 Hello everyone, greetings to all of you virtually. We're definitely living in a brave new world these days and this is the first virtual recording I've done without people being live, so we'll see how it goes. Today I'm going to try to get through a lot of content and I wanna thank you for sharing your time with me today and for your interest in issues related to diversity and inclusion. I think these issues are very top of mind for a lot of people and for me personally, it's very important. So today I'm gonna share my story and it's gonna be through my lens and one of the things I think that's very important to remember as we engage in work related to diversity and inclusion is that it involves real people and involves their particular lenses through which they view their stories and other people's stories. And so I hope by going through my story today that'll inform your own journey and also give you some guidance in terms of proceeding with your own DNI story. So I just wanna start with a caveat before I get into this presentation that complexity reigns. And there was this status update on LinkedIn that I'm citing here that says, I will not do anti-racism training in two hours. And so one of the things I want to caution folks about is that there are no shortcuts to doing this kind of work. It's really, really, really hard work. It's hard in the workplace. It's hard in our personal lives. And I think we're being challenged with how we do narrative in a way that can help ourselves and benefit others. But we have to remember it's not easy work. It's gonna take a lot of time to engage in meaningful change. And I want you to give yourself a lot of space around this journey. There are a lot of missteps that will be made. I've made missteps on my own journey. And I think it's very important to come from a viewpoint of curiosity and kindness. This presentation I think is gonna be way too short, especially with the things I'm gonna be bringing up. But like I said, I hope it will give you some inklings in terms of where to proceed next and that perhaps this will be catalyst for lengthy, more in-depth conversations with folks in your life and even to myself. And I'll invite you to make contact with me. I'll list my contact info at the end of this presentation. And I would welcome any chance to connect with you further. And so like I said at the beginning of this presentation, I'm presenting my story through my lens. And so who am I? So like many of you identify as a woman. I'm a single mother, I'm a daughter, I'm a sister. And I would also identify as Asian-American, specifically Filipino-American second generation. Though I did asterisk it because it's complicated. And Parami wants to perhaps introduce you to history that you didn't know. And it's also, I think important to note that there's history that a lot of us don't know about. And it's important as we go through our dream exploration to realize that we're gonna be doing a lot of learning and a lot of processing. So my day job is in marketing at Red Hat, specifically in events. I help with community events and I sit in a space between corporate marketing and the open source program office at Red Hat. And I jokingly call it my day job because I've been a lot longer as a writer. So I'm a writer of short fiction and poetry. It's a craft I take very seriously and I was a recipient of an emerging artist grant in literature here in North Carolina. And before I went into technology, I actually had a very extensive background in higher education and nonprofits, particularly in arts and administration. And another lens I want to introduce is that is one of neurodiversity. So I've actually been diagnosed with ADHD and also anxiety. And so you can see this is an extensive list of lenses that inform my existence. And I'm sure that you all have similar lists that also inform how you see the world and how you process information. And I think it's very important to acknowledge those things because they affect you every step of the way when you're engaging in relationships and in learning. And in trying to do new things. So as I stay on a previous slide, I consider myself Asian-American. However, the Filipino-American lens has some complexity to it. And I love this quote by Carlos Bolosan who's a Filipino-American writer. And he's considered to be the author of the first Asian-American novel, America is in the Heart. He says, you see us and you think you know us, but our outward guise is more deceptive than our history. So the Philippines, which is an archipelago located in the Southeast Asia off the coast of southern China was actually a colony of Spain for 350 years. It was founded as a colony at the same time that Peru was established a colony. And the Philippines was ruled by Spain via Mexico. So if you've ever had the privilege of visiting the Philippines, you'll notice that a lot of the architecture seems Mexican. And the reason why is because the colonial influence was very strongly influenced by Mexico. After 350 years of Spanish rule, there was a war called the Spanish-American War at the turn of the 20th century, which the United States won. And at the conclusion of that war, the Philippines became a territory of the United States along with Puerto Rico and Guam. And there are a lot of people who don't know, this is the case, it's not a fact in American history that's widely taught. And I want to also highlight a book here, The Latinos of Asia written by Anthony Christian Ocampo because I think it's really interesting to note how many Filipino-Americans view themselves. So Filipinos are predominantly Catholic. The Philippines is the only Christian nation in Asia. And as implied by this book, there are many instances where Filipinos will actually identify as being part of Latino Hispanic demographic. And there are times that I myself have personally identified that particularly because I live in the American South and there are not that many Filipinos where I live. And so I've found affinity with people from Latin America, particularly from Mexico and other places like Guatemala and El Salvador. And so part of the reason I wanted to bring that into the mix, because I think it demonstrates what I said about complexity reigning. It's important to note that stories aren't monolithic, groups aren't monolithic. And so the term Asian-American is a very interesting term. Right now I'm involved in an effort at Red Hat to form an Asian-American D&I group, which I found a little bit surprising because 11% of our associates identify as Asian. But one of the things that we're struggling with is the pan-ethnic meaning of Asian-American how do we acknowledge the complexity and differences that are within this term Asian-American. But this complexity applies to I think a lot of other groups and applies to neurodiversity, applies to women. So this is something that I think you'll encounter time and time again, is that there's just no simplicity to any single story. And so as I stated earlier, the Philippines was a territory of the United States beginning at a turn of the 20th century. And what that meant for Filipina specifically is that they were nationals of the United States, not citizens but nationals. And in my own family, my great-grandfather came through Hawaii, which of course is now considered to be part of the United States. He was one of thousands of Filipino men that were imported to Hawaii to work the sugar cane plantations. The term that we use to refer to men who were workers like him is Sakata. And so this is a stock photo I took from the Sakata series website. The work in the sugar plantations was very hard work. It was painful, literally back-breaking work. And also on this slide is actual labor card for my great-grandfather, Madriaga. It was a card that he had to fill out when he was returning back home to the Philippines. And a little funny trivia there. He actually lied about his age. He was considerably older than the 40 years old that's listed on this card. We think he did that so he could qualify for working in Hawaii. And so even though I identify as a second generation Filipino-American, both my parents emigrated to the United States in the 1960s, my family's relationship to the United States actually goes back much further. And there was a lot of movement back and forth between what we consider now the United States and the Philippines. And all this happened in a way that I think, sometimes I don't think you can call it straightforward. So my own journey actually starts in Hawaii. That's where I was born. My father emigrated to the United States because he enlisted in the United States Navy. My mother was a homemaker. And one of the interesting parts about the Philippines being a colony and even though they received independence in 1946, Filipinos were still allowed to enlist directly in the United States military. And so my father dropped out of college and rolled the Navy to support his parents and his seven siblings. He was stationed in Hawaii, which of course is where my great grandfather had lived for a time. And then I was born in Honolulu some time ago and I won't be specific about when I was born. And because my father was a Navy, we traveled all over the place. We actually even lived in the Philippines for a time every station near Sibic Bay. And then eventually to California, I lived in the Bay area until I was 10 years old. And then something happened that was very dramatic. At around 10 years old, I moved to Virginia. And to this day, I'll say it is one of the most pivotal moments of my life, moving to the American South. And I placed a map here so that people who weren't from the United States can contextualize where Virginia is. You can see that Virginia's in the southeastern part of the United States. And it was the state where the capital, the Confederacy was, which is the city of Richmond. I lived in the southeastern part of the state in a city called Virginia Beach. My father was stationed in Norfolk, which was adjacent to Virginia Beach. But when I made it to Virginia, it was quite a dramatic culture shock. It was one of the craziest transitions in my life. And I still feel like I'm suffering the after effects of that transition decades later. Moving from a place like the Bay area to a place like Virginia was really interesting because basically it was transitioning from a very large world view to a very narrow regional view. And I was exposed to the after effects of the Civil War. People joke about that all the time, but it was actually true. And as an example, I would cite a report I had to do on Stonewall Jackson, who was a Confederate general. And so there was a lot of emphasis on learning about the Confederate side of the Civil War. And then another interesting thing is that there are not that many Filipinos in Virginia. There is a contingent of Filipinos that live in the Virginia Beach Norfolk area because United States, but it's not like it was in the Bay area. And living in the South, I would be misidentified or people didn't know what I was. People would think I was Cherokee, much lighter on as the Hispanic and Latino population grew. People would identify me as that. And so there was actually kind of the chameleon identity that I had from living in the South. And it's now the place where I've lived the longest. So after high school, I made to North Carolina specifically to go to Duke University. And I wanted to share a story about my time at Duke. So my first year of college, I had two roommates. One roommate was a black woman from inner city Philadelphia and the other was a white woman from one of the wealthiest towns in the United States, specifically a town in Connecticut. And this town was a suburb of New York city. And one of the most, I guess striking things about having roommates at different races is what would happen when I would go out with them individually. So if I was with my white roommate from Connecticut, people around campus would always greet me. They would always say, hello. They would be like, hey, Jenny, how's it going? And they would chat with me. And they were very chummy and very friendly. However, if I went out with my black roommate from Philadelphia, those very same people who are really friendly and chummy and like besties with me, they would not acknowledge me on campus and they would not acknowledge my black roommate. It was like we were both invisible. And it was a very jarring, very shocking experience that stayed with me until this day. And so one of the things that I'd ask folks to explore are there groups of affinity and I think about how you interact, engage with folks and whether that engagement is affected by the company you keep. And I think that's a very interesting point to peruse and to do a little bit of self-reflection. It's a story I've shared with other people and people tend to say that's so shocking but honestly, is it really shocking? And so this is why I bring it up because I think it's a very important piece of exploration for people as we explore our social groups and the groups that we identify with. And so now I've explored a little bit the various lenses for which I view my story. I do wanna talk about some issues that I've seen in my own life and which I've experienced personally. And one of the big issues I encountered was when I returned to the workforce after choosing the state home with my son and also as a homemaker. So I spent eight years out of the workforce and coinciding with the birth of my son is also the end of my marriage. And so I needed to return to the workplace. And one of the things that I found was that it was very, very hard to return to work after you've been out of the workplace. And I felt like I was very qualified. I had two degrees from Duke. I had extensive experience in various sectors but I literally went through several dozen interviews, got a lot questioning about why I left the workforce and there was kind of a feeling that people felt that because I had been out of the workforce for so long that there was no way that I could get up to speed what was going on in present time. And I did end up getting a job in events at Duke University by pulling on all relationships I had when I was in graduate school. But it was a real blood to my ego in terms of going through the job search. And it's one thing I want folks to keep in mind when you're encountering folks who are returning to the workplace because they've chosen to leave for whatever reason. Part of the reason I cite this is that there are a lot of us who come into tech via non-traditional way. And a lot of us are also transitioning from other industries. And I want folks to kind of think about the struggles associated that alongside some of the lenses and the histories that a particular person may bring to that experience. And so I bring this up because I think it's one worth noting. And I also wanted to touch on Black Lives Matter because it's top of mind for a lot of people, particularly for those of us that live in the United States. I'm privileged and lucky enough to be invited to this space as a black family and as people who are my close friends and my confidants. And because of Black Lives Matter, because of what happened with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery earlier this year, we're seeing a push by law companies to do diversity training. And the most popular form of diversity training I've seen has been unconscious bias training. And I want to highlight concerns that come from rushing through the experience of trying to create a diversity program. These very well-meaning efforts can actually be a great source of pain for people who've been affected by specific racial experiences. And I'm gonna bring up some feedback that I've heard from other people and also what I thought when I was going through unconscious bias training. And what I'll say about unconscious bias training is that sometimes it doesn't give enough space for people who've actually experienced very painful episodes related to racism and sexism and other isms. And so I wanna share some feedback from someone who is within the group who went through unconscious bias training with me. And this person said, I didn't like how often I was paired one-on-one with a white manager. I'm neither a manager nor a white. The power and equity was such that I often felt, often left to help this person with multitudes and more power and safety than me to process their feelings and their biases. And then I had to listen to the manager speak about how great our company is. And then I had another person who told me I had people who were white in my group that talked about how bias never affected them and how lucky they were. And I didn't feel like I had space to share how painful bias has been in my own life. And so I want to let people know that sometimes that people experience can come through an unconscious bias training. I will say that a lot of people found it very beneficial. A lot of people were forced to think about ways of looking at bias in ways that they've never experienced before. But as I said, it didn't always leave much room for those of us who'd experienced very painful things due to a race to have a role or a voice, or a form to speak or do any processing. And so it's not always a really safe space for people who've really had to deal with bias that's very painful. And sometimes that bias has come across in ways that are life-threatening. So I just want to flag that for folks that psychological safety to me personally is very important when we engage in these conversations. And so I just want to kind of put that out there as food for thought. Right now I'm engaging very actively with managers at my company. We're still very early on, obviously, in a lot of these diversity conversations. But I hope that we can move forward and realize that it's just not a one and done deal that we have to continue to talk about in depth and perhaps bring in a third party to provide some neutrality and emotional safety for associates who need a place to speak. And so I also want to talk about COVID-19. COVID-19 has greatly affected the Asian-American community, but in some ways it has been very devastating for the Filipino community. Filipino Americans are one of the largest Asian-American groups present in the United States because of our colonial experience with the United States. But while a lot of people don't realize is that Filipinas make up a large number of nurses who work on the front lines. I have family who are nurses. I have very close friends who are nurses who are working as first responders. In California, 20% of nurses identify as being a Filipina sent, so that's one in five. And so the death toll within our community in the context of the greater Asian-American community has been very high and it's painful. And it affects me personally. And of course, we can't ignore the xenophobia that's been happening around COVID-19, how it's affected Asian-Americans. There's evidence that harassment and racism has increased because of the rhetoric around COVID-19. And I'll be upfront that there are certain areas that maybe I don't want to go to because I want to avoid having increased chance of having an encounter with somebody who may discriminate against me. And so it's frightening and the world can feel very threatening and things that were around in that that racism is net new, but it's now amplified by the pandemic and so I wanted to touch on that fact. And so like I said, this presentation was way too short and I just want to wrap up by again saying thank you. If you want to connect with me, please feel free to do so. Here's my email. I'm also very active on Twitter. So if you want to follow me, my Twitter handle is JenInnovate and of course you can also connect with me in LinkedIn. So anyhow, like I said, this is just the beginning, not the end of a conversation I hope with you and with other folks. And I really hope that we'll connect sometime. So again, thank you and I hope you have a wonderful day.