Strength in Numbers — AAPI Community Must Unite and Become Relevant

A lesson from Mahabharata for our collective voice to be heard

How many people does it take for a voice to be heard and a message to be delivered?

In a country of 350 million people, there are many voices clamoring to be heard. Many important messages being delivered including Black Lives Matter, Diversity & Inclusion, LGBTQ+, Pro Choice or Pro Life, Anti-Defamation League etc. — just to name a few.

And then there are us. The so-called “model minority.” The Asian Americans Pacific Islanders. As first-generation immigrants, we were taught to work-hard and work-smart — but told to not make waves.

Recently a national newspaper had a front-page headline about “Asian Americans and Indians.” I e-mailed them a map of Asia.

Anyone in the US with heritage from any of the Asian countries is an Asian American. Similarly, anyone with heritage from any of the Pacific Islands is a Pacific Islander. Pacific Islanders and Asian Americans together are Asian American Pacific Islanders, often referred to as AAPI.

There are over 24 million of us. That is a pretty large number. About the same as the combined populations of Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. It should be a large enough number to have our voices heard, and yet, we are mostly the silent model minority.

We take pride in our heritage countries, but unfortunately, individual heritages do not create a voice loud enough to compete with the other voices that are also trying to be heard.

Collectively we, the AAPI community, is just under 7 percent of the US population. Small numbers, even though we are growing rapidly. And, the largest group, people of Chinese heritage, is barely over 1%. If we don’t speak as the seven percenters — the voice of the one percenters will get lost in the noise.

There are over a thousand different AAPI professional and social organizations. From numerous small ones to the large ones like ACE, TIE, Ascend, NAAP, NAPABA, LEAP etc. etc. Each has a unique message but the failure to strategically coordinate across the organizations dilutes each message. Collectively we can become relevant. There is strength in numbers.

Our voice will matter only if and when the leaders — and the boards — of all the different AAPI groups are willing to work together.

Often, we are willing to work together, but only if we lead and others follow us. This must change. We must stop competing with each other, or pull each other down. We should leverage each other to achieve our full potential and help close the opportunity gap for others.

I am reminded of an old story from the epic Mahabharata. There were five brothers called Pandavas who constantly competed with each other. One day their guru gave them each a wooden stick to break. They all broke their sticks easily. He then took five sticks and tied them together and then none of them could break the bunch. The simple moral of the story is that individually we may feel challenged but collectively no one can break us. There is strength in numbers.

Let’s look around us and draw strength from each other’s success. To quote President Obama, “Our stories are singular…but our destiny is shared!”

A CEO once told me that as Asian Americans are not homogeneous, the Corporation couldn’t do much to assist them. My response: “Our languages may be different, but our cultural norms and values are the same.”

There is strength in numbers. We need to speak as the seven percenters. In Politics, in Businesses, in Communities and in Neighborhoods.

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S. K. Gupta is a former senior executive of a Fortune 50 corporation. He enjoys researching and writing about the not-so-obvious things in life. Feedback welcome. sk.gupta.us@gmail.com.