White Collar

Today was the launch of an Asian employee support group at work.  Something, I have to be honest, that I am bitterly opposed to.  If there were only a handful of Asian employees at our company, I would understand the need.  But there isn’t.  Our company probably has more Asian employees than non-Asian employees – or at least it seems that way.  Certainly, my group is dominated by Asians.  So I’m the one who feels like I’m in the minority (which I am).  But do I have a support group?  Do I heck.  If my Asian colleagues were more inclusive, then I wouldn’t mind.  But most of them are not – one of my biggest pet peeves at work, and one that has been there from the very first day I worked in the US, is that all work and business discussions should be conducted in English.  Unbelievably I have been at group meetings which at times have broken down into Chinese – highly rude and highly disrespectful to me.  But even work talk in the office should be conducted in English – if a couple of colleagues are talking in Chinese to each other about an issue on a project that I’m working on, or even that I’m leading, then I want to know exactly what they’re talking about so that I can chime in.  Instead, I feel left out.  And I can’t say anything for fear of being labelled a racist.  But I bet they won’t discuss that at the Asian employee support group meetings.  I personally feel a lot more threatened by the Chinese than I do by the Russians.