DEI Officer
Jaslyn Nguyen (JN) 0:01 I wanted VSA to be something where, if you want to come come, it doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter your background, you didn’t even have to be Vietnamese, or Asian, for that matter, I want you to come enjoy, learn about our culture. And that was just such a big goal of mine. Because previously, a lot of big clubs came up with the problem of having cliques or becoming Quickie, because naturally, in big groups, smaller groups was formed. And people were cool. Like, I really just wanted people to have an excuse to branch out from those groups. And that was a goldmine too. Furthermore, past organizations, I wanted to just create the environment on campus and just anywhere I go, I wanted to give people that sense of belonging where they could bring their authentic self to me and not be judged for anything, whether it has to do with race or sexuality or gender or any type of the matter. I wanted them to just be comfortable and not worry about being who they were, but instead just being
Jolene Mei (JM) 1:07 Hello, everyone. This is JOLENE MEI, your host for the DIVERSEEK podcast, where we talk with real people doing real work in the diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging space. If you want to explore what people are doing right, what positive impacts are happening or even how positive changes can be done. You’re in the right place. We welcome you to join us.
JM 1:26 Today we have Jaslyn Nguyen with us. Jocelyn is a Diversity Equity and Inclusion officer at University of Colorado Denver, and she is passionate about providing a sustainable, equitable environment that fosters that sense of belonging. She lends her expertise to creating various opportunities for networking and career development in her role. Jazlyn is the president of her campuses Vietnamese Student Association, and is currently very motivated from her participation in an empowering woman and business course, that has given her insight that she aims to put to practice in her cultural engagement efforts on campus. Lastly, Jacqueline’s parents and three older brothers are UC Denver alumni. And she will soon become one as well. So welcome, Jacqueline.
JN 2:13 Hello, everyone. Yes, I’m excited for today’s interesting topic. Interesting is like, not the word I probably should use to like, well, it is interesting. It’s very complex. But before we get into our topic, let’s start with you. So tell us more about yourself, your background, and what brought to you to where you are today in your work. I’ll start with giving a little bit of my childhood, even though I still feel like I’m in my childhood. Because I’m the ripe age of 20. I grew up in a very predominantly white area, which is I feel like a lot of people can see that. But it’s even nicknamed, like, oh, the white lens, because there’s just so many. And so naturally going to school, I went to pw eyes, where I stood out like a sore thumb, I have this core memory of just being on the playground. And I’m singing in Vietnamese. And I just remember so distinctly a mental image in my head of this girl just staring at me with the most confused expression. And one of my biggest regrets from these PW eyes is that before I started kindergarten, I actually knew Vietnamese really well. And I feel like I a lot of other people can connect where the second they started school, they started to lose their ability to speak Vietnamese. And that’s a big regret that I have. Because now there’s a big language barrier between people like my grandma or my grandma’s generation, I lost that. Just being in the area that I grew up when. And later on in high school, I was an International Baccalaureate student. And I like to emphasize the international aspect of that. I attended a conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. And that’s kind of when my whole worldview really changed a lot. I interacted with people from different countries. And I realized that even though I was Asian, I couldn’t connect with the Asian Asians, I kind of reflected on myself. And I knew that there was more I wanted to do, I wanted to increase my worldview even more and connect with people. And we’re so lucky to have technology in this current day because we have the technology to be able to do that. So fast forward to college. Many students, I’d say experienced this cultural awakening or rather reawakening when they’re later surrounded by their peers. And all of a sudden, liking movies like Spirited Away isn’t something that’s so unique, and so exotic that people are really surprised by or curious about, because everyone already knows it. And so it’s now a point where being that token Asian kid is no longer the main part of your identity. I remember just flipping through my brother’s yearbook from high school or even middle school. And there’s so many comments within the signature saying like, Oh, you’re the agent kid, or signed off as the other agent.
JN 5:00 So, you can tell that as middle schoolers and high schoolers, they always joke about like, being the only Asian kid, or I know you because you’re the only Asian kid in this whole institution. So it’s interesting to see how people grow when they hit college because they meet peers. And they’re no longer the token one, because everyone’s the token nation. And they can all connect on that. I think it’s really cute, how sometimes going to a lecture hall, it’s really intimidating. And so what I find is, a lot of my classmates, and I will go and be like, Okay, let’s look for pretty Asian girl, or anyone who’s Asian, and then that’s who you choose to sit next to. And that’s how you start forming your bonds. And this is just when you feel like you’re finally being embraced for your culture. And you don’t have to adopt any type of behavior or sense of humor, you can just exist freely. So later on, during college, I decided to start work study, I was looking for a job and I went to the Center for identity and inclusion was previously known as educational opportunity programs that my brothers happen to work at. So I already knew the supervisor, and I asked for a job I applied, I interviewed and went through. And this essentially opened various opportunities for me to grow and be exposed to higher education, which I think that’s a very beneficial thing that not a lot of students have provided to them. And it developed so much to the part where I met a lot of really important people on my campus, like the chancellor in this CU Denver president at this in a PD celebration, because UC Denver is now designated as one of the first and appeases in the Rocky Mountain region. So it was great. I spoke as a student representative, and I honestly could not do that without my position at CIA. So I’m very thankful for that. And that’s where I am today. It gave me the exposure that I needed to be more culturally aware. And I’m just continuing to grow that skill. Okay, so firstly, there was so many, like a couple of things, you said that I was, I was immediately like, connecting to, like, when you said, like, connecting with the Asian Asians. I was like, oh, yeah, I can feel that because I also understood from, you know, I spoke fluent Vietnamese, when I was really young. And once I started school, it all kind of just faded away, although I loved the schools that I attended. But that was it was kind of interesting. And I was often just mistaken to be Chinese, you know, so that was something that I experienced, but then connecting with the Asian Asians, and I kind of could see myself and connect myself with like, the growth of your identity development going through the different stages of school, because school is like such a big part of your life when you’re younger and growing, and then getting to college. And I feel like there’s this like weird, not even weird, but this interesting sense of belonging that happens in colleges, I don’t know if it’s just because there’s so many people, so. But anyway, I just wanted to thank you for sharing all of that, because I feel like and I think that a couple listeners who are also Asian American would probably be listening in. And relating to some of the things that you said, I speak broken Vietnamese, it’s like we Vienna English with my grandparents. And I’m the only one who does that. My other brothers, they moved to Hong Kong, because I’m also Chinese, with my dad, when he got a job opportunity over there. And so I’m, I speak the most Vietnamese even though it’s broken, and then they speak more Chinese than I do. So it’s really interesting to be in these places that like, we are thought to be able to speak the language fully and fluently, but we don’t. And then you’re like, I’m like, Okay, how do I navigate this? Like, you know, because I, I don’t want to tell this person, my whole backstory, and then be told, like, oh, well, you should have learned both languages, you know. So just like one of those things that I’m like, immediately thinking about also Studio Ghibli, like Princess Mononoke, a Princess Mononoke, and Nausicaa. Those were my, like, role models to me, you know. So yeah, I totally get that. What a great start to our topic today, which is about internalized racism, and how it shows up for the Asian community. And just wanted to say to our listeners, again, as a reminder, we are operating within the realms of just these two perspectives here we have today. And it’s also a reminder is that internalized racism, and also the Asian American experience is very different for each individual person. So just a reminder not to fully generalize, like what we share here to all the Asian American experience, because that’s very easy to do. And I recognize that, but yeah, this is just what how these two individuals in this conversation experience it. So just wanted to give that little disclaimer before we head in. And let’s go ahead and dive in. Let’s start with definitions. I think it would be good to first review different types of racism. And so can you Jazlyn quickly define a few different types of racism that you feel are relevant to understand for today’s conversation. So I’d like to break it into two categories and then furthermore, into two subcategories. So the first one is external versus internal.
Unknown Speaker 10:00 with external happens to be more on people not within the API community. And that’s just people who aren’t involved with it or don’t really know, or culture. And then there’s internal, who are people within the API community who know how it’s like to live as an API individual. And then there’s also implicit, which is more unconscious, where this can leak from us, like micro aggressions, or just ignorance. It’s not something where you’re like, I openly hate this group. It’s just things like stereotypes, smaller things. And then there’s explicit, which is like, the far for other end, where people were just openly hating. And I really hope that you don’t confront or have to come across explicit racism. Yeah, definitely great to start us off with. And it’s interesting, just hearing you through those immediately, some of my own lived experiences came to my mind, as well. So I’m excited to see what we’re going to share today. And today’s conversation. So I did want to go back to internalized racism. And this is such, again, an interesting and complex topic. So I wanted to ask, when there was an early moment that maybe you witnessed internalized racism occur. And what were your immediate thoughts then? And what are they now within the Asian community, I’ve seen a lot of different stereotypes. And we see it early, but really, for me is just going to college and seeing how people interact and get this cultural reawakening. And the types of stereotypes that I’ve observed are ABGs, or abps, which are Asian baby girls or boys. And this used to have a gang affiliation. But now it just has to do with a lot of physical appearance. So it’s like dyed hair, tattoos, piercings. And that’s its own stereotype of people having all sorts of positive and negative outlooks. But there’s also the other side where there’s fogs are fresh off the boats. And within college, there’s, of course, your international students, which is kind of the first time anyone has interacted with foreigners. And they sometimes accidentally push these stereotypes onto them without even knowing and that’s more on the unconscious part. So I’ve seen those. And even within these different types of Asian there’s hierarchies, and it’s even mentioned in demystifying and addressing internalized racism and oppression among Asian Americans by waiting on. He mentions how there’s different subcategories where there’s superiority and inferiority and there’s hierarchy and breaking down the hierarchy. There’s Asians who subcategorize, where there’s East Asians, South East Asians and South Asians, and East Asians are kind of held to the stereotype of more luxury. And then for Southeast Asians, I’ve heard slang words. They’re called like the jungle Asians. And then lastly, there’s South Asians, which are often forgotten about or not even considered part of the AAPI community. So there’s a lot of different types of subgroups that cause internalized racism. And that’s what I’ve observed so far, just within college alone.
JM 13:22 Hello, listeners, time for a quick break to give your brain a quick rest. If you have not done so already, and would like to support our mission, please follow our podcast, leave a review, or share this episode with someone you think would enjoy it. Thank you so much for listening in. And let’s get back to the conversation.
JM 13:44 Great answer I know that and this is just I feel like you’re just touching on the surface, right of there’s like all these layers, I feel like an East Asian experience. And I think also just like putting my two cents in, I think that there’s like something about like, the immigrant story, right, of coming from a collectivist society, and going to America, in this case that we’re talking about to have a better life. And then also with that they’re still bringing over those values that they like grew up with and the status and the beauty standards as well. Right? Like there’s a lot of beauty standards of like favoring like, lighter skin and so forth that you see a lot in like different types of media, as well that they’re like kind of connecting like lighter skin with wealth, right? Or doing certain behaviors as something that people who are higher status do. So that’s like a whole other thing. Like that’s something I think, I mean, for me, I’m like navigating in between continually, like I’d say more like in college for sure. I’m like, Oh, who am I? I’m not sure like, exactly. You’re always reflecting who you are. Yes, yes. And I’m always like, I don’t know how I want to be and I I’m like still figuring that out. But now I feel like a lot better about that. But all that aside, because you know, this isn’t necessarily a topic about to unveil every single
JN 15:00 Individual interaction, but more of like, Hey, this is like a starting point. And just to just for those who may not know, this is like what we can discuss. And even I’d say I witnessed personally, we’re talking about internalized racism, like, even internal racism between the different regions of Vietnam. I remember like coming across that and saying, like, Oh, they’re from Central. Yeah. Remember, like, oh, you’re a northerner, like, Why do you talk? Like? Yes, yes. And like, definitely the accent, right? Like the accent in Vietnamese, that is easy to tell, because some accents are more nasal. And then it’s like, associated with being not as wealthy again, here comes the status, right? So it’s just a very interesting thing, where there’s history behind it. And like, at my end, I feel like this history that I don’t fully understand sometimes, you know, and I’m like, Huh, I wonder why I have that. And then we have the stereotypes as well. So a lot of stuff that y’all can research and talk, or hopefully listen to this podcast as part of your research as well. But also, something I was listening to you about something that popped up in my mind is there’s a lot of joking as well, internally, that is, like muddled in with internal racism, right. So there’s like, a lot of joking. That’s like covering racism in a way, but it’s like, normalizing. It’s, I don’t know, it’s like a weird thing. And I hope, I hope that from today’s conversation, I will learn more. And it’s not only that, it’s like we’re being trained to think it’s funny, so even if you don’t initially find it funny, you’re kind of taught to just laugh along until you kind of believe like, okay, so I guess that is funny. Yeah. And it’s something that like, I’m still, like, I found myself like, oh, I had to unlearn that, you know, like, I had to unlearn. Like, that’s not cool to laugh about. And I’m somebody who laughs when I’m nervous. Me, too. That’s just my stress response in any any type of situation. Yeah, so I’m sorry, if you ever talk to me, and I’m laughing. And it sounds offensive. I’m sorry, but I’m not. I’m just nervous, usually. But yeah, a lot of stuff that I’m internalizing here as well. But I did want to ask, also, I’m gonna throw another layer here, which is the model minority. So with what we’ve discussed, like, what is your perception, on the model minority concept, I think there’s actually a spectrum of how it impacts Asian Americans. Some go along with it and kind of accept whatever jokes or pressures are involved, and they just keep pushing through. And others specifically squander their potential to not reinforced this myth. I know others who don’t put any effort into school, even if they are actually really smart, like I’ve talked to them, and they cannot study and still do really well on math exams. But they purposely don’t try because they don’t want to play into that model, minority myth. But I know if they tried, like, the grades would be even better than mine, because they’re already naturally just smart like that. And it comes with effort to really hone and build those skills. And with model minority, it’s like, you either kind of support it and be successful eventually, or the opposite end where you don’t want to play into it. And I genuinely want people to just be themselves and be authentic. Some people just aren’t naturally good at certain subjects. And I don’t think the model minority should impact how they perform. I think they should just try their best and their natural characteristics of what they’re good at, will come out. Yeah, that’s a really good reminder of literally just like, be yourself and listen to yourself and what you’re good at, and what you’re not. And that’s fine. You know, that’s, I love that. That’s great. That’s all a preach. I love that. I feel like my past self needed to hear that, you know, so Okay. Okay, bringing it to you, though, like how did you process through some, like, Asian stereotypes that you’ve witnessed maybe be attributed to yourself, and then also adding that perception of being a model minority, right, because that’s like navigating between these two layers, I mainly saw a lot of stereotyping between student organizations. Actually, when I first came to college, there were two main ones called Asian student association, and then the Vietnamese Student Association. And I kind of was perplexed by the difference between these two, because they’re both really big cultural clubs on campus that have high numbers of attendance. But I was kind of curious on how the two had a rivalry. So I essentially joined both executive boards to really observe the participants and make these comparisons in contrast to see why are they different? Why are they always fighting over who gets the first meeting of the month? And what I learned essentially, is they’re not that different. They cater to the same audience. At first, they had meetings just on the same day, and it was just a competition of who got the same or who got more attendance numbers. But I realized if these people could go to both they would. And so I thought, Where can I put change? Where can I have the position to instill change? And I find that
JN 20:00 With higher authority, you need that education. So you have to really choose your battles wisely and find who and what you want to spend your energy and time into in order to get that authority to make change. And that started with CI for me, because my supervisor was the overseer of the clubs. And I brought this conflict her, I told her, these two clubs have meetings on the same day. And I don’t want them to compete, because they cater to the same audience. And if they both collectively have more numbers that can secure more funding. And so she contacted all the clubs and said, Okay, no more having meetings on the same day. And that was just the first step of change. And although that was that, I still wanted to bridge the clubs even more. So when the following year came, I wanted even more authority. So I took a president of USA, and I wanted to be the club for all clubs, I want it to be the eboard that is friends with every other eboard of any cultural club. And the rivalry between ESA and VSA is still there, but it’s friendly. It’s me connecting with the other president and understanding the struggles of being a president and supporting each other through that. And that’s the kind of bridging I want to see. Because I also believe that rivalry is good, it can encourage growth, and just a little bit of competition can push you further to do better. But it doesn’t have to have any animosity towards it, you can just be side by side. And at the end of the day, we have to reflect on why we’re doing these cultural organizations. It’s to just support the AAPI community. It’s not necessarily competition. I love that. By the way, I did want to say that I really appreciate your quiet strategizing. And I say quiet not as a negative connotation. So I do want to say that, because I if you have not read the book, quiet, you should, because I could see that, how powerful and impactful your thought process was behind that. And to make change, and I loved it, I loved it. And you’re not saying like, Oh, here we are, blah, blah, but you’re just like, I saw that this needed to be done. So I’m going to do it. And this is how I’m gonna do it, you know. So I just, that was great. And with that I did want to bring to you because I feel like in preparation for today’s conversation, I could hear some internal goals that you had. So I have a two part question for you. Which is one, how do you feel like in that, overall, general doesn’t have to be to this situation we’re talking about, but that like internalized racism may reinforce some racism internally and or externally? And then like, what are your goals? Because I feel like with that situation, you’re shared with us, there are these goals that you have for interaction. So I wanted to hear what those are as well, I have a lot of goals, I always come up with different situations and what to do if something happens. So I’ve played through this so many times, especially before I became president of USA. And I once asked the previous president as like, why do we have this rivalry? Or why don’t we just share attendance numbers, he told me that they cater to a different audience of Asians than ASC does. And I didn’t really understand it, because I knew people that like go to both clubs, or appreciate both clubs. And I was like, I don’t think that’s quite the segregation that I want to promote here. I don’t want us to think that there is superiority between the clubs, or like, all the cool people go to this club, and all the like, other people will go to this club. I’m not saying that one club is cooler than the other. But I didn’t want that superiority and hierarchy thinking. So that was a big goal of mine. When I became president, I wanted VSA to be something where just if you want to come come, it doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter your background, you didn’t even have to be Vietnamese, or Asian, for that matter, I want you to come enjoy, learn about our culture. And that was just such a big goal of mine. Because previously, a lot of big clubs come up with the problem of having cliques or becoming Quickie, because naturally, in big groups, smaller groups were formed, and people were calling, I really just wanted people to have an excuse to branch out from those groups. And that was a goal of mine too. Furthermore, pass organizations, I wanted to just create the environment on campus, and just anywhere I go, I wanted to give people that sense of belonging where they could bring their authentic self to me and not be judged for anything, whether it has to do with race or sexuality or gender or any type of the matter. I wanted them to just be comfortable and not worry about being who they were. But instead just being it was a great answer. And I feel like I just I also appreciated what you said because given everything we’ve discussed so far, to land to this point where you know, to hear you say like, you know, I just want them to give them an excuse to intermingle basically, and or, and I don’t care if you’re Vietnamese
JN 25:00 Is there Asian or not like it just, I welcome you, and I want you to come and enjoy and enjoy culture, which is true, because like, I think that is something that we can have pride in as Asian Americans. I mean, at least I do wear, like, I do feel that my culture is very rich, and I love it, you know, and that is that it can exists, while this other part exists, where I’m really questioning, like, the interactions that I’m seeing within my culture and between my culture and other cultures, you know, so it’s just, we’re looking at this big thing. So yeah, all that to say, I appreciate your response. And I was like, Yes, I’m giving sparkle fingers. And like, I’m shy, too. So all about the excuse. Like, if I have a reason to talk to people, then I’ll try to embrace it. But if I pass someone in the hall, like, I’m too shy to just confront them. So I’m like, I’ll give people the excuse to just speak to others. In fact, we even have this exercise or this game that we played at our last meeting, when I told people I was like, go talk to someone who you think isn’t like you, because when else would you have the excuse to do so I love that. I do want to acknowledge you. Because you say you’re shy, you know, you have and also earlier, I was saying like you have this, like quiet strategizing that I enjoyed, you know, and I do want to recognize that you are also in a leadership position, you know, and you’re making change. So this is possible. So, just wanted to give more fire to that. Because as somebody who is a previous extrovert, I don’t even know I feel like, I feel like I wore the role of extrovert when I’m actually an introvert. I do like people and I do like engaging, but like maybe like 30% of the time. And then I like to go home and play video games. So yeah, but I’m gonna go ahead and switch gears slightly in this conversation. And I want us to start, like applying what we’re talking about today to like, external to the school situation, I guess. And like in the corporate space, I do think I’m really interested again to that and like that interactive space that we have at workplaces. But before that, I did want to just at least Lastly, touch on the internalized racism topic, which she talked about. And again, it’s a huge topic. It’s really complex. So this is like, you know, something that we won’t have time to fully unravel today. But lastly, I wanted to ask like how you feel internalized racism meets with like, oppression, like where do you feel like that connects today, keeping in mind this new scenario and situation we’re going to talk about moving forward. When the article I cited earlier, it states oppression as or estates, internal racism as a category of oppression, it’s to me hate blooming from hate. And within internalized racism. There’s this hinderance and I think it prevents us all from joining together and celebrating our blood and our history. Because it’s pitting us against each other, when in reality, we should be celebrating that we have something in common. Definitely I like that you mentioned like, you know, blood, I don’t really hear that a lot in like day to day conversations with other Asian Americans like the reference to blood. So I’m like, what kind of interesting, I love visuals with colors. Thank you for talking about this article. And I’ll go ahead and try to link that in the show notes as well. So with that, you started talking about this next piece, which is about belonging. So for you, how do you define belonging? And you talked about it again, a little bit, but just to give it the space it needs? How do you approach providing that space of belonging in your role, like, you know, what are some themes that you have in your mind, for me, belonging is going back to my previous points, just bringing your authentic self to a space and feeling accepted by others, regardless if they can relate or not, I think agreeing to disagree is such a big concept that others should pay more attention to. Because we don’t always have to come to a conclusion where we’re one side or the other, you can peacefully agree and exist in the same space. And to make that space, I really tried to just make people feel like they’re not judged. And to do that I show vulnerability on my own to show that I may have these qualifications in these leadership opportunities. But at the end of the day, I’m human too. If you’ve heard that saying, like, Everyone changes clothes the same, everyone takes off their sleeping clothes and puts on new clothes the same, we all put our head through it, stick our arms through. That’s just how we are we’re just human at the end of the day. So I have to show my weaknesses. So other people feel comfortable showing their weaknesses as to. And with vulnerability. Of course, you can show too much and that can also be detrimental. But there’s just an extent that you should show it to make people feel comfortable. And with that, once others also show you their vulnerable side you should show grace and humility. You shouldn’t condemn them or shame them for making any mistakes or anything that you disagree with. You should show them that what they did is it happened and what can we learn from it? Or if I don’t agree with something you did
JN 30:00 This is why I disagree. And then we can discuss if your opinion changes or not. It’s a very open communication way where I never want people to see my neurotic side, I don’t want them to see me be mad or sad over them being open to me, I would rather just appreciate them being open to me. And then if I do happen to get emotional, I’d rather reflect on it, think through it, and then come back to the conversation. And I think a lot of people have to practice this method, because they’re really quick to show their emotions and say something rash. My dad even says, when someone’s angry, their IQ goes down to single shoe size digits. And I totally agree with that. You can easily say the wrong things in a heated moment. But I would rather just say, okay, look, we’re both a little heated or angry right now, can we step away, like spend a day on it, and then come back and just talk, because I’m someone who doesn’t function properly. If there’s yelling, I get really emotional, and it puts me into like, fight or fight side, rather, really just give it a little bit of space. And then just talk, I love how you brought it back to just like, maybe those heated moments in interaction of like, okay, this is a reminder that these are really easy, like things that will not easy, but these are like tangible things that we can do to slow down sometimes. And I can see, in some instances that I’ve had like that, that could be useful there. Okay, so this next part is for any Asian Americans who are listening right now, what would be three overall takeaways that you’d like to give them? Considering the topics we’ve discussed, because we’ve talked about a lot in internalized racism and model minority and, and those types of interactions, I’d say a big takeaway that I’d like anyone to take is to choose your battles carefully, where sometimes your impact also depends on who you choose to invest your energy into, you can argue and advocate for something as much as you can. But if it’s not the right audience, who’s not perceptive to what you’re going to say, it’s not going to make an impact. And so I say within a day, we have a finite amount of energy. And efficiency is really investing that into something that will make a lasting impact, that will bring you back to the next day to do it. Again, I don’t ever want to put in a ton of effort into something only to get a little bit of output. Like that’s the most demotivating thing out there. So I pick my battles carefully, I find things that I can invest my time and energy into, that will have the outcomes to motivate me to keep going. The next one, I’d say to notice more. Notice who’s talking. After all, we have two ears and one mouth. So I try to listen more than I talk. And just observe. I think a lot of us are quick to express opinions. But I’d rather just observe before I make my opinion and take aside, I want to know, multiple perspectives. And all of that is just being curious, and noticing things. Notice who’s making comments, who’s making jokes, who’s laughing, to just observe how people interact with each other, and find the parts I like and what I don’t like. The last one is to show humility. I feel like I’ve been preaching about this whole time to focus on takeaways, rather than the bad things, and give people forgiveness because everyone’s human at the end of the day. And I think when we’re going through a hard time, that’s when we grow the most. So we grow the most by showing humility as well. Because we can take our experience learning from it, but other also other people and learn from it. And that’s what I try to focus on, when I have a really mentally taxing day. I say, even though I’m really tired, what can I learn from this, or it motivates me to get through hard times, because I know that there is an other, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel that I can look at and know that once I get through this hard time, I’m going to not only be more thankful for the positivity that comes after it, but also for the lessons in the character development that happened out of it. So yeah, choose your battles carefully notice more, and show humility. Love it, the character development. I love that part too. Okay, I’m gonna segue into leadership now, because I do think, you know, obviously, representation is spoken a lot about in the leadership level in organizations and different areas. So I wanted to bring that into this conversation and ask from your perspective, like, what obstacles do you think may affect the development of Asian Americans into leadership positions? So I’m not just talking about like the hiring process. I’m thinking about like the internal development process. There’s definitely stereotypes within Asian employees that I’ve seen. It’s where Asians are
JN 35:00 always seen as quiet. Like, there’s two different types of quiet. There’s like shy and quiet. And like you’ll get your work done, you won’t put up a fight anything that’s given to you. And then there’s like stoic, quiet, where you don’t talk that often. But when you do, it’s like scary and like important, but nonetheless quiet. And I was kind of dissecting it. And then like, why is that? Why are agents quiet. And it just boils down to how we communicate how we’re contextual people. And so it’s a lot of things between the lines. And I think this kind of hinders the equity within a company, because voices aren’t effectively being heard. If you’re not from the culture, you don’t know how to properly read contextual things. And so you take things at face value. And it’s no one’s fault in particularly is on both parties. It’s not knowing the culture, but also not knowing how to communicate in a way where others can understand you. And I think that’s a big reason why agents don’t get what they actually want. And they can’t fully express it without fearing that they’re being impolite or being rejected. I think there’s this big standard of excellence that’s pressured on to a lot of us as kids. And so a lot of us have that fear of failure or fear of being rejected. So it’s harder to communicate and express ourselves, which a lot of people don’t see that struggle, they just see a quiet person. Yeah, there was a lot there that I personally vibed with also, because, yeah, the standard of excellence. Yeah, and I could feel that in my past experiences working how, like, I felt like really good when I met those standards of excellence, but then I was also still managing through the communication challenges, because for me, if I see something once clearly, that’s very loud to me, you know, so I feel like that was a lot of energy for me. But I’m like, okay, that felt good. That’s enough. But then, you know, there are other types of cultures that they need more direct communication. So it’s like, you know, kind of learning how to interconnect and communicate in this multicultural environment. You know, just so interesting to consider to the steps. And I know, we talked about communication differences prior to this conversation. And both of our experiences with that. So I did want to ask, like, you know, for you on your end, and by the way, I do want to, like, again, remind everybody that these communication differences we’re talking about do not apply to all Asians. So I wanted to say that as well. So it’s not something that’s like, go out there and ask the agent that, you know, like, what communication preferences they have, okay, this is just hopefully this is us, like willingly sharing our experiences, and you take what you think is applicable and use your best judgment listeners, so, but for you on your end, Jazlyn, like, how do you think you communicate differently? And with that, like, how does that rub with feeling what you are, how are you are expected to communicate in the workplace, I have a very positive way of communicating. Like, sometimes if I send emails, I get scared, I’m like, can I use too many exclamation points. It’s just because I’m genuinely, that’s the tone in my head, I want to be excited to talk to people, I want people to read my message, as if like, I’m excited to work with them. It’s not something that’s taxing or a chore. And sometimes that comes up as me being like very passive, or too forgiving, too empathetic. And it easily becomes a point where I can be taken advantage of, which is something that I’ve been working on a lot, I’ve been trying to self emphasize, to further get my points across. And that’s something that I want to grow in where I’m expected to be the lead, and get things done that need to be done. But because I speak so like positively and casually, sometimes, it’s hard to communicate when things are going wrong. So in speaking to mentors, I’ve been looking at trainings on how to be more effective with my communication, but also remain this casual tone, because I want people to feel comfortable with me, but not to the point where they’re saying, I’m just not going to do this because like, she’s gonna forgive me anyways. Or she’ll just do it herself. I don’t want to enable that anymore. That was good at you know, brought up to my mind. Like, I wanted to ask you as well as like, do you feel like there is a change going on? Or it should be? Should we be reframing some perceptions we have of what, what we think when we think of the leader archetype, you know, like when we think of like the leader character and the archetype, I feel like in our heads, we all maybe have a different person. But, like, for me, that’s something that I realized, changed later. And I’m curious to hear like how that has changed for you or how you think we should, like approach that archetype differently. I definitely think that it’s changing or it should be changed. I’ve been through so many trainings where a good leader has been redefined over and over again. And at the end of the day, a leader is just someone who checks in on the whole team and oversees it. This can really just cater to being adaptable, because I’ve heard that extroverts are the best leaders
JN 40:00 But what happens when you’re an extrovert? Who’s leading a bunch of introverts? How are you going to connect with them, you need to have that flexibility and adaptability to just know your team. I spoke with my mentor, her name’s Christina Wofford. She’s the CFO of absolute performance. And she helped me a lot with this actually on how to be more assertive, but also how to lead people properly and give them feedback. And through, I’ve learned that there is no one definition of a perfect leader. It’s just someone who knows how to be a chameleon, and connect with just anyone, so that they can effectively communicate of what needs to get done, how it needs to get done, and they know who to go to, to get it done. Yeah, definitely, I just think this is such an interesting topic that I’m pretty sure each person experiences it differently based on their identity. And again, this is something that I think does have an effect on who we see could be developed through internal means into leadership positions. And I feel like it’s one of those things that I’m continually thinking about of like, okay, if I let me like, question how I’m seeing this person and their potential, right, and that’s what I really appreciated about hearing from you is, like I could hear even though you don’t speak louder, like I can hear exactly what you’re trying to say in the impact that you’re trying to say, you know, and I think that we need to give more merit to that, personally, I feel like, you know, side note is I feel like there’s perhaps like a generational change happening as well, that’s adding to that type of perception of like, recognizing the value in different people in different ways. So, so that was a great response. I’m gonna like, stop going down my tangent. But I wanted to ask, I know you gave, like takeaways for Asian Americans. So I wanted to ask if you have three tips that you’d give to hiring managers or leaders to consider when they’re looking at promoting equitably in their organizations, I’d like to go back to my exercise, I like to encourage intermingling with those who are unlike with my mentor, she told me that everyone has a common ground, and you really just have to find it. And like I said, I like to give people that excuse to intermingle, you may see someone who’s super intimidating, but at the end of the day, that’s just their face. And I want people to have a reason to outreach to network, because sometimes we just need a little push, I know as a shy person that like, I need that push. And I think just encouraging that is so important. You can also just normalize this open communication, by setting an example of what it should look like. I think it’s a lot of social anxiety that I’ve experienced, where I want to say hi to people, because I know who they are. But I’m not sure if they know who I am. So I won’t say anything. But I think if it’s exhibited, where oh, it’s normal to go to people and be like, Oh, my gosh, I know you from so and so and so and not really worry about what they think of you and just kind of normalize people saying things like that, that’s a big way of how people can feel comfortable, like they belong. And when you create the environment, it promotes equity, because people can fully express their needs. And then lastly, I’d say to just be self aware, and when I say self aware, I mean not only yourself, but a company can be an entity that can be self aware as well. I’ve seen people even assign like a devil’s advocate during meetings, where there’s just someone who’s constantly questioning and double checking everything saying like, do we really like this? Or Is that really okay? Really doubting everything, and to input that time to reflect on a group to have a specific, dedicated time for people to just consider their actions, consider how they interact with others, because you can tell people to reflect, but if you make a dedicated time, they’re more likely to actually do it. And within so many companies, I know that they have trainings to be equitable trainings against racism, against sexism, but they take the training, and that’s it. There’s no further reinforcements. So I think a lot of it just has to do with putting in the training and reinforcing it. Say, Okay, you took this training, and you’re certified. But let’s continue that, let’s make sure that you’re actually doing what you learned. Great points. This next question I have for you, is a kind of abstract one. So you decide how you want to answer it. But I’m really curious to hear your response because we basically have been talking about this and I’m really interested, because I enjoyed what you talked about with you wanting to make change. So considering what we’ve talked about with internalized racism, the model minority and you know, just communication differences culturally, what do you feel like attributes to successful interactions that are like still having pride in culture, but also not being exclusionary? Right and encouraging that type of intermingling between cultures and in in multicultural environments? And what do you feel like has attributed to those types of successful interactions on your end and
JN 45:00 add on another person’s end online, I’d say it’s a big means of communication where if you provide a space for people to talk, they will talk, I don’t want an office space where we’re all just expected to, to do our work, and then have like a little break and keep going. I want specific spaces and times to be able to communicate or even like a platform. Like, if we all use teams, it’s all usually work stuff. But we can also just talk casually, or make meetings to just catch up. I think, with that you get to know people. And I’ve learned that as a leader, you have your in group and your our group, which is the in group is people you are naturally closer with because you’re more characteristically like them. And then the out group is people that you oversee, but you don’t necessarily know them on a more personal level. But if we facilitate movement from the out group to the in group, and really get to know our team, you know, their needs and what they’re good at. And that’s what makes it so successful with communication is that when you make it more personal, people are more likely to express things, they want to do things they want to get better at, they’re more receptive to constructive criticism overall. And that’s just what’s been really successful for me, especially if I check on individuals like one at a time, because I know that there’s also a lot of parts where people will just agree to whatever the group saying, but I want to make sure that a lot of people are being heard. Even the smallest voice, I want to make sure is being heard. And when it comes to companies, it’s really hard, especially if they’re big companies, because how are you as a CEO going to trickle down and us, the people at the way bottom, like what they think, but there can always be effort. A lot of times, for me, trying your best is good enough. I know that we all were raised with this excellence standard. But trying your best should be enough. And I don’t want to ever be too intimidated by the numbers by how many people you’re overseeing. You just have to try. And then slowly, you’ll get the ball rolling. And all of a sudden, you’re just not that scary of a leader. You’re just someone who checks in with people. And someone might not know you personally, because they’re intimidated. But once they hear like, like I said, you can make the system work for you. With the rumor mill means detrimental, but you can also change it. So that good is spread say, Oh, the president of VSA. I don’t know her that personally, but like I want to get to know her, or I know that she talks to other people really casually. So probably next time I see her, I could also say hi like that, I just want to make that open communication, I want to remove the hierarchy. Like even if I’m technically a leader, that doesn’t give me a sense of superiority. It just gives me a different sense of responsibility. Letting that breeze is a good one as well. Yeah, and I feel like this the last question I have for you, I feel like you just answered. So. But if there’s any last points you wanted to add, but that was a great response. My last question for you is what defines an inclusive workplace culture to you? So that’s why I thought that you kind of answered that. But if there’s anything else you’d like to add, for that one, feel free, I’ll give you a definitive answer. For me, it’s just one that supports growth and embraces change. It’s one that knows that time changes. And as soon as one thing is defined, it can be redefined later on. It’s like a theory. Theories can also always be improved upon and be disproven or changed. I want a workplace that provides trainings and reinforcements so that others have this sense of belonging where they feel seen, they feel heard. And I just want an environment that you can speak your mind and just not be judged. I was talking to someone who’s on a board, actually. And they talked about how they are a women’s group, they also have a conservative man on the board, to know all the opinions. Like I said, you need to really assess all the perspectives before you make your opinion. And it has to be perspectives that you greatly disagree with even you need to really know your whole group. And like I was never want to be I don’t like arguing. But it’s imperative. Within a debate, you have to know your other side to best argue and advocate for your side. And that’s just a workplace culture that I want. I want one where you can live in harmony within your differences. And you can celebrate not only your similarities, but your differences. So you can see as an opportunity to just expand your horizons and to grow, gain more perspectives. And you shouldn’t be pressured to believe anything that you don’t want to believe. You just exist. You should have like write a book or something. I don’t know where this this laziness is coming from. I feel like I’m like 90 right now.
JM 49:54 I’m just like, Yeah, let’s make a poem book of all of that. That’d be great. Let’s make them into Meditations.
JN 49:59 But um, yeah, no, I really, I really enjoyed the like what you said about like, living in harmony within your differences and like not feeling pressured to believe something you don’t want to believe. And just existing. I’m just gonna let that sink in. Like, it’s just such a great concept to consider. I know it’s more on the mental side, but like, you know, that’s maybe just the start. It’s definitely easier said than done. Like, there’s so much conflict within there. But I just want to base decisions off of that. Yeah, that’s a great, no, I mean, I there’s a lot of values that you can break down from that. You know, that’s a lot. It’s you’re giving, you’re giving me something really good to continue to ponder after this conversation. So thank you so much for that. That was really good. Again, you should just write a book or something. I already decided my future self is going to write something. I don’t know. We’ll see. But yeah, maybe you will to your future self. Well, maybe I don’t know or figure out some other medium that brings you joy and passion. That’s great. I love that. All right. It’s time to close our conversation. But I just want to say thank you so much for being here. And just lending us your perspective. It’s been really, really valuable to today’s conversation. So thanks again for coming here. Of course, thank you so much for having me. And thank you for all you do. You have no idea the impact you have on others.
JM 51:13 Thank you for joining us today. As we continue to explore how we can enable diversity at work, follow us and get notified of our latest episodes. Also, we want to hear from you. Please like rate and review us on your podcast app or wherever you’re listening in. If you want to contact us, please visit diverseek.com – that is d i v e r s e e k.com. This episode was produced by Madhu Nair, edited by Cansin Dalak, researched by JM, music composed by Nicholas Lang and our production team includes Keisha Williams, Prashant Balbar and Maria Querina. I am your host JM and you have been listening to DIVERSEEK.
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