Companies Need to Keep Up: The Effects of Anti-Asian Racism on Asian American Professionals

This article is part of Mochi’s winter 2023 issue, exploring what “environment” means to us as Asian Americans. From the environmentally friendly to your workplace, favorite neighborhood bar, or ethnic enclave — our environments are all that surrounds us, influences us and makes us who we are. Check out the rest of our issue here!

“Let me hurry home. Let me hurry home before the sun sets,” says a New York City–based Chinese woman. A new report, “Strangers at Home: The Asian and Asian American Professional Experience” from Coqual describes the experience of our communities in the workplace, where the impact of ongoing violence against Asians can manifest daily. 

The report is based on a survey of over 2,500 respondents, along with interviews and focus groups that shed light on how anti-Asian racism and violence continue to negatively affect the mental health and experiences of Asian American professionals. According to the study’s survey, 62% of Asian Americans have a greater fear of racial discrimination due to the ongoing barrage of anti-Asian attacks.

“The historical prevalence of the model minority myth has rendered the experiences of Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander professionals relatively invisible,” says Coqual Vice President of Research Sy Stokes. “The myth perpetuates a dangerous assumption that they do not need targeted support systems.” 

But discrimination against Asian Americans isn’t new — even if the news has only decided to highlight it over the last few years. As Stokes discusses, the racism and violence we see today is an extension of stereotypes such as the model minority myth. The report explains how the model minority myth, which was “introduced into public discourse in the 1960s, referred to — and ultimately, helped reinforce — a misconception that all Asian Americans experience academic, professional, and social success.” The myth blatantly ignores the differences in socioeconomic status when data is disaggregated by ethnicity. For example, despite narratives that treat Asian Americans as white-adjacent, the report highlights how “Asian Americans have in fact the largest income divide of any racial group in the U.S.” This long-standing portrayal helps explain why Asian professionals have felt racial gaslighting in the workplace. If the monolithic model minority portrayal were true and we could just “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” when faced with uncomfortable situations in the workplace, then why would Asian American professionals need support?

Inside the workplace, anti-Asian racism and violence have deeply impacted Asian American professionals’ relationships and performance. For example, 36% of respondents experienced racial prejudice at a current or former company (results were similar when disaggregated across East, South, and Southeast Asian groups), which can effectively manifest in less promotions. Asians and Asian Americans are 17% less likely than their white counterparts to have received a promotion at their current company. The lack of promotions and racially congruent role models in a company can perpetuate a negative feedback loop. But even if there isn’t active discrimination occurring, 40% of Asian and Asian American professionals find that their relationships with managers and colleagues have worsened due to the prevalence of ongoing violence against our community more broadly.

The effects of racism and violence experienced by our communities can also manifest in everyday, seemingly minute experiences. For example, 62% of Asian and Asian American professionals do not feel safe commuting, especially on public transit. I think about how a year ago, I was nervous to tell my team at work that it was important for me to walk home before it got late. I think about how my hand always rests on my pepper spray. The report finds that companies largely fail to offer remote work options, and fewer than two in five professionals feel that current remote work options are sufficient.

But we are more than statistics. These are real lived experiences, fears, and traumas. A Cambodian professional shared that “he works hard, in part, to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma experienced by [his] elders [and] to combat the Southeast Asian stereotype.” As a Cambodian Chinese person myself, I found it hard to read these quotes. Although many interviews throughout the report are about physical violence, these stories aren’t hard to process just because they are so grotesque or unbelievable — it’s that the feelings of fear, solidarity, and frustration resonate so deeply. These stories and statistics are affirmations for people like me, who are constantly aware of how their gender, ethnicity, and race can affect their success in the workplace, or who spend half their walk home from work feeling afraid and the other half gaslighting themselves into feeling safe. Our own feelings are real, and they are important.

Companies can do more. Intra- and cross-racial solidarity is critical for Asian and Asian American professionals to feel supported in the workplace and build toward a common vision of change, but a company’s only response can’t be just telling their Asian employees to band together and persevere (yet again, we return to the implications of the model minority myth). In addition to offering mental health resources, the report recommends that companies disaggregate data to better understand employee experiences, review talent processes, and partner with community-based organizations. There is work to be done, and the burden to educate their companies shouldn’t just be placed on Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander employees.

Cover credit: Rostyslav Savchyn/Unsplash