Despite having the highest educational attainment, highest median income, and lowest unemployment rate of any racial or ethnic group in the United States, Asians are underrepresented in U.S. leadership positions—no matter the industry. In this talk, Nancy Wang Yuen will address the “bamboo ceiling,” or the invisible barriers keeping qualified Asians from attaining leadership positions in the United States. Breaking down how Asian stereotypes like “perpetual foreigner” and “model minority” get perpetuated by popular culture, Nancy discusses how they ultimately hurt Asian advancement in the workplace and discusses how organizational leaders can take an active role in circumventing these discriminatory practices when hiring and advancing Asian employees through mentorship and integrating diverse advancement practices.

In recent years, Asian filmmakers, actors, and actresses have enjoyed unprecedented breakthroughs in the mainstream film industry. Box office successes such as Crazy Rich Asians to critically-acclaimed films such as Parasite, Sound of Metal and Minari, Asian stories have entered a golden age of representation in the western media landscape. While these breakthroughs should be celebrated, they need to be understood in relation to the history of whitewashing and racism in Hollywood. Nancy Wang Yuen presents the history of Asian Americans in Hollywood, providing context on the stereotypes, challenges, and barriers that have warped Asian representation in Western society and how recent successes have the potential to re-shape perceptions of pan-Asian and Pacific Islander American identities and narratives in our everyday lives from how we build community to how we diversify the workplace.

For women to truly unite, we must understand how various forms of inequality, particularly race and gender, intersect in unique ways. In this talk, Dr. Nancy Wang Yuen explores how stereotypes look for different women of color in popular culture and suggests how to build solidarity through recognizing these overlapping, but distinct forms. From the challenges to end violence and abuse for API women to building solidarity with other marginalized communities who are often compared through racial resentment, Nancy Wang Yuen shares insights into the complexities of these cultures and guides audiences on how to build bridges for collective advancement for women.