Overcoming Negative Stereotyping

In the Chinatown community, we had strong family values and close loving parents; a proactive family emphasis on education; proper church teaching and guidance; and good school teachers who helped frame our academic foundation and discipline for later educational, social, economic, and professional achievements. From our perspective, the negative American connotation of the Chinese laundryman, laborer, houseboy, Charlie-the waiter, etc. were all but eradicated in one generation by the successes and accomplishments made by the young adults who grew up in Chinatown and the surrounding metropolitan areas.

 

Overcoming Discrimination

We were made aware of discrimination against Chinese Americans when we were in high school and worked in Chinese restaurants on weekends and during the summers where we met waiters in their 30's --40's, who were college graduates from schools like Columbia, NYU, CCNY...etc. They had experienced difficulties getting jobs after graduation while their white classmates received job offers. In order to sustain themselves and their families, they started working in the restaurant business. After a few years of unsuccessfully trying to get jobs in their fields of study, one can appreciate the difficulties of trying to get higher level jobs when one’s resume shows recent work experience as being a waiter or a bartender. However, a number of these industrious waiters and bartenders went on to start their own businesses and in the long run were probably better off financially in the business world......must be that true Chinese entrepreneurial DNA in the blood.