1. Tech Writing
I started my adult life as an English literature major at Yale and for a time was on a Ph.D. track at Harvard. I eventually chose a different path, moving to Manhattan and getting an education in big city survival. It was the dawn of the dot-com boom, and I became a technical writer, working at a series of high tech companies and writing user guides for different types of data networking products.
2. Tech Illustration
While tech writing, I began doing the diagrams, graphics, and illustrations for the documentation team, and I loved it! It allowed me to tap back into the visual side of my brain, which has always been present as a counterpoint to my verbal side, since childhood. This was the spark that led me to the world of fashion and design.
3. Fashion
I spent nearly two decades in the industry, starting in product development; moving through print and graphics development; to management and operations; and back to PD. It was during this last phase that I caught the sustainability bug, doing research into sustainable luxury, bio-based alternative leathers, and Fourth Industrial Revolution technological innovations. From there, I began to learn the truth about fashion’s damaging ecological impacts.
4. Social Justice, DEI, & Writing Again
In 2018, in the wake of some unsavory racial rhetoric by America’s then White House occupant, I found myself picking up the proverbial pen and writing about my experience growing up Asian in America before we were a significant demographic presence. I also joined my company’s Inclusion Council and became increasingly involved in racial and social justice advocacy—especially the threat posed to civil liberties and liberal democracy by the rise of far-right extremism. Prior to that, I had only ever written professionally on technical subjects. But a chance exchange with one of the co-founders of a small, Canadian start-up led to what turned into a new work and life chapter—one that took me back to my writing roots but also propelled me forward into previously untried forms—including writing as one way to take action on social justice issues.
5. The Road from Here…
In much of my recent writing, I’ve tried to draw connections between the local and global—the push to promote equity inside the walls of organizations, and the fight to expand (and protect) democracy outside those walls, in the political realm.
One of the grounding ideas behind all the work we’ve done at Tidal Equality is participatory decision-making—or what I like to call democratizing decision-making. One shortcoming of too many DEI initiatives in organizations has been a tendency to put forth cosmetic changes only. Words without substance. Representational window dressing without shifts in who actually holds power or has decision-making authority.
But even when the work is more substantive, sometimes the degree of impact you’re able to make toward greater equality at the local level can feel inadequate to the magnitude of the threat that looms nationally and globally. After America almost lost its democracy on January 6th, 2021, I’ve at times felt compelled to ask:
“What good are a few equitable gains inside the workplace, if we lose the whole democratic (with a small ‘d’) ball game?”
I’d like to turn my attention now to that most urgent, highest of stakes ball games—the fight to preserve democracy for the future; to strengthen its institutions and enable it to function more freely and fairly, both at home and abroad.