Matt Ogawa

I sat at my desk, staring at my computer screen in disbelief, unable to utter a single word, as my boss had just spewed some of the most racist, inappropriate and unprofessional comments I have ever heard. It had been over two years since I started working at this predominantly white institution, and I had never felt more unseen and unheard. The traditional leaders held all the power, and anyone who fell on the margins, particularly people of color, didn’t stand a chance.

For over two years, I witnessed and experienced implicit bias and microaggressions against people of color in the workplace. I saw a talented Filipina employee share fantastic ideas on improving our programming, only to be shut down by a white woman who demanded that we keep things the same. I saw a rising female star in IT being constantly condescended to by older white men who shut her out of the conversation and made her feel inadequate. I saw the innovative ideas of a Black man, committed to helping first-generation students and students of color like himself, consistently blocked by a white woman’s ideas for diversity and inclusion. These are just a few examples of what I saw over and over again – those benefiting from the prevailing culture would pound the table when better solutions from a diverse population required them to change or made them uncomfortable. This unwillingness to adapt to the ideas of individuals whose job it was to question them wasn’t working and deprived our organization and the individuals that we served from the fresh perspectives and innovative solutions that these diverse voices could offer. They added layers of complexity to my job, and I’m still unraveling them.

I brought up these dynamics to my boss, a white man, but they were never appropriately addressed. In fact, he repeatedly buckled to the dominant white culture rather than doing what was right. On one occasion, I noted an incident when a white colleague had cut me off during a meeting for which I had set agenda time to talk about equity, which ended up derailing what I need to go over and delaying my work for weeks. My boss said, “She was just frustrated. I needed to give her some space to vent.” When I asked whether he saw the irony of someone white cutting off a person of color to talk about equity, he dismissed it and said that it had nothing to do with race. 

In search committee meetings, I heard comments and read feedback from staff at various levels about well-qualified Asian candidates who were “too soft-spoken,” “not assertive,” or “not the right fit.” When discussing a finalist for the role of President of the college who happened to be Asian, a dean commented that “their accent was hard to understand.” When I inquired about this further, my boss brushed it off, saying that he interpreted it as meaning that they were difficult to hear. This lack of a clear understanding of cultural sensitivity and unconscious bias highlights the pressing need for competency and increased training, from entry-level staff to the highest levels of leadership. 

It all came to a head when my boss blindsided me with an unannounced performance evaluation. He told me that there was urgency to do this because he thought that I had applied for another job. After two years of getting highly positive reviews and feedback, I was suddenly criticized and received contradictory remarks for “not being visible enough,” “unengaged” and “appearing uninterested” through Zoom on the one hand and then I was told I was “frustrated” and “angry” for speaking up during meetings on the other. He even told me that he and his white peers “labeled” me this way. Simply put, a white person was negatively assessing me as he typecast me into two roles: the quiet, passive, calculating, secretive Asian or the fire-breathing Japanese dragon. When I asked for specific examples, all I got was, “I can just see it in your eyes.” 

It was these shocking, paralyzing, racist and retaliatory encounters that left me feeling undermined and devalued. It became clear to me that when I was in the role of the so-called model minority — when I was quiet, actively listening, and not rocking the boat — I was being assessed as being checked out, called unengaged, and told I needed to make myself more visible. But when I defied the norm — when I spoke up about inefficiencies or inequities as part of my job — I was labeled as frustrated, curt, emotionless, and angry. And all of this was just seen in my eyes. In my previous assessments, I was called “an excellent communicator who thinks deeply about what needs to be said and always is spot-on with this perception and his ability to speak to difficult topics.” I was also called “a strong visionary who sees a goal, determines how to get there, initiates what needs to happen, and motivates those around him to help complete the tasks.” None of my accomplishments or positive attributes were brought up during that meeting. This was not a true evaluation. This was an attack.

I immediately started having severe anxiety and restlessness, constantly replaying the interactions in my head. It took working with my primary provider and therapist to understand that this environment was impacting my physical health. And the greatest irony of it all? The President of the college, who has since retired, was himself an Asian American. In the same month that he was being recognized and given a leadership award by Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education, an organization that promotes the hiring, retention, and advancement of qualified faculty and staff, I was going to the hospital and starting therapy for depression and anxiety directly related to raising these issues. 

Crucially, I filed a formal racial and professional conduct grievance against my boss before ultimately leaving that employer.

I found refuge in individual and group therapy, working with non-profit organizations and advocacy groups, and a new job opportunity. I now work as a college counselor at a high school in Honolulu with an admissions preference policy for Native Hawaiians.

Equity should always be the goal. Without it, we cannot celebrate the beauty of diversity nor draw on its broad range of talents and perspectives that create inclusive spaces where we can thrive and help change inaccurate narratives. We can create sustainable systems in which racial aggression, bias, assault, gaslighting, and abuse are not tolerated, with a design that inculcates a sense of belonging while maintaining a structure of accountability.

This isn’t a story I wanted to write, but it’s one I needed to tell. It’s a systemic problem uncommonly talked about, and we cannot stay quiet anymore. My grandparents, aunties, and uncles rarely shared anything about their experience after the trauma of being interned. They carry critical historical stories that have been lost over the years. We cannot let this loss of stories continue to happen. We must share our stories if we want to shed light on the prejudice and discrimination that the AANHPI community experiences in the workplace, and if we want to make it better.