Since 1992, May has been recognized as Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month in the United States. So how can we honor the lived experiences of this diverse community and show up as authentic allies coming out of a pandemic that increased anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination?
In this episode of Brave Conversations with LCW, Host Larry Baker (he/him) is joined by internationally recognized keynote speaker, best-selling author, and master-certified executive coach Maya Hu-Chan (she/her). Together, they defined allyship through deconstructing myths and microaggressions faced by the AANHPI community, today and throughout history.
The episode was live streamed on Monday, May 22.
Show Notes & Highlights
4:35 Maya explains why it’s important to have these conversations
8:07 Maya gives a brief history of anti-Asian racism in the US
17:21 Maya deconstructs the myth that Asians are a monolith
21:24 Maya and Larry discuss the “model minority” myth
24:14 Maya deconstructs the myth that Asians are poor leaders
33:57 Maya talks about dealing with microaggressions
Show Transcript
Larry Baker: Hello, and welcome to Brave Conversations with LCW. I’m your host, Larry Baker, and I use he/him pronouns.
For those of you unfamiliar with LCW, we are a global DEI training, consulting, and translation firm that partners with organizations to develop mindsets, skills, and systems to succeed in a culturally diverse world.
Hello everyone, and welcome to Brave Conversations with LCW Live. I am your host Larry Baker, and I use he and him pronouns. Today we will be having a very timely discussion that celebrates Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month by deconstructing myths and microaggressions that are faced by the AANHPI community today… and throughout history, if we’re honest.
Since 1992, May has been recognized as Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month in the United States. So how can we honor those lived experiences of this diverse community and show up as authentic allies coming out of a pandemic that increased anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination?
And today I am super excited to be joined by internationally recognized keynote speaker, bestselling author, and master-certified executive coach, Maya Hu Chan. Maya specializes in global leadership, cross-cultural management, diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is the founder and president of Global Leadership Associates, a global consultancy that partners with organizations to build leadership capabilities and enable profound growth and change. Her latest book, Saving Face: How To Preserve Dignity and Build Trust is an Amazon number one best-seller, and her book Global Leadership: The Next Generation was a Harvard Business School Working Knowledge book. She is a contributing author of 14 business books and a columnist at INC.com. So as you can see, Maya’s not really that busy. Just kidding. Maya is super busy, and I’m super excited that she’s here.
She was born and raised in Taiwan. She lives in San Diego, California now. Maya is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and English. She earned her master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and her BA from National Chengchi University in Taiwan. Maya has lectured at the Brookings Institute, the University of California, San Diego, the University of Chicago, the University of Southern California, and Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
So welcome, Maya, to our session today. I am super excited to have you join us, but before we jump in, Maya, and I know we have a great topic that I want to talk about… before we jump into our conversation, I just wanted to take a moment to highlight the chat function that’s available across today’s livestream channels, and we absolutely want to hear from you. We want to hear your reactions. We want you to ask us questions throughout the conversation today. So put your comments in the chat. We have a team in the background that’s monitoring that—they will bring it to our attention, and we will address those throughout our conversation.
So Maya, I’ve done a pretty good job, I think, of giving you an introduction, but, I want you to first of all talk a little bit about why is this conversation that we’re going to have today so important? Can you tell us what brought us here today? So Maya, if you would…
Maya Hu-Chan: Yes. Hi Larry. Good morning, everyone. I am so honored to be here today, and as you said, May is the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander History and Heritage month. So this is a joyous time for us to celebrate the community’s diverse cultures and histories and also achievements with everyone.
But also, we wanted to share with everyone what we have been experiencing today. Looking back in the last three years, it’s been really tough for all of us, but in particular for the Asian communities that not only we have to deal with the Covid pandemic, but also we have to fight this racial discrimination and social injustice.
To share with you something that happened to me—I feel like it was just yesterday, but it actually happened about a year ago. I was invited to speak at a virtual town hall with a global company and the topic was combating racism in the workplace. And so I talked about the rise of the hostility and the racists in the community against Asian Americans during this pandemic. But shortly after I spoke, I received a private message from one of the audience and somebody wrote to me and said, “Maya, my manager constantly referred to Covid as the Chinese flu. I’m Asian American, and it makes me extremely uncomfortable. What can I do? Is it ethical?”
So when I read this message—first of all, it’s private so nobody else can read it— I felt so much pain, so much fear, and just high-level anxiety coming from that person. It made me think, “What could we do if you were that person?” And then also, if you are a colleague of this person, you witnessed or experienced something like this in the workplace, how can we support that person? How can we be an ally to the community?
So that’s kind of brought me to… I wanted to talk about this topic. I think it’s so relevant now. Thank goodness that the pandemic seems to be kind of behind us, but the racism continues,
Larry Baker: Yeah, Maya. I’m so glad that you brought that up because that kind of leads me into what I’d like for you to dig into a little bit more. Because this isn’t the first time that the Asian American community has been put in the spotlight for some type of flu or a pandemic coming to this country. We know that that’s not the first time, but unfortunately a lot of people don’t know the history about your community.
So if you could do me a huge favor and sort of set the stage for this conversation by talking a little bit about the history of the AANHPI community. If you could dig into that, I think that would do a great job to set the stage—please share that information.
Maya Hu-Chan: Absolutely. So I’m gonna show you a slide to share. The timeline—this is a brief US history of anti-Asian racism. Sadly, as you can see, the anti-Asian racism is nothing new. People of Asian descent have been living in the United States for 170 years and have long been the target of bigotry. And here’s a look at the violence and racism that Asian immigrants and Asian Americans have faced since before the Civil War.
From the time the first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived as laborers in US in the 1850s, Asian Americans have always been subject to racist violence. So as a source of cheap labor to build railroads, Asian immigrants came to be seen as threats to white jobs and scapegoated as dirty and disease-ridden. The yellow peril ultimately led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—the first time the US had ever barred a specific ethnic group from the country.
So let’s take a look at this timeline. In 1854, the California Supreme Court reinforced racism against Asian immigrants in People v. Hall ruling that people of Asian descent could not testify against a white person in court. In 1875, Congress passed the Page Act, which effectively barred Chinese women from immigrating because it was impossible to tell if they were traveling for lewd and immoral purposes, including for purposes of prostitution. In 1882, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese immigration for 20 years by the 1940s.
Tens of thousands of Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans had built lives in the United States, but after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II, the US government forced all of the Japanese and Japanese Americans into internment camps for the duration of the war over suspicions they might aid the enemy. I dunno if you’ve been there, but I actually visited there years ago, and the conditions in the camps were extremely harsh. No spies were ever found.
In June 19th, 1982, the 27-year-old Chinese American Vincent Chen was about to get married. He was actually hanging out with a couple of his friends in Detroit to celebrate his upcoming wedding, and the two white men picked a bar fight with him, blaming Vincent Chen for the Japanese taking their auto-industry jobs. Outside the bar, the men beat him with a baseball bat, and he died several days later. The judge gave the men probation and a $3,000 fine.
In 1992, acquittal of the police officers caught on camera beating Rodney King. We all remember that, right? As the city erupted in riots, Korean American businesses became targets. Thousands were damaged during the unrest.
Now let’s bring bring us to the next big thing, the terrorist attack of September 11th, 2001. Hate crimes spiked against Muslims and those look like or perceived to be Muslims, including people of South Asian descent.
So since the start of the pandemic in 2020, Asian Americans have faced racist violence at a much higher rate than before.
Larry Baker: Yeah. Maya, thank you so much for sharing that timeline. The Asian American experience is so similar to the Black American experience on so many different levels—not just the fact of being used for cheap labor and maybe even free labor in our case, but it’s the violence that Black and Brown bodies have experienced through this history of being in this country is something that is interrelated. And I appreciate you sharing some of that insight because I’m pretty sure a lot of folks may not be aware of that, so thank you so much for sharing that.
But what I also wanna connect with is it’s important for us to understand the history because the reality is a lot of things that happened in the past are rearing their heads today in the future. If you could do me a favor, I know there are some specific events that are happening right now currently that you wanted to touch upon, and I’d like to give you that space to talk about some things that are happening right now today that if we don’t understand the history, we may just let these things slide. So Maya, if you could talk to me about those things…
Maya Hu-Chan: Definitely. Very recently, you start to see there is this dangerous pattern of states across the country introducing legislation that would restrict and prohibit citizens of select countries from owning properties in the US. You start to see that the history seems to be repeating itself, right? So just a few examples… In Texas, the State Senate is advancing SB147. It’s an anti-immigrant bill that would prohibit citizens of China and other selectively targeted countries from buying homes and business properties.
And the Florida State Legislature is moving forward with legislation that would similarly prohibit land ownership with citizens from certain countries, including completely banning Chinese immigrants from owning any properties, even homes.
Just last month in April, the South Carolina Senate passed a bill restricting land ownership for Chinese citizens, a policy eerily similar to the racist alien land loss of the 1800s and 1900s, which were designed to shun Asian immigrants and contributed to a significant rise in anti-Asian hate.
Now, if you look at all this latest development, they’re withholding basic rights from the Asian communities, and history has repeatedly shown us that anti-China rhetoric and policies pose a threat to all AAPI communities in the US, not just Chinese.
Larry Baker: Yeah. Maya, again, that is such an important point to bring out that if we are not aware of these policies and these practices, it’s going to look a lot like what it looked like historically. So number one, I absolutely appreciate you bringing this to the attention and bringing this concern so that folks that might be listening—if they’re from those states—they can stand up and ask questions about, “Hey, what does this actually mean? Why are we pursuing this path? This sounds a lot like what happened back in historical reference points.”
So Maya, what I’d like to do is you mentioned allyship, and we talked about the fact that this is something that potentially happens in the workplace as well. Talk to me about how do you think this, anti-Asian sentiment shows up in the workplace, but more importantly, how can we be allies to the AANHPI community as well? So if you could stop and talk about that, that would be great.
Maya Hu-Chan: Absolutely. Well, before we talk about how can you be an ally to the AAPI community, I’d like to maybe share with you some of the common myths about the AANHPI community. And this is something that is eye-opening for me as well because I have been conducting listening sessions with my clients around the country with the AANHPI communities and professionals across multiple industries. And those sessions created spaces for people to reflect, to share with one another about some of the common challenges: their experiences, obstacles, and hopes. I, learned so much from just listening about what’s happening in their lives, and a theme that has emerged across those listening sessions is the pervasiveness of common myth about the AANHPI community.
So we’ll just give you three most common myths. Myth number one—drum roll— is that the AAPI community is a monolith. There is a common in inaccurate perception that Asians are all alike. Now people think that we all look alike and we’re all the same, but in fact, the community is a diverse group of people from approximately 50 ethnic community and speaking over 100 languages. It’s extremely diverse. Each group has its own unique language, cultural traditions, and experiences. They also face harm in very different ways. So for example, in the US, East Asians have been the target of hate crimes and discriminations during Covid pandemic, while South Asians were targeted following September 11th.
You also look at the headlines in the last few years—the mass shootings happening in Buffalo, in Atlanta, and even most recently just this month in May happening in Allen, Texas… There were three members of a Korean family were killed while shopping in the mall and an Indian engineer. Eight people were killed, but most of them were Asians. Is that a coincidence? No. And the violence continued to happen.
In the workplace, AAPI professionals were often burdened with the expectation to represent not only their particular ethnic group but also the Asian community as a whole. So this connect is often reflected in the one-dimensional ways of companies talking to their AAPI customers. So what can we do about this and the myth about thinking all Asians are the same? So how can we educate ourselves?
Number one, I will recommend two things. Take the time to learn about the diversity of the Asian community’s experiences. Currently, there are 22 million people of Asian descent living in US. It’s about 7% of the US population. So take the time to learn about the diversity of the community, and number two is celebrate and appreciate the variety of cultures represented in the community. This will allow you to connect more authentically to your AAPI coworkers and also your customer base.
So that’s the first myth.
Larry Baker: Okay.
Maya Hu-Chan: Second one is that people think Asian Americans are the model minority. That they don’t have problems, don’t have any challenges. That’s a common perception, right? Asian Americans are often held up as inherently successful, hardworking, and problem-free, and this is a stereotype. And hold them as this exception to the stereotypes leveraged against other people of color and immigrant groups. And not only is this inaccurate, in fact, AAPI people face the largest income in equality gap of all ethnic groups in the US.
This stereotype pits Asian community against other racial minority groups as a means of dividing communities of color, and also negates discrimination, bias, and harm that a communities do experience. That denial inhibits progress against those injustices. So when we hear this, “Asian community is the model minority,” it may sound like a compliment, but in fact it raises the hardship that many AAPI communities face and often serve as a cover for racist and discriminatory practices.
Larry Baker: Yes, I agree a hundred percent, Maya. That’s one of the things that I’ve always tried to share with individuals that wanted to understand what were some of the conflicts with the Asian American community and the African American community.
And one of the biggest things was this myth that the AANHPI community were the model, that if they could do it, why can’t you do it? The truth to the matter is there were some things that were going on systemically for the AANHPI community that were being withheld from the Black community.
But ultimately, to get to what you said, it’s to separate us. It’s to divide us. It’s to pit our community versus your community versus this community versus that community when in reality, we are all subject to that racism and that discrimination and these unfair and unjust policies. But they want to divide and conquer, just like you said. I appreciate you saying that.
So what’s the other myth, Maya? I know you said three, and I think I only caught two.
Maya Hu-Chan: Right. So the third one is that people think AANHPI people don’t make good leaders. That’s the perception. And there is a recent survey found that almost half Americans incorrectly believe that Asian Americans are overrepresented or fairly represented in the senior positions within American companies, politics, media, and other industries. But in reality, it’s just the opposite. Asian Americans are underrepresented in most positions of power holding about only 3% of those positions in comparison to 7% of the US population. But only 3% are holding those position of power. Asian Americans have the lowest degree of representation in political office compared to any other racial and ethnic groups.
How about in a workplace? In the Western definition, the Western definition of a strong leader is someone who is outspoken, charismatic, and speaks perfect English. It’s this one-size-fits-all outdated concept, and it often pushes out the AANHPI professionals who would make excellent leaders, but don’t fit this mold.
The truly effective leaders often share some similar traits. I’ve been an executive coach and leadership educator for decades, and we’re working globally with thousands of leaders across industries. I have learned that good leaders is not just all one size fits all. They share some common traits, but ultimately, the most important thing for leaders to be effective is that—number one—they need to have high level of emotional intelligence. They can communicate well, not necessarily speak perfect English, but they can communicate well, and have a compelling vision, and they have the ability to inspire and engage people.
Larry Baker: Absolutely.
Maya Hu-Chan: And so a lot of times that people have that perception about Asians doesn’t make the leaders perhaps have something to do with Asians tend to be more reserved and not quite as outspoken. But when we think about some of the characteristics of who truly effective leaders, they’re not always extroverted and constantly talking to people, bubbly.
But when you are looking for people to promote and to lead your positions in the company, check for potential biases that could be impacting your decision or even research, and acknowledge that the Western stereotype about good leader is very limiting..
Larry Baker: Definitely, yeah. Bias is definitely a major contributor in that because again, people have a image of what a leader looks like. You touched upon some of those characteristics, and if it doesn’t come in that package, then people tend to say, “This person couldn’t possibly be an effective leader.” So I appreciate you saying that.
You talked about how it shows up in the workplace, for example, in regards to defining leaders. So as an ally… oh, we do have a question. I’m sorry. We have a question in the chat, so let us take a look at that. “Half of Americans believe Asians are overrepresented in leadership positions, but could they name even one?” Wow. Sue, great point. I appreciate you bringing that to the attention… It really reminds me of some of the arguments that are used against the Black community when they say that Black people have made it and Black people have been successful, and then they name like two. They’ll say Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Jay-Z—these people. So it’s like you named five; there are over 40 million. Help me understand how that has overcome. So Sue, thank you so much for pointing that out.
Do we have any other comments? I wanted to make sure that we did not skip that because Maya, we’re having such a great conversation that we just could talk all day. I just wanna make sure that we talked to see if there are any other comments in there.
Maya Hu-Chan: I would love to hear from the listener, from our audience here: have you experienced or noticed any other myths about AANHPI community that’s pervasive in your workplace or even in your community? What have you noticed or heard?
Larry Baker: Yeah, that’s a great question. So any other myths that anyone who’s listening they may have heard. And I’ll give one. I’ve always been told that Asian Americans are incredibly good at math. Like if it’s a math problem and you don’t understand it, you find the Asian American kid in the class and they know it. And of course, I know that that’s not true, right? But coming up, that was the biggest myth that I had about the AANHPI community.
But we wanna hear from you. We wanna hear from the audience. What types of myths have you heard?
Maya Hu-Chan: Yeah. Actually Larry, that was interesting, that myth that you brought up. I am very bad in math. My husband, my son… nobody’s good at math. So I just show you my family alone, we’re good at other things, but math is definitely not our strength.
Larry Baker: But you know what’s good about that? I’m so glad you said that, Maya, because what we tend not to realize is that with these myths, it tends to put undue pressure on individuals that don’t live up to the myth. Now they have this self-pity about, “I should be good at math. I’m an Asian. Why can’t I be good at math?”
Now you start to put on all of these unnecessary stressors because they don’t live up to a stereotype that’s not even true, that they should’ve never even tried to live up to. But because it’s out there and it’s the narrative, and if I don’t live up to it now something’s wrong with me. But I’m glad you said that.
Maya Hu-Chan: Absolutely. And another thing now that we talk about this, during those listening sessions I learned a lot about some of the challenges people have experienced in the AANHPI community, but I also heard some good news. So something I wanted to share with you and our audience here is that I noticed younger generations, the younger AAPI communities or actually just community at large, particularly spoke of not only emerging kindness across culture, there is a theme of hope.
They really talk about that there is an increase of awareness, that people are participating more in the cultural events, activities, and then also increase of awareness, advocacy, and actions that the younger generation are taking. So I think that there’s definitely hope there, and we can all work together to continue to combat those myths and to try to understand what’s the real truth behind all the stereotypes. And then just get to know the community, get to know people better.
Larry Baker: So, Maya, you’re starting to go down this path, and I really do want you to dig into some more specifics. I want you to give us some actions that we can take to be an ally to the AANHPI community. So if you could give us some specifics like you talked about.
What’s ironic about one of the first things that you said was to get to know the community, our organization, literally this week we are on a retreat. One of our big activities will be to go through Chinatown. We’re gonna go through a museum, and I will be perfectly honest with you, I have lived in Chicago probably my entire life and I’ve never been there. So I am super excited for this experience. But if you don’t take that conscious effort to get to know the community, you will miss out.
So that was one thing that you recommended as an ally. What are some other things that we can do?
Maya Hu-Chan: I would recommend two things that everybody can actually take action on. The first one is holding space. When you notice that your Asian colleagues at work may have experienced acts of hate or discrimination or perhaps they just seem really quiet, you reach out to them, check in with them to ask them how you can support them, how are they doing. And then even if they have not directly experienced any racism or hate crime, they are still impacted by them. Their community, their family are impacted by them. So check in, ask how they’re doing and how you can support them.
One thing that can happen regularly and very frequently but also sort of fly under the radar is a theme about microaggression. The microaggression is happening everywhere, and when we think about what’s happening in the workplace, the racial bias and discrimination against AAPI can show up in different levels. Some of them are overt, but microaggression is much more common. It may be perceived as harmless by the person who committed them, but their negative effects can compound over time.
So what is microaggression? They’re subtle putdowns or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that are regularly experienced by marginalized groups. While microaggression might seem minor in comparison to the harassment or violence, their harmful impact is the same. On the personal level, they can demean, belittle, shame, and even stifle careers, and on the society level it can lead to violence.
So you know, some simple things that you may notice… let me give you a couple examples that can happen at work. If you notice it, then I would like you to actually check in and step up. For example, not learning to pronounce their name correctly. And that’s something that I appreciate so much about you, Larry, was that you asked me several times, “How do I pronounce your name and also your university that you graduated from Taiwan?” Chengchi University. Maya Hu-Chan. You asked me, and you practiced back with me to make sure you said it right. And I can’t tell you how much that I appreciate that.
My Chinese name is not Maya—it’s Men-Jyung. During my first year of graduate school, my professor and classmates rarely called me by my name, and so I very quickly discovered that everybody just uncomfortable saying my name. They didn’t bother to even learn how to say it, how to pronounce it. So they just called me “Hey!” So my name is “Hey” the first year.
Larry Baker: Wow.
Maya Hu-Chan: So as a result, I was not included in the study groups or classroom discussions, and I just felt excluded, invisible, and marginalized—just like an outsider. And after a year, I realized I need to do something to fix this. This is not gonna work. So I changed my name to Maya and then Men-Jyung as my middle name.
This is an example of the effects of microaggression. I really feel like an outsider as a foreign student from Taiwan in American school. And my classmates, professors made this dynamic—not only emotional one, but also physical one—that cut me off from access to the group.
A client recently shared with me a real example at work that in his company, people repeatedly confusing the names of two Asian American. Those two people work together in the same team, and the leader repeatedly called them the wrong name when they’re sitting in a meeting. They get those two people mixed up over and over again, even after people have told this leader, “No, this is Lisa. That is Sally.”
Larry Baker: Yes, exactly.
Maya Hu-Chan: They’re not even trying. You think about it in such a basic level, saying somebody’s name correctly, it’s a form of respect.
Larry Baker: Yes, it is. It is.
Maya Hu-Chan: I get it. They don’t wanna get it wrong. But asking how to pronounce somebody’s name is never offensive if you ask with genuine care and respect. And then after you’ve heard a correct pronunciation, you can repeat it and check to make sure you got it right and practice it. And even if you forget it and you meet that person later on, at a later time, you can ask again. It’s okay. It shows your interest in getting it right, and it’s inclusive behavior that communicates care and respect.
Larry Baker: It is. It is. And for me, Maya, it is so important that I do that because this story echoes with a lot of my friends that are from Africa, and they have very challenging names to pronounce. But it goes to the very core of inclusion.
Someone took the time to give you that name, Maya, and the fact that no one took the time to really say it, and it made you change your name… to me, that’s so disappointing that in order for you to assimilate, if you will, you had to give up some of that identity. Now, you kept your original name as a middle name, but the reality is that is a microaggression. That is a lived experience that many individuals with names that are challenging to pronounce go through, and they’ll say things like, “you could just call me X” or “you can call me Q,” or whatever the case may be.
I understand that and it’s okay, but I wanna know how to pronounce your name right because I want you to understand that it’s important to me that I understand how to pronounce your name. So I appreciate you pointing that out, that I did that because that’s extremely important to you, to me. So I appreciate that.
Maya Hu-Chan: I have a question for the audience actually. One of the common expression people will say to the AANHPI community is that they say, “Your English is so good.” Even though they were born here. So how do you respond to that? “Your English is so good.”
First of all, what’s wrong with that? Many microaggressions are example of the difference between intent and impact. Somebody might think that they have good intent and then are complimenting somebody by talking about how good their English is. but impact is this kind of cast this person as an outsider.
It’s like, “I don’t expect you to speak English that well, “You’re less capable of,” “I’m not expecting you to really be able to communicate.” And so what would be a better way to say that? If you are actually wanting to give somebody a compliment? How would you say to that person if they have communicated well, they made a good presentation, what would be a better way to compliment someone about their communication?
Larry Baker: And while we wait for a response, Maya, I handled it in sort of a humorous way. I would usually get people saying, “You are so articulate, Larry. You are so articulate.” And my response, knee-jerk was, “And so are you. That is awesome. You are so articulate.” And it threw ’em off. But it sort of let them know that I understand what that comment really means, so I want you to be aware of it. But I say it in a way that’s humorous to kind of break that conversation from going down a path that we really don’t want it to go down.
So that was usually what I would use when someone would come up to me and say, “Oh my goodness, you’re so articulate.” I was like, “You know what, so are you. I am super proud of you as well.”
Maya Hu-Chan: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I’m wondering if any of our listeners have any idea how you might compliment somebody for their communication. Someone perhaps English is not their native language. How do you compliment about their presentation skills? I think I like your comment. “You’re so articulate.”
And sometimes you can speak to the specifics. For example, “I love how you open your presentation. That was a very compelling story.” Or you can say, “You summarize that complex idea so clearly.” So stick to the specifics.
Larry Baker: Yeah. Yeah. The behavior. That’s what I often tell people as well. It’s not that you can never tell me that I’m articulate, but you need to tell me what was so articulate for you that led you to that statement. So I agree a hundred percent. Thank you so much for that. Maya.
Maya, we are getting close to our close for today, but I want you to share with our listeners. I’ve given some of the things that you’ve done, but I have nowhere touched the surface. So how can folks get in contact with you to learn more about you and what you do and your services? If you could just share how folks could get in touch with you.
Maya Hu-Chan: Yes, it’s easy. You can go to my website. It’s Maya Hu-Chan, mayahuchan.com. And you can send me an email, you can send me a note and then we can collect.
Larry Baker: Awesome. Awesome. So thank you so much, Maya. I will ask once again if we have any comments from the audience before we move our session to a close. I wanted to make sure that folks had an opportunity to ask the questions with the experts that we have on the call today. So, do we have anything in the chat? Here we go. It’s coming.
Sue says, “Our name is the most important word in our lives.” Absolutely. Great point about inclusion, belonging, always. “… okay to ask again and again.” Thank you so much, Sue. I appreciate you saying that. Definitely appreciate that. Thank you so much, Sue.
So Maya, this has been such a great conversation, but the reality is it really doesn’t stop here. And what we are hoping that you do is that you take some of the things that you’ve learned here today and you share it with your friends, you share it with your coworkers. And again, thank you so much, Maya. I appreciate the conversation. I’ve learned so much from you, and I know that we will continue to learn from each other. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much.
Maya Hu-Chan: It’s my honor, Larry. Thank you for having me.
And if I may say as a conclusion is that when we think about allyship, it’s a verb—it’s not a noun—based on our actions that we take and the things we say in the moment when allyship is needed. So it’s everybody’s responsibility to speak out and take a stand against hate and racism.
So this work is already begun. And let’s continue to work together and make our community, our society a better place.
Larry Baker: Thank you. Thank you so much, Maya. Thank you all for joining us today. I really hope that you gained something from our conversation that we had on today.
And again, my name is Larry Baker, and this has been Brave Conversations with LCW. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.
And to all of you who are listening, we want to know—what were your biggest takeaways from this conversation? What coded language do you want us to unpack next? Please share with us on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn at Language and Culture Worldwide or LCW.
Until next time, I’m Larry Baker, and this has been Brave Conversations with LCW.
