#113 “I have been told several times by colleagues that I should not be working in technology (as they pointed to brown-skinned window washers cleaning the building windows of our offices)...”
“As a Hispanic tech worker of Mexican descent (my father served in the US Army in Vietnam as a medic) and I am a naturalized US citizen. I have been told several times by colleagues that I should not be working in technology (as they pointed to brown-skinned window washers cleaning the building windows of our offices) while being one of the few Mexican Americans in my entire department. I have also been told that I should be working in landscaping or lawncare. This despite having gone to school, receiving training, studying, and completing the same work qualification requirements as my peers.
I have since left the industry and do not wish to return. The industry is a haven for racists and bias against females and it sickens me (even as a male) to be affiliated with people that seem so hardset to not want to change their vile and dehumanizing behaviour towards others.
I had been working in the oil industry in a technical role and was aware of racism growing up in the South and had hoped that the tech industry would have more openminded and accepting people in it, but too many in the technology side of the oil industry are still stuck in the past and sadly voted for more of the same in recent elections.
I hope to someday be able to work in a better work environment in a business that is more true to their equality mission statements or diversity lipservice. But for now I would rather be umemployed than to lend my expertise and knowledge to aid and abet so many morally bankrupt companies in this country.
There is a reason their are not more people like myself in tech. It is because we are not welcomed and are not given adequate opportunities to advance as others are. I feel I have wasted my time and money studying for a discipline that I cannot put my training to use.
My only hope is that younger generations learn to accept each other more. That we can work to have a more equitable and productive society than what we have now.”
