When people ask me how being Asian has affected me at work, I don’t have a great answer. I wasn’t aware that anyone was doing something to me because I was an Asian female, but I know that growing up in an Asian household affected me. Here were the things that hurt me at work:

1. Don’t question authority. At work, questioning is required. And often the people you are questioning are older than you are. You can do it respectfully, but you need to learn to do it.

2. Avoid conflict at all costs: fighting in my family was unheard of. You got mad, but you learned to repress it. At work, conflict is inevitable, and repressing it isn’t the answer.

3. Don’t make any mistakes: or in other words, be perfect. No one wants to make mistakes, but perfection is a heavy burden.

4. Appearances matter. Not only how I looked, but what people thought of me, how I reflected on the family. This made me second guess myself when I was probably right.

5. Be quiet. You weren’t encouraged to speak up. If you think about it, work is thinking and talking. One without the other isn’t helpful.

There is nothing harder than trying to relieve yourself of the baggage you learned growing up.  It’s a daily battle. You can’t always change how you feel, but you can change how you behave.