Inclusion, cultural relevance can help people of color flourish in tech world
Austin is a city steeped in diversity and also in tech — but the twain have yet to meet. In 2014, Google, with a few other tech companies, were brave enough to reveal less than 17 percent of their employees were women; women of color, 1 percent. This is cringe-worthy stuff. And, it’s not like Austin isn’t diverse. Although the city’s African-American population is waning, Austin demographer Ryan Robinson reports no ethnic or demographic group exists as a majority of the city’s population.
Eighty percent of last and this year’s incoming kindergarten students to the Austin school district were and are Hispanic. The Asian population almost doubled during the nineties and stands somewhere near 6.5 percent today. And none of these communities are monolithic. Latinos in Austin are Mexican nationals and Chicanos, but also Central Americans and Puerto Ricans stand as the city’s second-largest Latino populations. Asians in Austin source from India, Vietnam and China, but also Myanmar and growing communities of Middle Eastern refugees are calling Austin home now.
Every business student knows diversity equals growing markets equals commerce equals sustainability. So, what’s the glue that brings inclusion to technology? Revising history. What if Jobs, Gates and Zuckerberg weren’t the only names invoked when the topic of “innovation” comes up? A woman (Grace Hopper) invented coding, and in Mexico there is a 12-year-old female mathematician surpassing the likes of our biggest innovators as a pre-adolescent. Latina (Elena Ochoa) and female African-American (Mae Jemison) astronauts are changing STEM culture outside our atmosphere. Who’s editing them into our social studies texts? Names like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became synonymous with space travel through media and repetition.
Some of our most powerful technologies originated from people of color and indigenous culture. Mayans were amazing mathematicians and created below-ground reservoirs in case of drought, a solar calendar, as well as the chemistry that is chocolate. Incans originated terrace farming and Caribbean natives designed fishing netting long before Europeans arrived. One just has to look at Cuba and its repurposing of classic cars to realize Latin Americans have always been recycling.
Food trucks, engineered kitchens on wheels, were strictly an immigrant enterprise in the United States until their recent elevation by mainstream chefs. Imagine the outcomes if kids of color in Austin got an understanding that they needn’t “join” the tech community, but that it’s in their DNA?
At Latinitas, this has been our mantra. We not only put gender, but cultural relevance at the forefront of everything we do. That is why we are serving girls others aren’t. Over 63 percent of girls who come to Latinitas’ last three coding events have never coded before even though they live in a city nicknamed “Silicon Hills.” Culturally relevant activities are bringing girls to the table who have never joined before. We have been recognized for this: as 1 of 26 agencies worldwide awarded a Google RISE grant this year to fix that leaky pipeline of Latinas to tech. And we are not alone: E4Youth is doing the same with Austin’s design community; Cine las Americas with filmmaking; Anthropos Arts with music; and Hispanic Scholarship Consortium and Con Mi Madre with college attainment.
Some companies in Austin are answering the call. They are walking the walk. Blackbaud taught 25 Latinitas girls how to code on Hopscotch this summer. General Motors led a team of girls through a technology strategy session, and for a decade Dell has introduced Latina youth to tech careers.
I read about a fellowship program that was focusing on minorities getting into tech, and the article said this: “People of color have been the original of making something out of nothing. They are natural inventors and founders for that reason. A little stewarding has immense outcomes in communities of color.”
Re: Sept. 24 article, “Ted Cruz says he will vote for Donald Trump.”
Ted Cruz is a political opportunist, plain and simple. When he thought it would curry him favor and keep future political aspirations alive, Cruz declared that out of principle he refused to endorse Trump. Now that the RNC has pressured him, fearing a likely challenge for his Senate seat in a Republican primary, Cruz took the cowardly way out by saying he not only will vote for Trump but encourages others to do so as well. To Cruz I say: Although I am a Democrat, Senator, when you stood up against Trump I actually thought you were standing for principle. Alas, I am naive; it was never about principle but always about you. How sad we live at a time when opportunism seems to be the norm for too many politicians, both Democrats and
Yesterday I visited the newly opened first floor of the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum and was extremely disappointed. The following subjects have been either completely eliminated or drastically diminished in importance: the impact of exploration and settlement by the Europeans upon the Native Americans who had been in Texas for many centuries, the 400 years of Hispanic heritage in Texas, the life of the early settlers including the free blacks, the immigration of German families to Texas, and the Law of 1830 in which the Mexican government proclaimed that no more slaves could be brought to Texas and that there could be no more legal U.S. immigration into Texas. Does all of this sound like the work of our current xenophobic state government?