Japanese Americans Explore the Power of Ethnic Networks in Silicon Valley

By John | Monday, March 2, 2009 | 5 Comments

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n panel 600x333 Japanese Americans Explore the Power of Ethnic Networks in Silicon Valley

As one might imagine, there are a lot of Asians and Asian Americans living in Silicon Valley, especially those with Chinese, Taiwan or Indian backgrounds. And we love to network in all sorts of ways: ORIENTED.COM, The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE), Hua Yuan Science and Technology Association (HYSTA), the Asian America Multi-Technology Association(AAMA), Monte Jade Science & Technology Association and the Chinese Software Professionals Association (CSPA), just to name a few.

However, I have not bumped into too many ethnically Japanese people in Silicon Valley, relative to other ethnicities; I was interested to come across an article regarding a newly formed Japanese American networking organization – the N! Leadership Network:

“… a new management networking group for Japanese American and Japanese nationals in the business world. The group was founded recently by Michael Kanazawa, CEO of the Dissero Partners consulting firm, who hopes to boost more Japanese Americans into leadership roles. Kanazawa says that N! “relates to the mathematical term, N-factorial, which relates to all of the combinations possible between groups.” … Kanazawa hopes to expand N!’s group of 50 people beyond California, to create a high-quality business network and eventually influence U.S.-Japan business ties. “Our intent is not to create a large-scale networking group,” he said, “but rather a deeply connected group of people who have quality interactions.”

An interesting comment was made by one of the N! Leadership Network members: “a Japanese upbringing is diametrically opposed to being an entrepreneur. Japanese culture is about fitting in. In contrast, a hard-charging entrepreneur must break from the pack, take a hard look at himself and ‘do things differently.’”

There is a Japanese saying which says that “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” There are a lot Asian “cultural” traits that are somewhat diametrically opposed to what are perceived as traits that make a successful professional in Silicon Valley — modesty being one of them — and I think this is only reinforced by the fact that although Asian Americans represent 30 percent of technology professionals in Silicon Valley, only around 12% of managerial positions are held by Asian Americans compared with 80% held by Whites. Best of luck to N! Leadership Network in expanding and promoting a high quality business network and influencing U.S.-Japan business ties.

(Photo credit: VentureBeat)

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Krantzstone

I wonder if it has a lot to do with the WWII internment of Japanese-Americans which really tore up the fabric of Japanese-American community and it never really recovered from that. Perhaps there's a deep-seated reluctance to congregate with other Japanese-Americans because of that experience which shows the dangers of building a visible community because it might draw the same kind of jealousy and resentment that it did in the past. Assimilation might have been a survival trait to avoid being singled out as a community and possibly be perceived as a threat again. And then there are of course, Japanese nationals who have more recently arrived in North America as immigrants and tourists who really have nothing in common with the hyphenated Japanese-American (and indeed, Japanese-Canadian) experience and may not be interested in working with Japanese-American/Canadian business groups which exist.

For the record, I was born in Japan but grew up in Canada so I am effectively caught between two worlds and neither fit the description of a Japanese national nor that of a several-generations Canadian of Japanese ethnic descent, so I can't say I have any deep insight into any of this, I can only speculate. I am sure there are Japanese-American/Canadian business groups and I just need to look for them, but it is curious as to why there aren't more that are more prominent. I suppose there are greater numbers of non-Japanese Asian immigrants coming to North America than there are Japanese, and at a more consistent rate, mostly because there hasn't really been any reason for Japanese to leave Japan except out of curiousity or interest in nations and cultures outside Japan. I wonder if the recent economic recession in Japan will bring more Japanese to North America for business, and if so, will they be interested in working with Japanese-Americans/Canadians in building business networks that bridge North America and Japan?

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could you maybe, just once in a while, write something that is NOT a re-worded rendition of the article to which you link? it's worse than a 3rd grade book report. if you can't manage it, how about just posting the picture and saying, "interesting article, click here."

incidentally, you might not see a lot of JAs around because you don't know where we hang out. or maybe because of the whole assimilation thing. just because you don't "run into" us doesn't mean we're not connected or that we're non-existent. just a thought...

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