The year is now 2022 and only about 1 in 10 employees at large tech companies is black or Latinx. As the United States faces an overlapping health and civil rights crises, many companies have increased their efforts to change the tech industry’s talent dynamics. While tech companies continue to release statements of corporate solidarity against racism, they are also under more pressure than ever to demonstrate tangible progress — especially after recent cuts to diversity programs at companies including Google.
For many years, industry giants resisted calls to disclose workforce diversity data, making it difficult to pinpoint how much whiter and more male Silicon Valley was than the population at large. But Google’s 2014 decision to publish the racial and gender breakdown of its workforce appeared to signal a sea change. What does the data say?
The numbers revealed an industry dominated by white and Asian men. Of nearly 50,000 employees at Google in 2014, 83% were men, 60% were white, and 30% were Asian. Just 2.9% were Latino, and 1.9% Black. A year later, as other major Silicon Valley companies began releasing their own diversity numbers, Google announced it would dedicate $150 million to increasing diversity at the company.In the years since, Google has more than doubled its workforce but made minimal progress toward a more representative one. The numbers are similar across the industry.
Leaders in the industry have pointed at a “pipeline problem” to explain the lack of black and brown hiring and promotion. But in 2016, 12% of graduates with a degree in science, technology, engineering or math were Black, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Even the graduating class of computer science majors at Stanford,is more diverse than the companies just down the road from campus.
The problem doesn’t seem to be education but lack of access and support. A number of minority tech professionals agree that the industry’s reliance on personal relationships to grant access and opportunity is partly to blame, producing a network effect that goes against Black and Latino inclusion.
“The problem is not a lack of qualified candidates, but the companies’ unwillingness to open the door,” said Bari Williams, the head of legal at Human Interest, a financial services startup. Companies are also reluctant to broaden the schools they recruit from to include historically Black colleges and universities, said Williams, who advocates for diversity in Silicon Valley.
“It always comes down to some semblance of seeing it as lowering the bar,” she said. Williams, who used to work at StubHub and Facebook, said she’s seen candidates get passed over because they attended an HBCU.
Then there is the origin of the tech ecosystem — venture capital funds — typifies the problem.
“The industry’s reliance on personal relationships perpetuates a system of gate-keeping that is almost designed to keep investors like me out,” says Kanyi Maqubela ,managing partner of Kindred Ventures.
Black investors make up less than 1% of venture capitalists, a very small world to begin with. According to Govtech.com, in 2018, just 713 individual investors at large venture funds, defined as having more than $250 million under management, had the power to lead deals, sit on boards, and write checks to invest in companies, according to an Information survey. Of that group, 11 were Latino and seven were Black. A number of premier firms, such as Sequoia, Benchmark, Greylock, and Kleiner Perkins have no Black partners at all.
When a Black VC goes out to try to raise a new fund from those limited partners, Maqubela said, “They’re taking all the demographic patterns they know and applying them purely against you.”
Blacks and Latininx individuals have made genuine progress in penetrating the nation’s tech sector. Blacks, for example, have increased their presence in several important tech occupations, such as computer programming and operations research. Likewise, Hispanics have increased their representation in the overall C&M occupational group.
As the job market reels after COVID-19 lockdowns, some tech headhunters say companies have an opportunity to rethink the way hiring is done to make sure they don’t pass over candidates they need to build products that appeal to a broad customer base.
There are a number of organizations aimed at changing the scope of diversity in the tech field. Organizations such as Sabio hold coding bootcamps for anybody wanting to take a leap into the field.
Having a diverse team of Instructors and Software Engineers that are dedicated to student success lays the groundwork for a bright future for those who complete the bootcamps. Here is to seeing an increase of more Black and Latinx people in the industry that shapes our day to day lives.
What if I told you that there was a brown army with real world power looking for an opportunity to help you get to where you want to go in?
My Gs, it’s true.
And I have proof. A lot of it. And I’m rolling it out in a series called, Operation Level Up. Check out the inaugural piece with HR consultant Raul Pereyra who provides solid advice for advancing your career during Covid.
In this article, we connect with John Fraire, a university administrator with an Ivy league degree, a a penchant for exploring Mexican American history and willingness to give back…to you, even.
John, you’ve had a unique experience during the pandemic, tell us about that.
I was living in Seattle when in 2018 I was offered a one year interim senior leadership position at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU), a Chicago located Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). Part of the arrangement was they put me up in one of their university’s on campus apartments, fully furnished and equipped. That’s where I lived when COVID started and I stayed there alone until the start of 2021. I guess you could say I was living in a college dorm. I was with students, had to go down the hall to do my laundry, and lived on the fifth floor. I finally moved out and now live in Indiana with family.
2. Tell us about your college experience.
In 1973, I was one of 15 Mexican Americans/Chicanos who enrolled at Harvard, Class of 1977. Prior to that year, Harvard had admitted only one or two Mexican Americans/Chicanos a year. So, we joke among ourselves that we were a social experiment. “Would Harvard survive if 15 Mexicans came to campus all at once?” We did all right and Harvard is still standing.
Back in 1996, I wrote “Recruiting Minority Students in Post Modern America” for the College Board Magazine in which I detail some of my experiences at Harvard. One of the things I said in the article was that Harvard was racist, even by 1973 standards, and that includes faculty and staff, not just students. Yet, I was determined to stay and succeed. I felt if I dropped out or quit it would reflect badly on other Chicanos who followed me. I also believed it would be disrespectful to my family, community and others who sacrificed so I could attend a place like Harvard. They would have been disappointed if I let racism and a challenging environment defeat me.
3.How did your Harvard uniquely prepare you? Were there any blindspots in your education?
One critical way that Harvard prepared me is that I learned what it meant to come from a working class family. My father worked in the steel mills and my mother was a school secretary. I could clearly see the privilege and class difference in my classmates. After my junior year I decided to take a year off, something about a third of Harvard students do, but unlike my classmates who spend their year off back packing in Europe or interning with a senator their daddy knows, I went back home and worked in the steel mills where most people in NW Indiana work, Mexican and non Mexican.
My parents had helped my two older brothers in college, and there were three siblings following me, so I wanted to make some money to help out my parents. I was also not happy at Harvard and wanted a change of scenery. While working in one of the mills (Inland Steel where my dad worked), I also studied labor history, assisted by my brother Rock’s friend, Dr. James Lane, a Gary historian and Indiana University history professor. That year was also the year Ed Sadlowski challenged the old union bosses when he ran for presidency of the United Steelworkers (USW) union in what I think was the last attempt in this country by rank ‘n file unionists in the traditional industries to seize power. So, I returned to Harvard much more confident and with a much stronger sense of my class background. I even wrote about the USW union election for my Harvard senior thesis. You can say one of the most elite and privileged institutions in the country helped teach me about my class background.
As for blindspots?
My first couple of years at Harvard were difficult for me because I was intimidated and clearly experiencing the impostor syndrome. I felt I was an admissions mistake. Everyone else seemed so much smarter than me. That is why that year off, going home, working in the mills, and studying labor history was so transformational for me. By time I graduated, I was no longer intimidated and felt empowered by knowing and appreciating my history better.
4. Tell us about your career trajectory.
Upon graduation in 1978, I was hired to be on the Harvard undergraduate admissions staff and worked there for six years, primarily helping to advance their recruitment of Mexican Americans/Chicanos and other students of color. Even though I understood Harvard to be a training ground for the elite and powerful and did not enjoy my student experience there, I still believed people of color needed to attend such institutions. Along with Connie Rice, an African American woman who was hired at the same time I was, I helped establish Harvard’s minority recruitment programs and increased the diversity of their enrollments.
After my time at Harvard, I worked several years full time as a political and community organizer, and when I needed to return to a “regular” job, it made sense to turn to recruiting and admissions. It was still enjoyable work and helping students get a college education was both noble and needed. I was able to move up the ladder, so to speak, from director of admissions (Brooklyn College), dean of admissions (Western Michigan), associate vice president for enrollment (Truman State), and vice president for student affairs and enrollment (Washington State).
5. What can Latinos who work in higher education do to advance the prospects of the next generation of both students and administrators?
I was a consultant for the Gates Millennium Scholars program for minority students for the 16 years the program existed. My job was to train and supervise the primarily Latino group of educators who reviewed the applications from Latino students. It was important work, but what was developmental professionally for me was that I was able to meet and work with Latinos in higher ed throughout the country. I am still in contact with many of those folks. It is a good network. Many social media groups focusing on Latinos in higher exist, and they are growing. On Facebook there is Latinx in Student Affairs, Latinx Scholars, Chicana and Chicano Studies and more, and more on LinkedIn. I encourage Latinos interested and involved in higher education to network and support each other as much as possible. I also encourage Latino educators to consider positions in finance and enrollment. Those areas involve revenue and are critical positions for a university. We need more diversity in those positions. I have not been able to find exact statistics, but it is a good bet that I am only one of a handful of Mexican Americans/Chicanos who is a full vice president of enrollment at a major university. There should be many more.
6. You write. Why?
A significant part of my life has centered on community and political organizing. A couple of times I stepped out of my job in higher ed to work full time as a political organizer. I was part of the independent political movement for many years, and worked with many other political people. Much of that work was based out of New York City, so I was living there. It was shocking to me at the time that many of my fellow organizers had no clue or understanding of Mexican Americans or Chicanos. Most of them assumed Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, a larger population in New York city, were interchangeable. And if they had some knowledge Mexicans, they stereotypically believed we lived only in Texas, California and the Southwest, and worked in agriculture and lawn maintenance.
Mexican Americans were not steelworkers from Gary, Indiana. My response was to write a play with my brother Gabriel, a writer living in northern California (gabrielfraire.com), called Who Will Dance with Pancho Villa? It is a semi autobiographical, magical realism play that combined my interest in Pancho Villa and my desire to teach people about Chicanos from the Midwest. Since then, my brother and I have co-authored other plays and productions about the Midwest Chicano urban experience.
What was fun was that for many years I had already been collecting the oral histories of my mother, grandmother and other elderly Mexicans from Indiana Harbor, Indiana. And in 1992, the Señoras of Yesteryear, a group of elderly Mexican women, including my mother who was the group’s vice president, produced Mexican American Harbor Lights, a community history book of the Mexican community in Indiana Harbor. It is filled with text, lists, dates, photographs, and personal stories of their families’ migration to Indiana Harbor and other key experiences, all from women. Some of the stories were part of Who Will Dance with Pancho Villa. I continued to collect the oral histories of my mother and the early Mexican residents of the area.
The oral histories were part of my doctoral dissertation which focused on the formation of Mexican men and women’s baseball in Indiana Harbor in the 1930’s and 40’s and the simultaneous development of their Mexicanidad and U.S./American identity. My mother was one of the star players for the girls’ softball team called Las Gallinas. I continue to write the cultural history of the Mexican community of Northwest Indiana.
7. Tell us about your interest in Oscar Zeta Acosta.
When I was a teenager I had no problem reading articles (especially ones about sports and World War II), but for some reason books were difficult for me to read and understand. The only two books I was able to read completely were the Autobiography of Malcolm X and the Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo. I connected connected culturally with Oscar Zeta Acosta and the concept and imagery of the Brown Buffalo. Having worked many years in the independent electoral movement I like that his history involved electoral work. For me, a Brown Buffalo represents quiet strength, power, culture and it connects with the indigenous part of the Chicano identity. I believe strongly in Black and Brown unity, but I also firmly believe if we are to make significant social and structural change in this country, there needs to be a greater unity of Chicanos and the Native American community. I think the Brown Buffalo represents that. And I thoroughly enjoyed the The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo documentary.
8.What’s the connection between you, baseball and Mexican American history?
Baseball is part of the social and cultural history of the Mexican community in Indiana Harbor, Indiana, my home community. Baseball played a significant developmental role for the early Mexican residents who were youth and teenagers during the 1930’s and early 40’s, my parents and their generation, the Greatest Generation. The early Mexican residents of Indiana Harbor, like my parents, did not play baseball as some sort of Americanization process, or as a method to become more incorporated into U.S./American society and become less Mexican. They played baseball as a developmental community activity and as a way to interact with other communities. It was their ability to continually develop their Mexican ethnic identity, not lose it or become more American, that in later years was a critical factor in their ability to become an integral and contributing community in Northwest Indiana. In short, they became more U.S./American by becoming more Mexican.
9.Where can people stay connected to your work?
I can be reached at my website brownbuffalonotes.com And if anyone would like to read my article “Mexicans Playing Baseball in Indiana Harbor, 1925-1942,” published by the Indiana Magazine of History, 2014; or “Recruiting Minority Students in Post Modern America,” by the College Board Magazine, 1996, just email me and I will send you a copy.
My walk across Occidental‘s commencement stage that sun soaked Sunday in early May 1998 was my Neil Armstrong moment.
One small step for man, one giant leap for motherfuckers like me who almost didn’t make it.
Indeed, I’d reached escaped velocity. I was in a new orbit. The rocket boosters at my feet damn near scorched my new dress kicks (shot-out Payless).
Now, the only thing that might temper that exuberance was an official document, uhum, DELINQUENT NOTICE, placed in the folio where my diploma ought have been.
THIS IS THAT NOTICE!
Rivaled only by Pac’s “Hit’em Up” in the catalogue of epic disses
Why do I still have this mother of all disrespect some 22 years later?
On Monday, my wife and I drove our kids to San Diego to pay respects to their Great-Grandmother, Leonor Baez, a pioneering woman who not only built a home, family and church in Rosarito but a lasting legacy of strength and bad-assery, forever evidenced in my bad-ass wife.
Leonor lived to nearly 90. She smoked several times a day, often waving to the priests across the street with her free hand as they walked in and out of the church she helped build.
On the two hour drive to San Diego, we listened to music, talked early childhood , listened to more music and entertained a range of questions from the kids.
“What’s a Mormon?” “What’s a Baptist?” “What’s peace and quiet?”
You can trust I did my best to over-explain.
“You see…Martin Luther King Jr. was named after Martin Luther, who was the person that nailed 95 theses…”
‘Actually, Dad, Martin Luther King Sr. was named after Martin Luther.’
That was Maya.
And on and on.
And this and that.
When we got to the mortuary, we were greeted with a temperature check at the door.
The viewing happened in rotating shifts by household. These things are always tough but the isolated grieving made it more difficult, less humane. Before wrapping up the viewing portion, we had one last opportunity to say farewell.
Joaquin wanted to go back in. I took him by myself. When we got to the casket, Joaquin lifted his hands, as if performing some sort of magic trick. I was dumbstruck.
“What are you doing, bruh,” I hushed.
“I’m really into this Jesus thing right now, so I’m trying to see if I can heal her. Or bring her back to life.”
It didn’t work.
But it didn’t stop him from trying, again. Down at the grave site, hands lifted, the boy tried. Again, in the mausoleum, trying.
One of the high points of my career was writing and producing on the Daytime Emmys for several years.
I want all the drama.
It’s a black tie affair, a veritable who’s who of whodafukisthat?
One year, to ensure that the production team was outfitted properly, Ron Braverman (our marketing whiz) secured complimentary tuxedos for the fellas on the team. I went in and got sized, came back a few days later, put the tux in a bag and then on a plane and was gala ready in no time.
Except for the part where they fucked up my measurements.
You see, it was the night of the big show and lo and behold the sleeves were too fucking short.
“Damn it. I’m supposed to meet Susan Lucci tonite!”
So, I reached out to wifey back home in LA with this photo and told her I’d decided to ditch the collared shirt and go with Crocket & Tubbs, 90s R&B, T shirt and Tux steelo. This is that photo.
Thankfully, she talked me out of the style sin. Instead, I went to wardrobe and some angel on the team fixed my hem.
Here’s the premise (in case you missed it during episodes 1-12): A Big Brown Dad wakes up at 4:44 am every Saturday morning in order to GO LIVE at 5:15 am with a weekly roundup of parent related news, coffee reviews and randomized benedictions from either the Bible or The Dictionary. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll fall back to sleep.
On this episode I tackle a N. Korean frontal, er, rear attack on our children. Dig in.
