiatives. Yes, I will still say the company has ways to go (Asian women in leadership, anyone?), but I knew there was a solid foundation.

Execution

One day after watching Incredibles 2, I asked the woman I was connected with about her opinions on "Bao," the highly discussed Pixar Animation Studios short directed by Domee Shi (the first female short director in Pixar's 28 year history!!!!) about a Chinese mother's empty-nest syndrome and a symbolic dumpling. I was curious if the diversity group had discussed this all together and suddenly, this one chat turned into a discussion event on diversity that I hosted. She said the group hadn't discussed it, but that I was more than capable to run a discussion on my own.

In the one week leading up to the discussion I found myself trying not to think about it too much. Either way I knew that as long as a few people showed up and were willing to open their mouths, a valuable discussion would happen either way. I did have to find some illegal clips of the short on Youtube to help tell the story though... but... we will forget about that. But as the days grew closer, I did find myself a bit nervous wondering if people would be vulnerable and share their opinions on such culturally-rooted topics.

But my nerves subsided within the first few minutes of the discussion. Even typing it now brings back a smile to my face - an eclectic group of mixed ages and backgrounds were able to come together on topics like family dynamics, diversity in media and the significance of food. I was able to shed perspective on what eating the dumpling was all about. While I was a bit ignorant in thinking that it was obvious that the mother eating the dumpling represented her overwhelming love and protective nature, I was pretty shocked to hear that many viewers didn't see this point or even details like the dumpling representing the son! It was also heartwarming to confirm that different cultures are not actually as different as we may think. We all believe greater diversity in media makes content worth sharing and showcasing. We all view food as a vehicle for the expression of love and care. We can all understand the story of a mother's love for her child.

Reflection

Post-discussion, I appreciated that the company viewed me beyond my intern title and allowed me to take initiative with my own event. But I couldn't have been more appreciative to see people better understand the Asian culture. The fact that there is even an Asian short animated film that we can discuss at mainstream is worth highlighting in itself. It's an event that I probably couldn't have led if I was an intern 10 years ago. And once again in the same way diversity can improve at companies across the world, diversity can and needs to improve on our screens.

As I reach the near end of my typing, I think it's also interesting that I've barely mentioned the fact that I was an intern throwing this event. I've never really believed in letting titles get in my way, so this surely wasn't an exception. But I also had no reason to mention my title; you can literally be anything and anyone to host a discussion. All you have to have is the confidence to run with your idea.

And to the Asians reading this, let's also have the confidence to run with our own ideas so more Domee Shi's and Bao's can exist in the future.

So what I can leave you with is...go see "Bao"(if you haven't) and take a little bit of time to process just what "eating your kid" is really about. Then go and host a discussion at work - I won't be mad if you choose a different short, but I'd appreciate if you make it culturally centric! Because you'll never know what to expect.

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