Stuck: Why Asian Americans Don’t Reach the Top of the Corporate Ladder

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Date: Friday. October 23, 2020 | Time: 3pm to 4:30pm

In the classroom, Asian Americans, often singled out as so-called “model minorities,” are expected to be top of the class. Often they are, getting straight As and gaining admission to elite colleges and universities. But the corporate world is a different story. In her new book Stuck, Prof. Margaret M. Chin shows that there is a “bamboo ceiling” in the workplace, describing a corporate world where racial and ethnic inequalities prevent upward mobility.

Drawing on interviews with second-generation Asian Americans, Prof. Chin examines why Asian Americans fail to advance as fast or as high as their colleagues. An unfair lack of trust from their coworkers, absence of role models, sponsors and mentors, and for women, sexual harassment and prejudice especially born at the intersection of race and gender are only a few of the factors.

Discussants:

  • Maurice Crul, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Free University in Amsterdam and the Erasmus University in Rotterdam
  • Vivian S. Louie, Professor of Urban Policy and Planning, Hunter College/CUNY
  • Virginia Valian, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Hunter College/CUNY

Purchase Book: https://nyupress.org/9781479816811/stuck/ (30% Discount Code: CHIN30-FM)

Co-Sponsor
CUNY Graduate Center Immigration Seminar Series
Advanced Research Collaborative, CUNY Graduate Center
Asian American / Asian Research Institute – CUNY
Asian American Studies Program and Center, Hunter College/CUNY

Author Bio

Presented By:

Margaret M. Chin joined the Sociology Department at Hunter College/CUNY in September 2001, and is the author of Sewing Women: Immigrants and the New York City Garment Industry (Columbia University Press, 2005).

Professor Chin’s research interests focus on new immigrants, working poor families, race and ethnicity, and Asian Americans. Her current research projects include a book manuscript on how Asian ethnic media is used by first and second generation Asians and Asian Americans; a comparative chapter on differences and similarities among Brooklyn’s Chinatown, Flushing’s Asiantown and Manhattan’s Chinatown; and a paper how young student parents balance parenting and school.

Professor Chin was a Social Science Research Council Post Doctoral Fellow in International Migration, a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Junior Faculty Career Grant Recipient and a Gender Equity Project Associate. She has taught The Sociology of the Family, The Second Generation Experience of Asians, Latinos and Blacks, the Graduate Social Research course in qualitative research methods, and a CUNY Honors College Seminar – The Peopling of New York.

Professor Chin received her BA in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University and her MA and PhD in Sociology from Columbia University.