The Bamboo Ceiling

Published on June 1, 2009
Written by: Tim
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bambooceiling The Bamboo CeilingI’ve written in the past about the glass ceiling for Asians in corporate America, but until I found this recent article on Asian scientists, I didn’t realize there was a specific term for the ceiling when referring to Asians, specifically the Bamboo Ceiling.

The article I found was specifically referring to the inability of Asians scientists to move up into the management roles in academia and federal research institutes. Apparently Asians have as tough a time there as they do in the corporate world.

This article also introduced another new term I had not heard of before when referencing the inability to move up in an organization, sticky floors.

Here are some of the problems found by the recent study:

Problems raised by this Asian American community boiled down to three categories: employment, lack of support, and failure to file complaints.

“We found that most federal agencies didn’t even look at Asian American numbers—they’ve become the forgotten minority,” says Gazal Modhera, chair of the EEOC’s Work Group.
…
While Asian Americans represented 23 percent of those holding tenure-track positions [at the NIH], they were only 12 percent of those at the tenure or senior scientist level. In the higher administrative positions the numbers further tapered off, with only 6 percent holding lab chief positions. Currently out of the 27 scientific director positions there is only one Asian American scientific director. There are no Asian Americans running any of the 27 Institutes, although one recently retired.

The study found Asians themselves to be part of the blame, by failing to file complaints when discrimination does occur in the work place.

From the article again:

Despite the plethora of stories that were heard, official complaints remain few. A December 2005 EEOC Gallup Poll revealed that, although Asian Americans had the highest reports of discrimination (31 percent) of all the minority groups, only 3 percent of official charges were filed by them.

This article is a good reminder that as Asians we need to remember to stand up for our beliefs and our rights, since no other group is looking out for us.

One final note, the term Bamboo Ceiling is not new, as Jane Hyun used it in her book Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Career Strategies for Asians in 2005. So, I’m the one behind the times and need to catch up on new fangled terms like sticky floors.

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Categories: Business, Current Events, Discrimination
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  • johns

    25% of tenured scientists are “asian”, and you argue that NIH excludes “asians”? Learn to count. How did a “pollster” define asians as “suffering” 31% [sic] “discrimination, if only 3% filed complaints, magic? You clearly neither count well nor comprehend percentages, and you rely on “polls” for “proof”. Just another Major Media clown.

  • http://gayparenthood.blogspot.com Tim

    @johns: You’ve mis-read the quote. 23% of tenure-track are Asians, but only 12% are tenured, only 6% are lab chiefs and *none* are directors. Everyone is tenure-track when you join. That means 23% of the staff is Asian, that means there should 23% tenured Asians, 23% should be lab chiefs, and of the 27 directors, 23% (or a little more than 6) should be Asian. That would be equal representation. There exists a “bamboo ceiling” because the percentage of Asians go down as you move up the chain.

  • johns

    Tim:

    Thanks for your reply. Should you argue for quotas based on ethnicity, then you also argue for restricting Chinese employment at institutions such as NIH. Since Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans number less than 5% of US populace, you thus advocate firing all those above until they number 5% of NIH employees. That’s racist and the same “anti-Asian” hysteria advocated by Californians in the late 1800s and early 1900s. No one consents with your obsolete hatred of “asians”, except those at stormfront.org.

  • shinjinrui

    I agree with Johns. Restricting employment to Chinese or Japanese based on a Census report is racist and stupid. Tim’s arguments would fit well in the mouths of Jesse Jackson or David Duke.

  • http://gayparenthood.blogspot.com Tim

    @johns: I’m certainly not advocating quotas, I’m just pointing out there seems to be a discrepancy, and that there’s something that’s preventing a “natural” progression of Asians to management positions. No one has asked for quotas to make sure there are more women in management positions and their dilemma with the glass ceiling is much more popularized than the bamboo ceiling. As for the breakdown of races being the same as the rest of the US at NIH, that has to do with how many Caucasians decide to study science, so it starts at elementary school and goes up. The large population of Asians has to do with who decides to study math and science, and unfortunately most Caucasians (and 2nd and 3rd generation Asians) choose not to.

  • johns

    Tim:

    You’ve observed and cited a proportional inequality between NIH “asian” tenured staff and–I presume–”non-asian” NIH tenured staff; should you argue for proportional equality for “asian” tenured staff, you argue for quotas. Should conditions require in future NIH to promote disproportionately great number of “asians” to tenure, would you then sue for greater proportions of “non-asians”? You haven’t yet defined “asian”, which deficiency I’d indicated with quotation marks. Do “asian-indians” number among “asians”, even though many Census do not? How about scientists with only one “asian” parent? How about scientists with only one “asian” grandparent? As for women, whether their “dilemma” be more “popularized” than “asians” causes is your opinion not a fact. “Non-asian” women number greater among law partners and managers than “asians”. Who promotes women in such great numbers, and who depresses or excludes “asians” from the same promotion? You cite your observations, but you clearly don’t yet comprhend the matter, and thus you clearly you’ve no cause.

  • http://gayparenthood.blogspot.com Tim

    @johns: If you check the original report, you’ll see that Indians (and Southeast Asians) were included as Asians. The purpose of the report and of my commenting on it was not to recommend quotas, but to find out why there’s such a dis-proportionate number of Asians in upper management, not only at the NIH, but across all levels of the corporations in the U.S. I commented in a previous blog post on the fact that I’m the only Asian in management at my own company, and wondered why that was. The goal here is to identify what causes there to be less Asians at the top, and fix those problems, rather than implement quotas as you suggest. The study mentioned that discrimination happens, but Asians are less likely to report incidents of discrimination, and one fix is to get Asians to report discriminatory events.

    As for who identifies as Asian that’s up to the individual, they self-identify when they check off a box when they join the NIH. My own daughter is mixed race, and I fully expect she will create her own identity and her own label as she gets older, and I support her no matter what she chooses as her self-identification.

    And finally, on the topic of women in glass ceilings, just look at amazon.com and the number of books on the topic of women and glass ceilings (almost 50) versus the number of books on the topic of Asians and glass ceilings (seven), and you’ll see why I say the topic for women is more “popularized” than it is for Asians. It’s certainly not my opinion, many more researchers have found reason to comment and study the phenomenon around glass ceilings and women, than they have yet to around Asians and the glass ceiling.

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