<p>But you say that with the luxury of not having to endure racial discrimination. I’ve been intimately familiar with it since the age of five when I first came here.</p>
<p>I’m very nonconformist and innovative in my research, and no, I prescribe my own path. I carve out niches for myself. It’s the perception of my race as a collective that simply hinders my individualism.</p>
<p>It’s not about conformism-- it’s a matter of power. I can reclaim my Asian identity once power has been achieved. Machiavelli would recommend the same thing.</p>
<p>No, because power in the hands of the right people accomplishes positive change. In New York City, the No. 7 train is the least air-conditioned of all the New York Subway trains in the summer, while the No. 4/5/6 trains on Lexington Avenue are the most air-conditioned. It’s not a coincidence that the 4/5/6 train serves some of most wealthy and powerful residential areas in New York City, while the No. 7 train primarily serves Asian and Latino immigrant communities. For other trains you can observe a clear air conditioning to demographic power ratio. It’s a small example, but it shows what demographic groups with power can accomplish for their own groups. In this case, the people of the Upper East Side and Midtown East, typically correlated with a large degree of socioeconomic power, were the most successful at clamouring for a better experience on the trains that served them.</p>
<p>I did not make this observation – a friend who is a Hong-Kong-born LED/robotic-laser businessman (he engineers his own light shows and robots for clubs and parties – very conformist to be an engineer huh!) pointed it out to me.</p>
<p>There are many injustices that achieving power would correct for some communities.</p>
<p>Perhaps you should live in Malaysia for a while - there you can experience discrimination written into the legal code. Or live in Indonesia for a while - that’s a much scarier place if your Chinese or Christian or both.</p>
<p>Some people think that they’re special because they have experienced discrimination. I’ve experienced it - it bothered me for a bit and I just moved on. If someone assaults you, then that’s different. But that hasn’t happened to me in the US (it happened in the UK).</p>
<p>“I am working comfortably in a neurobehavioural lab and am making nice progress on my research. I’m very aggressive in pursuing my ideas and am constantly innovating new types of experiments, and the new behavioural assay technique I’ve developed is quite powerful and will have lasting benefits for my lab long after I leave. In my spare time, I publish poetry and prose to literary journals, write articles for the Cavalier Daily, take artsy photographs and am about to be hired as a professional photographer for a national magazine aimed at college students.”</p>
<p>Gosh, don’t you wonder how the journals will accept your submissions with your ethnic last name?</p>
<p>Evitaperon, I live in NYC and am a prominent transportation activist. I vehemently dispute your assertion. If you bring that level of paranoia, mistrust and misreading of circumstances to your real life, I’m surprised you ever get a job, no matter how brilliant and accomplished you actually are. You are carrying a very heavy load on your back unnecessarily and you should consider letting it go.</p>
<p>Weston, MA has better schools than Lawrence, MA. Those living in
Weston pay more in property taxes. Manhattan is also an area of
commerce and shopping and keeping shoppers and tourists happy
would be consistent with increasing tax revenue for the city.</p>
<p>We stayed at a $400/night hotel the last time we were in NY City.
I’m not really sure whether or not that’s expensive for the city
but the room that we stayed in felt really comfortable to us.</p>
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<p>I think that income and wealth would do a better job. That’s what
is happening globally and power flows from wealth.</p>
<p>Okay, you’re going to pull “you should feel lucky, other people in other developing nations have it worse”? That’s like the Singaporean government admonishing their citizens for clamouring for freedom of expression and Western-style democracy, when other people in Myanmar don’t even have basic civil rights.</p>
<p>You can ride the No. 6 train and the No. 7 train and compare it for yourself! The difference is clear.</p>
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<p>The No. 6 train is just one of many lines in Manhattan. The N/Q/R and F/M for example, which are both in Manhattan, are not nearly as well-air-conditioned as the 4/5/6, because for one they don’t run along powerful residential communities, though serving important commercial areas. But the 7 train is the least air-conditioned of all the subway trains. The difference is especially apparent when you can transfer to the 7 train at Roosevelt Ave / 74 St, where sometimes the 7 train has almost no air conditioning at all.</p>
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<p>See Chris Rock’s skit on rich versus wealthy, and power differentials between demographic groups. I think he sums it up quite nicely.</p>
<p>Evita, if you come across as angry and belligerent that’s not going to help you get hired. That’s not to say you may not have reasons to feel the world can be an unfair place. It’s to point out that your attitude <em>is</em> something over which <em>you</em> have control.</p>
<p>I think some of OP’s posting is jesting, a counterpoint to her pre-professional work. We all use CC occasionally for this- but I think the wiser ones mind their “authority.” Ie, try to balance outbursts or parrying with a little concession here and there.<br>
That’s a life skill.</p>
<p>*I’ve also spent large amounts of time in Baltimore, Richmond and Ames / Des Moines and I get that “what are you chink doing here” stare a lot.</p>
<p>Also, that Maine is the whitest state in the country doesn’t disprove anything, it just exposes the true feelings of whites in their native environment.*</p>
<p>None of us are good at reading minds. What are the true feelings of Whites? Without giving a racist answer? </p>
<p>See how circular this is? “I think it, so it must be true.” and “He agrees with me, so there’s your proof.”
300 million plus in this country- would be nice to learn the universal mindset. Bring it.</p>
<p>The No. 6 train, maybe, but the No. 7 train? Do you ride it all the way to Flushing? </p>
<p>I didn’t make this observation myself, mostly because the No. 7 train is comfortable most of the time and you aren’t usually hot enough for it to be very remarkable (or worthy of care). But you really notice if it’s sweltering outside and you sit down in a parked 7 train in Flushing-- almost no relief. In contrast if you have walked up and down Manhattan and are absolutely steaming and you catch the No. 6 train – instant relief.</p>
<p>When I spent considerable time in France, natives told me America has no sidewalks.<br>
When I lived in Germany, educated Germans told me Americans didn’t wear coats in winter. It was useless to tell them that may occur in FL or the US Southwest, but that, of course Americans wear coats in cold weather.</p>
<p>Without having read every post, I want to raise the issue of the keyword screening computer programs that are often used by large companies. I haven’t seen them mentioned.</p>
<p>When computers are the screeners, it is crucial that the resume contain the correct keywords. BUT… once that hurdle is passed, you still have the issue of the first line human screeners.</p>
<p>We run a very small company and we still get hundreds of resumes for every job we post. We screen very very quickly, looking mostly for a match of experience (whether it’s paid experience or hobby experience–since we have a bicycle shop, someone who races for a hobby will get a close look, even if his/her paid experience doesn’t match, for example). I also look for typos, terrible grammar, and other indications of sloppiness. I don’t think I even look at the name until those steps have been done.</p>
<p>I do wonder if a clearly fake last name like “Lastnameonrequest” might provide the backstop that the OP wants, while making it clear that the OP was quite willing to be screened/checked/etc. when appropriate. It would come across as “privacy needed” rather than “weird last name.”</p>
<p>Neither will playing the victim. It’s unattractive and unappealing.</p>
<p>And don’t be so quick to assume that others do not feel discrimination. Like mathmom, my first real job was in a male-dominated profession. I was the only female in my research group. When I was first hired, my male coworkers would think nothing of rushing into the hallway to “rate” one of the secretaries walking by (you know, by holding up cardboard signs. Classy.) A male coworker who started work on the same day that I did receieved a starting salary that was $5000/year than mine. When I asked why I was told “because he’s a man.”</p>
<p>Patently unfair and illegal. I retaliated by working my butt off - yes, harder than my male coworkers. Cultural change takes time. You can really only change yourself and your own attitude.</p>
<p>Newsflash: most white people in the US are not “Anglo-Saxon.” Many, if not most, of them hail from ethnic groups that faced discrimination in their country of origin and when they arrived here. Eventually, it works out, especially for people who assimilate rather than clinging to immigrant enclaves generation after generation. This is the land of opportunity. The fact that that opportunity is not instantly equal is regrettable, but there it is. Things have improved to the point where it is no longer legal to post signs that say “No Irish” or “No Jews.” You could always go to another country and be a “guest worker” for your entire life.</p>
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<p>Precisely. One of my two jobs happens to be with the Census Bureau, and one of the surveys I do is the Current Population Survey for the BLS. BTW, I routinely encounter Asians who are not too proud to live in publicly subsidized housing and collect SSI and/or food stamps. Your assumptions about Asians “working harder” and being unwilling to “stoop” to collecting unemployment are as ludicrously stereotypical as anything I’ve heard. But like many people, you obviously take the positive stereotypes about your race/ethnicity as gospel while rejecting the negative ones. I suppose that the positive thing about this is that you don’t feel discriminated against as a woman. Historically, that is your REAL barrier to advancement and higher income over time. For a variety of reasons.</p>