I’ve blogged about the “bamboo ceiling” before, so it’s interesting to see that recently, the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders had a panel discussion for their AAPI Youth Forum with the topic of: “Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling”
The panel featured:
White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Deputy Director Jason Tengco- Chief of Staff of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Juliet Choi
- Principal Deputy Administrator of SAMHSA Kana Enomoto
- Director of Community Relations at The United States Department of Justice Grande Lum
Given the recent highlighting of the lack of diversity in Silicon Valley (which often practices “mirrortocracy” rather than meritocracy), the bamboo ceiling is especially topical. Although Asian Americans and Asians make comprises of approximately 50% of the workforce in Silicon Valley, how many are in senior management roles, either in a business or technical capacity? I’m pretty certain not representative of the population.
The panelists discussed their career paths, and the discussion seemed to be more about not following the “model minority” career path of being a doctor, lawyer, engineer or some other “traditional” career and instead going into public service. But then, the panelists did start addressing questions as well as providing advice as to how to break the bamboo ceiling, like speaking up more, etc.
