By Winifred Yu
The Wall Street Journal
©1985 Dow Jones & Co., Inc.
September 11, 1985

They've been tagged "the model minority." They often rise to the top of their college classes and then earn recognition on the job as diligent and dependable workers. Employers scramble to offer them technical positions.

But many Asian-Americans hoping to climb the corporate ladder face an arduous ascent. Ironically, the same companies that pursue them for technical jobs often shun them when filling managerial and executive positions. Because many of their cultural values don't always mesh with those of an American corporation, they are frequently victims of lingering stereotypes that depict them as passive and self-effacing, with poor social and communications skills -- traits that would rule them out as management material.

David Lam, for one, says he suspects he was denied a low-level management job at Hewlett Packard Co. a few years ago because he is Asian-American. A valued engineer at the electronics manufacturer for more than three years, he had expressed an active interest in the position. But although most promotions at the company are based on seniority, experience and performance, the job went to a colleague, a Caucasian whom Mr. Lam had hired a year earlier. A spokesman for Hewlett-Packard refused to comment about Mr. Lam's claim.

The problem, Mr. Lam believes, is twofold. "Part of it is there's strong prejudice prevailing in the corporate world," he says. "The other half is that Asians don't try hard enough to integrate."

Some management consultants also say that the prejudice has worsened with Japan's growing role in several industrial and high-technology sectors previously dominated by the U.S. All Asian-Americans, they say, are suffering because of the resulting anti-Japanese sentiment.

Statistics compiled by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reflect the difficulty for Asian-Americans of moving into the ranks of management. In the private sector last year, they constituted 8% of all professionals and technicians but only 1.3% of managers and officials.

At the same time, however, interest in managerial jobs among Asian-Americans appears to be rising. James Spain, executive director of the New York-based Association for the Integration of Management, reports that they account for 12% of the participants in his group's programs. Three years ago, he says, the percentage was less than half that. And as interest increases, more evidence of discrimination surfaces.

Jim Tso, a lawyer and president of the Organization of Chinese Americans, in northern Virginia, sees the situation of Asian-Americans as a Catch-22. He feels that the competence and dedication they show in low-level supervisory and technical positions make American companies reluctant to promote them. "In the past," he says, "we had the coolie who slaved; today we have the high-tech coolie." A major U.S. bank sent Mr. Tso to the Far East as an officer several years ago. But the bank refused to transfer him to a post he had requested in Europe, explaining, "You're Asian, and you're better suited for Asia." He quit.

A number of non-Asian executives in American companies use similar lines of reasoning to justify their reluctance to promote Asians. A vice president of a large Pittsburgh company, demanding anonymity, says he'd like to hire hundreds more Asian-American technicians and researchers because they're "loyal and hard workers." But he balks at promoting them into management spots, he says, because the few who have landed such posts "have to have pats on the back constantly."

And Thomas Campbell, a general manager at Westinghouse Electric Corp., says that although Asian-Americans pressure themselves to enter management they would be happier staying in technical fields. He believes that few of them are adept at sorting through the complexities of big business here. Yet, when Asian-Americans do enter management, he contends, their minority status can become an asset. "If anything," he says, "they're given every break under the sun. I feel they are given extra chances, a second or third look we wouldn't normally give."

Many Asian-Americans, in contending with racial stereotypes, find that of passivity to be the most frustrating. Terry Kuroda, now a vice president at Securities Industry Automation Corp., says he shocked his colleagues at Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Inc. a few years ago when he aggressively offered to negotiate the purchase of an office computer package at a lower price. The purchasing department hesitated initially, he says, because they viewed him as simply "analytical and quiet." He persisted and eventually saved the company about $30,000 a month on computer costs.

Some Asian-Americans say, though, that negative perceptions of them as retiring individuals, however demeaning, have some basis in fact. Kung Lee Wang, who started the Organization of Chinese Americans, says that Asians' cultural heritage contributes to their modesty and often to a certain cliquishness. "Asians think that what you achieve should be recognized, but you shouldn't brag," he says. "They are also more family-oriented and less socially active with colleagues."

Mr. Wang is one of many Asian-Americans who feel that an American mentor is necessary for advancement. He says that a supervisor at his former job with the U.S. Bureau of Mines helped him get into a management program there. Eventually, though, his career stalled, despite the fact that his work was considered "more than satisfactory. You can't pinpoint discrimination," he says. "It may have been bad luck that I didn't go farther." But he feels that for promotion he "needed political pull and special mentors" that he didn't have. He elected to take early retirement.

Kenneth Chang, a manager at Westinghouse, says that his friends are "almost exclusively" of Chinese descent and that he prefers to spend his time with them. He also considers his career opportunities limited and envisions himself rising only one more level. To go higher, he says, he would "have to attend cocktail parties and play golf."

Indeed, socializing with colleagues is essential to advancement in management. But Asian-Americans are often unaware of its importance, says Landy Eng, chairman of the Asian Business League. "The whole idea of networking in a corporation and playing politics," he says, "isn't a value Asians have."

Sun W. Chun, director of the Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center, feels that Asian-Americans can acquire the requisite social skills. He says that when he was a research engineer at Gulf Oil Corp. he devoted much time to "increasing his exposure." He participated in a seminar committee, initiated a golf league in his division and joined several professional organizations. "It's an important factor we have to learn," he says about cultivating social contacts.

"If anybody is antisocial," he says, "certainly he or she will be discriminated against -- not for what they look like, but for their social behavior."

Despite the difficulties they encounter here, Asian-Americans still aspire to fill management positions. But they don't do so merely to be put in charge of their company's business in the Far East. Says Terry Kuroda, "We just want to be like everyone else here, to handle business in the U.S."