But U.S. asset-management firms that are actually owned by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, like the ones owned by Black Americans and women, manage only a small fraction of all the money out there—just 0.7% of the total, according to research published in December by the Association of Asian American Investment Managers.
Major banks and investment firms say they strive to treat everyone equally and recruit and promote diverse workforces. Many have publicly condemned the racism and violence directed at Asian Americans, much the way they’ve issued support for Black Americans. Banks including Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan and Bank of America Corp. have condemned anti-Asian racism in recent weeks. So has the Business Roundtable, a group representing chief executive officers of major U.S. companies.
But the anxiety is palpable among rank-and-file workers and executives of Asian ancestry.
“It's been gut-wrenching,’’ said Ida Liu, global head of private banking at Citigroup.
Like Chang at JPMorgan, Liu said she’s had a stranger shout racist slurs at her on a New York City street. Up in Boston, Jane Li, an equity analyst at Zevin Asset Management, makes sure to be aware of her surroundings after several run-ins with people yelling anti-Asian remarks at her in a grocery store and in South Station. One banker has bought pepper spray. Another has taken to wearing a hat and sunglasses, in addition to the now ubiquitous Covid-19 mask, in order to hide her ethnicity.
A new sense of dread is descending as more finance professionals prepare to return to their offices after the long pandemic lockdown. Asian-American women, in particular, are speaking out about the racism and sexism that has blighted their careers for years. Many are asking if anything will change. Various racist stereotypes—“Dragon Lady” is one—can sometimes prevent Asian women from climbing the corporate ranks, according to Ascend, a pan-Asian professional association. “Tiger Mom” is a more recent addition to the lexicon.
In a recent LinkedIn post, Binna Kim, president of financial-communications agency Vested, told of how men at industry events have made her uncomfortable time and again with comments like “Asian women are sexy.”
Others, worried about jeopardizing their careers by being quoted, told private stories of insults and abuse. One spoke of lewd remarks—an offensive line from “Full Metal Jacket,” the Vietnam war film, for example. Another of belittling shouts of “hello” in various Asian languages.
Dark History
Recently, the new fears of Asian Americans—just the latest entry in the nation’s dark history of anti-Asian bias—reached the highest office in the land. After his predecessor repeatedly blamed an entire ethnic group for the Covid-19 pandemic, President Joe Biden named a White House liaison to the Asian-American Pacific Islander community. The Senate this week passed a bill to address hate crimes directed at Asian Americans.
Chris Bae, who previously worked at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America, wonders if Wall Street is listening.
“I’ve been on a lot of diversity and inclusion panels in my career, and I can tell you, in my 23 years on Wall Street, I’ve never had a management committee meeting, a senior leadership meeting, business meeting where we sat around the table and said, ‘How do we get more Asians promoted, how do we get more Asians in the C-suite?’” said Bae, head of investment strategy at UBS Asset Management, a division of the big Swiss bank. “That’s not a conversation I’ve ever had.”
—With assistance from Scarlet Fu, Kelsey Butler, Michelle Davis, Saijel Kishan, Daniela Sirtori-Cortina, Jennifer Surane, Jeff Green and Melissa Karsh.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.