BIAS AGAINST ASIAN INDIANS IN USA - A SURVEY BASED WHITE PAPER

By most accounts and given the high positions some of them occupy, the story of Asian Indians in the US is  a success story in America, and the US can indeed showcase its Asian Indians proudly as an example of how openly USA embraces diversity.  On their part, Asian Indians in the US have much to be thankful for as well.  But how well are they accepted in mainstream America ?  Are they subjects of any bias, or do they sense bias agains them?  We wanted to find out.  Ours may be the first such attempt through a survey.

SUMMARY:  An anonymous internet survey using SurveyMonkey was conducted by data scientists Drs. Vaidyanathan & Soundaram Ramaswami. Over the period 2/14/15 to 2/20/15, it yielded a sample of 99 valid cases.  The sample, though not representative of all Asian Indians in the USA, is still interesting in that most of its participants are college educated Asian Indians who are citizens of the USA.  The group had an adequate representation of both genders.  It was obtained through postings on three major social networks and direct mailings to several hundred contacts in the Asian Indian community.  Given these and the fact that response rate was low, there is no reason to suspect any systematic bias in the way respondents were generated. Data show that a non-negligible percentage of participants encountered incidents of "discrimination" in 2014, and that an overwhelming majority of them considered Asian Indians in the USA as being subjected to "discrimination". The term discrimination was deliberately left undefined so as to give latitude to the respondent to include any act they consider as such.   That, however, limits our ability to assess if reported instances of "discrimination" are properly classified as such by the respondents.   In spite of this limitation, one irrefutable conclusion that comes out of the survey is that bias against Asian Indians in the US is certainly  a serious topic for research especially given that our sample comprises mostly of college educated Indians who are US citizens, and even they feel "discriminated."  It appears entirely fair to ask:  Is this the tip of an iceberg? Would the results be a lot worse if one were to get a set of representatives from other sub-groups with less education, income, English Proficiency etc.? Here are some highlights.  A pdf copy of a detailed paper can be obtained by sending an email to vramaswami@gmail.com with subject line SURVEY REPORT.

STUDY SCOPE & LIMITATIONS:  Be careful in drawing definitive conclusions from this study, and do not quote its results selectively. The inferences here are preliminary and need to be re-examined with a larger study .  Such a study should be with a representative sample which involves collection of national level data and the inclusion of many additional variables like income, English proficiency, and geographic information.  Also, clear definitions of bias and discrimination should accompany any future survey.  It is also preferable to ask the participants if any of a  specific list of problems were encountered so that difficulty in interpreting results is minimized.  Survey results should also be corroborated by interviews, case studies, and the like.  None of this was possible in this modest pilot which, to the best of our knowledge, is the first of its kind.  This survey was intended for the main purpose of determining if there is even a need for a larger study and to obtain a list of important questions to pursue.  To that extent, it has certainly proved its value.  We hope some researchers in US and Indian universities will embark on a more detailed research.

PARTICIPANT PROFILE: Total 99 valid responses; Males 53; Females 46; US Citizen 87; Permanent Resident 7.  Four  (4) under 25; 55 in the age group 26-55; 40 above 55.  Ninety six (96) college educated.  Thus, the sample comprises predominantly of college educated Asian Indians who are citizens of the US with a fairly even gender distribution.  It has also given adequate counts in  age groups 26-55 and Over-55.  

ANALYSIS OF DATA/A BIRD'S OVERVIEW:

Experience of Discrimination in 2014: Claimed to be incurred by 24 of the 99 respondents, of whom 22 are citizens, all are above age 25, and college educated.  A 95% confidence interval based on the data would indicate that anywhere from 17% to 35% of Asian Indians (of the type studied) may have had at least one  incident in 2014 that they would call an act of discrimination.  Questions for a future study: Would these statistics still hold if discrimination and bias are clearly differentiated, and participants are asked to choose from specific lists of acts falling in the two categories? Would the number alleging discrimination or bias be much larger if the survey were to become more representative of all Asian Indians in the USA and included others like those who may not have adequate English proficiency or the level of income one would expect for the sample profile we have?

Sources of Bias in 2014: The 38 responses received in the survey (note that a person could have become subject to more than one event) broke up as follows by source: Police (9), Boss/Employer (11), Other (18).  Treating these 38 as a random sample, among bias incidents that happen to Asian Indians of the type studied, an estimated fraction (based on a 95% confidence interval) of 11% to 40% happen at the hands of police. Question: Is this high value a result of discrimination not being defined and a matter more of perception than reality ? Or can the real situation be worse if the survey were to include less educated Asian Indians than those represented by the sample?  Similar comments hold for other sources of bias as well.  We need a much larger survey to confirm or refute the estimates given here and to make generalizations to all Asian Indians.  Given the profile of the sample, and since managing perceptions is also important, the results cannot be totally brushed aside, but need to be followed up with a deeper examination.

Are Asian Indians discriminated in the USA? About 75% of both males and females assert that there is "discrimination" in the USA against Asian Indians.   Similar caveats as stated in the previous paragraphs hold.   The high percentage (75%) of those under 25 who assert the presence of discrimination  deserves highlighting since we hold the hope that those born in the US and growing up with their peers in the US will not be subject to as much bias as the older generation of mostly first generation adult immigrants.  But we have only a sample of size 4 from this subgroup.  Again, a much larger study is needed for the reasons stated above.  Age specific bias perceptions is an important topic for a future study.  A pertinent variable in this context may also be the number of years the participant has been in the US.

Are Asian Indians Doing Enough? 74% of all survey participants, and 91% of those who would not assert that there is no discrimination, consider that the Asian Indian community in the US is not doing enough to prevent discrimination of its members.  An exploration should be made into what inhibits the Asian Indian community from actively participating in efforts to curb bias against their community ?

Ability to Stop Discrimination: 80% of even those who would not affirm the absence of discrimination feel that they have the ability to stop discrimination against their community.  We find this reassuring of the confidence of the community, and indirectly also their faith in the US.  Does this hold at large, or only among the types of Asian Indians represented in this study ?

BOTTOM LINE:   A non-negligible fraction of Asian Indians surveyed believe they have suffered "discrimination" in the year 2014, and a  majority consider themselves as being "discriminated."  But at this time, we do not know what each one understood by the term "Discrimination."  Suppose that instead of being given such an open ended question without clear definitions of the terms, participants are given a specific list of discriminative or bias related acts to choose from.  Then would statistics similar to those in this survey continue to hold, improve, or get worse ? We do not know. Nevertheless, the fact that most participants are college educated US citizens makes many of the findings particularly important in that they belong to a group most of whose members have done well in the US professionally and financially, and one would expect them to think that they are not discriminated.   It also raises the more troublesome question whether the numbers would be even more inflated if a more representative sample of Asian Indians were to be considered.   What is really the source of the angst and how pervasive is it ?  Those deserve an in-depth study.  The real contribution of this survey is that it firmly confirms the need for a national study and has helped to identify a set of important questions to explore.

INVESTIGATORS:  Dr. V. Ramaswami has a Masters in Statistics and Ph.D. in O.R.  As a researcher in probability he recently retired from AT&T Research and was previously Chief Scientist at Bellcore.  Dr. S.  Ramaswami is a faculty member at the Educational Leadership department of Kean University teaching Research Methodology & Statistics to doctoral students.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT:  We thank all the participants and SurveyMonkey.

DISCLAIMER:  This is a strictly private effort.  No comments of any sort should be attributed to employers or groups the authors are affiliated with.

INQUIRIES: For comments or inquiries, contact vramaswami@gmail.com

WHITE PAPER: Obtain a 19 page White Paper with references, many data tables, and analysis by sending a request to vramaswami@gmail.com with subject line SURVEY REPORT. The report should be useful particularly for sociology faculty and students looking for important topics for research.

OTHER RELATED BLOGS:

http://veeraam.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-terrible-apathy-of-indian-in-america.html

http://veeraam.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-burden-of-asian-indian-ethnicity-in_21.html

THE BURDEN OF ASIAN INDIAN ETHNICITY IN AMERICAN CORPORATIONS

This is an edited version of my article that was published in the  Divesity Newsletter of my company  and also in some ethnic Indian newspapers a few years ago.  The present set of news items on violence against Asian Indians in the USA has drawn focus on certain acts of overt discrimination against them.  Lost in the noise, however, may be the subtle bias many suffer on a day to day basis which is the subject of this article.  Much as some new age corporations  (wonder why talent flees to these?) and even the U.S. federal government seem to have moved on to a new paradigm embracing diversity honestly, it is fair to say that classic corporate America has remained stagnant in this arena paying only lip service to diversity.  The anecdotes are based on real life stories although some names have been altered to protect the identity of certain individuals.  In Part 2, we will discuss how the Asian employee may deal with bias. 

 

In the mid Seventies, working a summer job as a door-to-door book salesman in rural and suburban Georgia, I sometimes became the recipient of an unsolicited advice  that went something like, "Son, them people are colored; they don't need no books."  Sometimes a stronger term emphasizing African descent replaced the more sophisticated epithet "colored" in describing the neighbor I was advised to pass, and irked me even more.  For us,  Indian students who had sought this unusual employment to augment our graduate fellowships, these were indeed our war stories. We indulged in protracted discussions about race relations, typical of some Indian living rooms even today, displaying all the way from intellectual snobbery - "How come, these idiots don't even know that white is a color too?" - to unabashed opportunism - "Hey, at least he didn't call you that and did buy from you, right?"  Not all were cynical, of course. One of us had even ventured to show outrage once by saying, "You sure love them, don't you?" only to get a prompt repartee, "Sure son, I love 'em. I sure love 'em.  Would love to own a couple of 'em."

  What is described above is blatant racism and bigotry in its ugly form that is easily recognized and unequivocally condemned by all decent people.   We have come a long way since the mid Seventies, and I doubt if even in rural Georgia such things as described above occur, at least with the frequency with which they did long ago.  Across America, the power of the railway track, highway, or creek to cruelly divide towns into racial subcultures is suffering a slow but sure decay.  Along with those sweeping social changes, the work place of the white collar Indian or Indian American has also become increasingly characterized by policies that do not tolerate discrimination. In the rare occasions when  failure does occur to implement corporate policy or the mandate of law, recourse is available in several forms both within one's corporation and within the legal system [although the latter gets steadily abridged by the USC].  This two part article is thus not about discrimination as defined in legal texts or as arouses mass protests, but about the subtle ways in which one's ethnicity affects one's work life and, more importantly, some thoughts on dealing with it.

The Faces of Bias

Lest one should doubt the existence of a subtle ethnic bias in Corporate America, let us begin by considering some real life stories.

A Rose is a Rose ...?

 Soon after joining an employer, I was asked by a colleague and former acquaintance, let's call him Tom, who the head of my  new department was.  The name, Raj Devaprakasam, was predictably unpronounceable to Tom, but his spontaneous reaction, "Whatever happened to the Americans?" was a total shock to me, given especially that Tom is a strong believer in the virtue of immigration as a catalyst for U.S. economic and scientific growth.  

The story above exemplifies a peculiar position the employee of Indian (and similar other Asian) origin finds himself repeatedly.  As of this moment, I do not yet know if Dr. Devaprakasam is or is not American, in the legal sense of being a U.S. citizen.  And if he indeed were a U.S. citizen, then what would make him less of an American than the many other types of Americans that we run into in our day-to-day lives who would not invite such a question?  Indeed, when I recently hired an American of Indian origin, I had to consciously correct colleagues who kept referring to him as the Indian who had  been hired recently, or more particularly those offering 'innocent' jibes, "The Indians are takin' over."  The common and unchallenged tendency to see a colleague of Asian origin as nothing other than "Indian", "Chinese", etc., and the inability to ponder over the possibility that he or she may well be an American are  irrefutable realities of corporate life in America.  To me, this attitude is as absurd as considering everyone wearing a yarmulke an Israeli or everyone speaking English a Britisher. Yet, it represents the mind set of even some of the most fair and intelligent among us as my friend Tom.  If Tom had to decide on the promotion of an Asian American, could he bring himself to act in his favor, or would he be searching for his brand of American?  I cannot help wonder!

Guilt by Association?

One may debate whether Tom's remark is indicative of  a subconscious bias or is just an inadvertent gaffe.  But, consider the following true story.

Anand is asked by two of his superiors to take into his group, temporarily for evaluation, an Oriental woman whose performance  ability, to them, is suspect. Instead of giving the employee a fair opportunity to be evaluated independently by Anand, Anand is, however, told that the employee may have been overrated by her own supervisor "whose objectivity could have been affected by the fact that the supervisor is also an Oriental woman. " Had this suggestion not come from two managers whom Anand genuinely respects for their demonstrated track record of promoting deserving minority employees and encouraging them actively in their career development, Anand would conclude right away that this is an instance of blatant bias and racism.   Yet, he finds it hard to accept that two bright, and more importantly otherwise upright, managers failed to recognize the unfairness of their innuendo, which had it been aimed at members of some other minority group would have immediately brought on them labels as racist, anti-Semite, etc.

Thanks to the efforts of NAACP, ADL and similar organizations, some communities are spared the indignities that one of Asian origin still has to bear. The success of these organizations and their efforts also underscore the important role ethnic organizations can play in creating the necessary sensitivities with respect to such issues.

By the way, the two Asian females of our story vindicated themselves subsequently with the subordinate moving on, under the same Asian, female supervisor, to earn an interim raise as a reward for quality service to customers beyond the call of duty.  That also helped to restore Anand's confidence in the two superiors, for, they had  to approve that raise.  But, the incident has left him often wondering if he, an Asian, enjoys the same trust from his superiors that his more fortunate colleagues can take for granted.

Not for the Store Front?

A recurrent complaint of Asian employees is that the pleasure of presenting the results of their hard work and innovation, be it a proposal or a final report, often goes to white colleagues even when the latter have contributed least to their development.  Their best subordinates, recruited, nurtured and developed by them, are sought after for work on key projects, but the projects themselves are assigned to other managers, white of course.  Instances also occur when such assignments are made without even consulting the immediate Asian supervisor.  When the latter protests on grounds of unfairness or points out the potential impact these actions could have on the morale of his group and his ability to lead and maintain the necessary chains of command, he or she is typically brushed away as overreacting and given a ton of advice on team work and co-operation, which, had it been applied in the first place to the erring raider, would not have become necessary for the victim.  The injury is sometimes also compounded by the insult of a condescending explanation that this is a "cultural" problem.

Generalizations and Stereotypes

Sometime ago, a wire line news story on the computer bulletin board, reported how a handful of fans of a movie-actor-turned-Chief-Minister in India had committed suicide upon his death.  Included was a gratuitous remark, "It is customary in India to self immolate oneself upon the death of a leader."  I was amused at the level of ignorance that characterized this statement, and could even laugh loudly.  In case this looks far fetched, ask yourself how relevant is the ethnicity of the driver in reporting the tragic accident that took the life of  Bob Simon, the great reporter of CBS?

Just as in the media, so also in Corporate America, does one see a tendency to make unfounded generalizations and offer outlandish explanations (for even legitimate concerns) based on unknown custom or culture.  Such recurrent appeals to culture as a giant carpet under which every questionable act of bias can be swept or the generalizations that result in the stereotypes of ethnic minorities are unfortunately not amusing.  In fact, a course on Diversity Management offered in our corporation was totally built around "culture" and made it appear as though all difficulties come simply from not understanding the "cultural background" of the minority employee.  Ironically, most often, difficulties seem to appear from not ignoring the irrelevancy of one's cultural background!

The above should suffice to exemplify the existence and nature of the subtle bias towards Asians in general, and the double jeopardy it creates for them. They lose if they suffer it silently, but also lose if they complain.

Acts of Omission 

One must note that the above are what one may call acts of commission, capable of discernment and correction by a perceptive superior.  The more insidious form of bias that almost always goes unseen, however, is manifested as acts of omission whereby meritorious employees are not selected for key projects with high visibility or recognized and rewarded for exemplary performance.  This also happens to be the most frequent complaint of the Asian employee.

     In today's impersonal corporations, to reap a reward, outstanding performance needs to be aided by the presence of a superior who has the imagination, courage and, above all, fairness to take initiatives to let one's special deeds known to those who collectively decide upon the selection of recipients for awards, be they raises or other rewards.  To the best of our knowledge, there is no effort undertaken (even by the minorities) to determine the efficacy with which reward processes work in the case of minority employees or to train superiors to be particularly sensitive to watch out for such acts of omission. The significantly large attrition rates among Asians, and particularly Asian managers, may have much to do with this sad state of affairs.

Certainly, many more examples than the few cited here could be given to exemplify the conscious and subconscious bias against Asians, but these columns are better spent discussing some solution approaches.  That then will be the subject of our Part 2.