Be Curious, Not Judgmental
Ruminations and musings about healthcare AI, technology, and strategy
Tag: Asian Americans
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The Hyphen Is the Story
My mother photocopied a Harvard application when I was three years old. She didn’t know any other American college by name. Just this one: the best one, the one that could justify what she and my father had left behind when they came from South Korea with a baby and a handful of certainties about survival. That photocopy lived in our house like a contract I never signed. It said:… Read more
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Affirmative Action and Asian Americans
The recent Supreme Court decision on affirmative action strikes home in a deeply personal way. As a second-generation Korean American who attended Harvard College in the late 1990s, I always considered myself very lucky. Our family had no connections to Harvard, or any other college for that matter, and I was not a recruited athlete. Asian Americans were 16% of the admitted class when I went to school and had… Read more
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Bamboo ceiling
My old employer McKinsey & Co. wrote a great report on Asian Americans in the workplace. Early in my career, I was aware of the bamboo ceiling but just felt lucky to be in the room. It was not infrequent for me to be the only Asian American in a big progress review with a client or a Board presentation. This slide from the report is one of the most… Read more
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Squid game and Asian Americans
The break-out hit Squid Game has become a global phenomenon and become the latest successful Korean cultural export following in the footsteps of Parasite and the K-Pop hit machine. As a second-generation immigrant from Korea who has lived in the United States for almost all of my life, the show and the current moment around Korean culture gone global come with a mix of pride and emotions around my family’s… Read more