562069
research-article2014
MCQXXX10.1177/0893318914562069Management Communication QuarterlyShenoy-Packer
Research Note
Immigrant Professionals,
Microaggressions, and
Critical Sensemaking in
the U.S. Workplace
Management Communication Quarterly
2015, Vol. 29(2) 257–275
© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0893318914562069
mcq.sagepub.com
Suchitra Shenoy-Packer1
Abstract
This study uses the frameworks of microaggressions and critical sensemaking
(CSM) to examine the work realities of immigrant professionals (IPs) in the
United States, a context rarely explored in organizational communication
research. Findings indicate that IPs experience verbal, attitudinal, and
professional microaggressions stemming from their ethnic/national group
membership, which they make sense of by using critical discursive strategies;
rationalizing, creating alternative selves, and taking ownership/blaming self.
Theoretical insights provided by the frameworks and practical implications
highlight the contributions of this study.
Keywords
immigrant professionals, microaggressions, organizational assimilation,
critical sensemaking, discrimination
Foreign-born workers comprised 25 million or 16.1% of the U.S. labor
force in 2012 (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013).
While foreign workers may be considered as threats to native workers’ jobs,
the fact is, immigrants are twice as likely as native-born workers to found
1DePaul
University, Chicago, IL, USA
Corresponding Author:
Suchitra Shenoy-Packer, DePaul University, 1 E. Jackson Blvd., Chicago, IL 60604, USA.
Email: sshenoy1@depaul.edu
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Management Communication Quarterly 29(2)
companies and create employment (Alsever, 2014). However, with few
exceptions (e.g., Bridgewater & Buzzanell, 2010; Jian, 2012), U.S. organizational diversity scholarship in Communication has largely ignored this
demographic.
Among immigrant professionals (IPs), some may find it challenging to
adapt to local workplace practices given native cultural and professional
socialization prior to immigration. This may be exacerbated by accents and
appearances, dietary restrictions, strong national culture stereotypes, general
bias against specific countries by U.S. Americans, and positive stereotypes
that threaten existing status quo, among other preconceived notions against
foreigners. These nuances may render the workplace a hostile and ambiguous
space for nonnative workers.
While blatant racism is punishable by law, biases and prejudices often take
the form of unconscious racism. Nonobvious racism, or seemingly unintentional and invisible forms of racism and sexism, may be concealed under
potential perpetrators’ endorsing of egalitarian values, public condemning of
racism, and self-identification as nonprejudiced individuals (Cortina, 2008).
This study hopes to reveal these undetected forms of prejudice that organizational communication has overlooked. To do so, I use the theoretical framework of microaggressions or subtle, intentional, or unintentional prejudicial
and discriminatory words or behaviors.
This study also aims to provide insight using critical sensemaking (CSM;
Helms Mills, Thurlow, & Mills, 2010), which builds on Weick’s sensemaking. CSM is critical of Weick’s model for its lack of consideration of power
relations and therefore incorporates these critical issues in understanding
organizational events. Thus, CSM provides a lens to examine microaggressive behaviors steeped in power relations with broader macro/micro
implications.
Literature Review
Sinanovic (2011) found that immigrants faced unfavorable attitudes from
their U.S.-native coworkers, were challenged by the organizational diversity
policies that disproportionately favored domestic minorities, encountered
prejudices stemming from foreign sounding names and accents, and feared a
lack of professional development opportunities. In addition to fearing job
loss and deportation, IPs may get accused of coming to the United States to
avail of welfare (Anderson, 2010), and become victims of illegal wage discrimination (Banerjee, 2006; McSherry, 2006). IPs also have to negotiate an
outsider–insider space as they continue to traverse the delicate liminality or
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the state of “in-between-ness and ambiguity” (Beech, 2011, p. 285) that exists
amid their search for cross-cultural conciliatory permanent identities, affiliations, and community. Despite the large and diverse groups of IPs in the
United States, as a collective, these first-generation immigrants are a minority group and susceptible to microaggressions.
Microaggressions
Quintessentially communicative in character and similar to “everyday racism” (Essed, 1991) and “prejudiced discourse” (van Dijk, 1987), microaggressions are “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or
environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults” (Sue et al.,
2007, p. 271). Most scholars agree that overt racism with expressed hatred
and bigotry has evolved to subtler forms of disguised behaviors and expressions (e.g., Solorzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000; van Dijk, 1987; Wang, Leu, &
Shoda, 2011). These remarks and actions are often invisible and therefore
difficult to “identify, quantify, and rectify” (Sue et al., 2007, p. 272).
Marginalized groups continually feel their experiential reality invalidated,
insulted at a personal or group level, and constantly reminded of their inferior
social status as members of devalued groups (Sue, 2010). Microaggressions
in the form of subtle hidden messages expressed verbally, nonverbally, or
visually, and through snubs, gestures, glances, and tones pervade everyday
realities of minority groups. As microaggressions are indirect, possibly unintentional, and often emerge when nonprejudicial rationales are plausible,
they leave the victim wondering, “Did what I think happened, really happen?
Was this a deliberate act or an unintentional slight? How should I respond?”
(Sue et al., 2007, p. 279).
Of microaggressions, microinsults “convey rudeness and insensitivity and
demean a person’s racial heritage or identity” (Sue et al., 2007, p. 274) while
microinvalidations are “characterized by communications that exclude,
negate, or nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality
of a person of color” (p. 274). These micro-level attacks have macro-level
consequences on IPs’ integration/assimilation efforts.
IPs in the Workplace
IPs’ stress and anxiety in the workplace may be aggravated by organizational
and cultural newness. Jian (2012) asserted that foreign workers demonstrate
varied levels of familiarity and acceptance with their host culture vis-à-vis
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their original culture. Furthermore, “the absence of a clear connection
between tried behavior and expected results” may even cause “learned helplessness” (Boekestijn, 1988, p. 89). Bhagat and London (1999) observed that
immigrants face challenges in foreign organizations from having to (re)learn
a workplace’s political norms and social influence mechanisms, further
straining organizational assimilation, a process that is embedded within organizational members’ individualized integration and acceptance journeys.
Newcomers attempt to become part of their organization’s culture by engaging in proactive behaviors (Saks & Ashforth, 1996, 1997), which can be
demoralizing if IPs feel discriminated against. While getting recognized as
valued organizational members is critical to newcomers’ workplace integration efforts (Bullis & Bach, 1989; Gailliard, Myers, & Seibold, 2010; Myers
& Oetzel, 2003), it can be challenging if their efforts are not supported by
their coworkers. Amid this dynamic, one wonders about IPs’ experential sensemaking processes.
CSM
Weick’s (1995) sensemaking model explains how one can retrospectively
understand and gain clarity of past events and apply that knowledge to
future events. CSM builds on Weick’s model by incorporating issues of
power and context in understanding organizational events (Helms Mills et
al., 2010). This perspective is evident in the uneven power structures inherent to most workplaces and within the context of the marginalized immigrant worker on whom the burden of mindfulness and successful identity
negotiation often falls (see Ting-Toomey, 2005). Nondominant group members have to thus, invariably, discern the most opportune communication
strategy for a given situation. CSM is “most effectively understood as a
complex process that occurs within . . . a broader context of organizational
power and social experience” (Helms Mills et al., 2010, p. 188) and provides a lens to focus on how “organizational power and dominant assumptions privilege some identities over others” (p. 188). Thus, CSM enables us
to understand how individuals make sense of their environments at a micro/
local level and acknowledges the entrenched power relations in their
broader workplace/social/macro contexts. Despite qualifications at par with
coworkers, IPs may lack the sociocultural capital of cultural insiders, which
forces them into unequal power relationships that engender specific communication strategies. Therefore, a CSM-backed lens is most suited to
examine IPs’ experiences. To examine these further, the following research
questions were asked:
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Research Question 1: How do IPs experience microaggressions?
Research Question 2: What sensemaking strategies do IPs use to navigate microaggressions?
Method
Participants
IPs known to the author and her research assistant were contacted directly
using snowball sampling. Sixteen participants (average tenure 6.5 years),
representing 13 countries and employed in professions like education, agriculture, and information technology, among others, participated.
Procedures
With institutional review board (IRB) approval, we contacted potential participants and explained the purpose of our research. Participants were
informed about digital audio recording, read and signed Informed Consent
Forms, had questions answered, informed about the voluntary nature of their
participation, and that they could withdraw at any point.
Interviews lasted 12 hours and 44 minutes and led to 200 pages of single
spaced data. Examples of questions are (a) How would you describe your
relationship with your coworkers and your leaders/supervisors? (b) How
would you describe your experiences in the workplace vis-à-vis your U.S.
coworkers’ experiences? and (c) Can you narrate an episode of a time (or
times) when your nationality became an issue (positively or negatively)?
Using Nvivo and a grounded theory approach, data were open coded at
the paragraph and sentence level. Detailed annotations were made in the
form of memos and commentaries (Lindlof & Taylor, 2002). This first set of
coding developed 32 categories like personal changes, individual adaptation attempts, and work culture differences and, on further analysis, contracted into 18 codes like outsider within, negotiation, and communication
strategies. Repeated reading of open codes and transcripts revealed that IPs
encountered a very subtle, almost invisible form of discrimination. This
insight led to a second set of codes that specifically addressed forms of prejudice, or discrimination—nationality bias, credentials and credibility, and
coworker attitudes. Further analyses and selective categorization found that
IPs experience three types of discrimination/microaggressions—verbal, attitudinal, and professional. Next, transcripts were reread to identify how IPs
made sense of microaggressive behaviors. Data were then reanalyzed to
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classify strategies IPs used to negotiate their workplace realities. In the end,
three primary strategies emerged in IPs’ recollection of microaggressive
behaviors.
Findings and Interpretation
Microaggressions
Data analyses revealed that IPs encountered verbal, attitudinal, and professional microaggressions from their coworkers.
Verbal microaggressions: Sarcasm. Participants narrated examples of their
coworkers’ insensitive remarks expressed sarcastically (gauged by the tone
of voice in which participants narrated these incidents or mimicked voices of
their coworkers talking to them). Often couched as humor, the comments
were nonetheless inappropriate and hurt feelings. Geeta, an Indian software
engineer, recalls,
He [intern] was making fun of the movie Harold and Kumar—making fun
about the Indian accent or something, “Thank you, come again”—and it would
go on . . . he would say something sarcastically and in front of everyone.
Bianca, an accountant, who is Honduran and Columbian, remembers that
when her company sent some of their Latino staff to a conference, one of her
White male coworkers asked mockingly, “Oh what are you going to do—
break some piñatas and drink some Coronas?” Another time, an American
coworker mocked her Columbian heritage.
He’s always like you Colombians, like he brings up the Colombian and drug
association. It’s not necessarily negative but it gets tiresome that Americans
think like that, or will harp onto this one image of a country and then stick to
that. Where is this coming from?
Bianca is frustrated at the sting of her coworker’s ignorant comments.
June, a financial analyst from Zimbabwe, battles her own share of impoliteness at work.
The other day I put something in a credit column instead of a debit column so
Jack was like aaah is it because you drive on the other side of the road in
Zimbabwe? So it’s like silly things . . . I feel like people forget that . . . I mean
until I talk and every so often some words are different, I think they forget that
I am not from here which is kind of annoying.
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June discounts her coworker Jack’s comment as “silly” but expresses her
irritation at not being acknowledged as an immigrant worker.
Jude, an Australian director of sales for North America, does face rude
comments but reasons that they are made in good humor:
I think when people get comfortable with Australians they feel more inclined to
say things like, “Oh you guys just originated from a bunch of convicts” and
things like that. On the humorous side . . . people’s perceptions of Australians
is sort of these weird people; nice people, but strange people that originate from
convicts down in the Southern hemisphere, that’s when you jokingly have to
step in and say . . . But there’s no racism, it’s more of a jovial discussion.
Amid the well-concealed discomfort caused by his coworkers’ comments,
Jude admits having to interject even those comments he considers “jovial
discussion.” In the quote above, one can see that Jude not only experienced
sarcasm but also became a victim of stereotypes (discussed below).
Microinsults thus emerge from the disinclination of individuals to engage in
knowledge-seeking behaviors.
Attitudinal microaggressions: Stereotypes. Stereotypes affect IPs’ participation
in the workforce. Edrea, an international programs coordinator, says,
The first stereotype that I found was, “Oh, are you Mexican? You don’t look
Mexican!” So, how should I look to be considered Mexican? Should I wear
braids and long skirt and dance? I don’t understand it so first I had to convince
people that I was not lying, that I was really Mexican.
Edrea is light skinned and does not fit into people’s images of Mexicans.
Socially constructed phenotypical characteristics like skin color influence
human interactions. Individuals like Edrea who may lack physical markers of
racial conformity may therefore need to prove their racial identity (James &
Tucker, 2003).
Stereotypes about Asian immigrants have implications for Tuan, a journalism professor from Vietnam, forced to second guess compliments.
When people look at you as Asian, it’s positive but sometimes it makes you
uncomfortable about the “smart” stereotype and competitive stereotype. I got
several awards for example and somebody would see me in the elevator and tap
on my shoulder and say, “Oh, smart man” you know. Sometimes it is out of the
blue but you feel that, you feel that. Smart means many things.
As a compliment based on Asian group membership stereotypes and not individual achievement, Tuan is uncomfortable and unable to gauge the sincerity
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of the comment. Positive stereotypes could have a complementary relation
with negative stereotypes “so as to ensure that members of target groups can
always be denigrated” (Czopp, 2008, p. 414), which is perhaps why Tuan
wonders if his own hard work was dismissed in favor of stereotype-based
presumptions.
June recalled how her identity as a Black Zimbabwean woman is subsumed within people’s assumption that she was “from here.” Thus, she says,
she has to encounter negative stereotypes about African American women.
She narrates,
I am always mistaken for African American. They see the stereotypes that
come with that . . . oh you know how you African-American women are . . .
First of all, I’m not African American and what do you mean? Oh you know,
you’re loud. I’m like, I’m not. They don’t talk about me, they’re like oh the
group, you’re loud and they’re just difficult and ghetto fabulous. I’ve never
lived in a ghetto. Neither do I live in a ghetto in Zimbabwe. I don’t even think
I’m fabulous. I’m just like . . . whatever, after a while you get tired but I mean
that’s definitely something that gets me going.
Due to negative stereotypes associated with African American women, June
finds herself being pushed into an unqualified label. IPs thus encounter challenges that demand continual negotiation of cultural and national
presumptions.
Professional microaggressions: Skepticism. Participants face microinvalidations
in getting their credentials and qualifications challenged.
Leo, a Venezuelan marketing executive, felt disadvantaged because of his
accent.
My bachelor’s is in Communication and master’s in Integrated Marketing. It
was a handicap having an accent if you are working in the U.S. in communication.
It hurt my job search. I would say that there is slight discrimination depending
on where you go, not in a very prominent type in the workplace, you can’t
exactly tell when you are being discriminated against, but it happens.
Leo saying he “can’t exactly tell” when discrimination has occurred represents the ambiguity that is the core of microaggressive behavior.
Michelle, a marketing manager from Holland, finds her credibility challenged when clients ask about her accent. She recalls,
. . . sometimes being in a business setting and they detect an accent, it goes
right into, where you’re from, how long have you been here, why did you move
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here? It always gets personal but it shouldn’t. When you’re in a business setting
you want it to stay all business but that never happens. I mean I’m the same as
my American coworker. Sometimes it bothers me . . .
Commenting on IPs’ accents may be a way of making conversation or
expressing friendliness on Americans’ part. However, some IPs may be sensitive about their accents; a focus on it with its microinvalidating implications
might make them feel disrespected.
Shane, a software engineer from Cameroon, learned English after coming
to the United States four years ago. Because of his limited spoken language
skills, he is not allowed to demonstrate his products to clients. He states,
There were some demos that we had to do for clients, really important demos,
and sometime the company would ask me not do them even if it was my
product, because they felt that I would not be able to explain things well
because of my English.
Shane’s unquestioning acceptance of this micro/macroaggression may have
negative implications on his future career growth.
Lin, who was head of the English department at a Chinese university
before coming to the United States recalls,
I asked my students [in the U.S.] to recite a text for me, and they said, “I have
never recited anything in my life” . . . I was shocked . . . culture shock. I have
students who were texting in class, eating and negotiating with me, “Oh no,
that is too much, we shouldn’t have to do that.” In China, nobody dared to
negotiate with me and I was very much respected by students and my coworkers
but here I cannot feel that . . .
Lin encounters microinsults from her students who threaten to undermine her
authority.
IPs thus frequently face microaggressions—microinsults and microinvalidations. Next, I present findings regarding IPs’ CSM and communication
strategies.
CSM Strategies
With regard to countering verbal and attitudinal microaggressions, IPs used
rationalizing or creating alternative selves as strategies. For professional
microaggressions, IPs took ownership/blamed self. Each strategy has substrategies that are simultaneously used to negotiate these experiences. Table 1
provides examples.
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Table 1. Examples of Microaggressive Experiences and Critical Sensemaking Strategies.
Experiences with microaggressions
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And one time he [senior colleague] came up to me and he was like . . . “If
I lose my job, it’s because of you” and I was so taken aback. I was like
what does that mean. (Geeta, India)
When Bianca’s company sent some of their Latino staff to a conference
in Dallas, one of her White male coworkers said, “Oh what are you
going to do—break some piñatas and drink some Coronas?” (Bianca,
Honduras and Guatemala)
The other day I put something in a credit column instead of a debit
column so Jack was like aaah is it because you drive on the other side of
the road in Zimbabwe. (June, Zimbabwe)
I think when people get comfortable with Australians they feel far more
inclined to say things like “oh you guys were just originated from a
bunch of convicts.” (Jude, Australia)
When I came here, I was more candid . . . People didn’t like the way I
talked. (Now) I am very cautious about how to do it without offending
anybody. (Edrea, Mexico)
My hair was long when I came here and I just put a lot of makeup . . . And
somebody here said, you know what maybe if you change a little bit
your style . . . (I went and cut my hair). (Edrea, Mexico)
I think it is pretty obvious that I am not fitting in . . . like a lot of times
when they [coworkers] ordered food together, I wouldn’t be one of
them. I think sometimes they didn’t even ask me. (Jia Li, Taiwan)
Critical/discursive sensemaking strategies
•• Rationalizing
Perspective-taking:
I didn’t take it up with anyone because he was older . . . It wasn’t wrong on
my part but it was just me not understanding that part. I understand it now.
Blaming ignorance:
He’s a friend at work but I would say that what comes out of his mouth
sometimes is like . . . I will roll our eyes at him like stop saying ignorant
things at work.
Dismissing:
People forget . . . I mean until I talk and every so often some words are
different, I think they forget that I am not from here . . . (which is kind of
annoying for me) . . .
Using humor:
People’s perceptions of Australians is sort of these weird nice but strange
people that originate from convicts . . . , that’s when you jokingly have to
step in and say . . .
•• Creating alternative selves
Muting:
Sometimes I hear that I know is wrong but I think . . . if I say something I’m
going to be in trouble. I am not going to say anything.
Creating dual selves:
I have managed to divide myself. I see myself as two persons . . . the one that I
have to be if I want to fit in this culture and the one that I really am.
Giving in:
. . . I put my American hat because you have to do that because if you behave
in a different way, they don’t trust you. You have to survive.
Giving up/dissociating self
I feel like sometimes I don’t really know how to say in a good way to my
coworkers or show that I disagree and I may not know how to say it or
express it so I just choose not to say it at all.
(continued)
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Table 1. (continued)
Experiences with microaggressions
One thing I find annoying that “we” should hang out, or “we” should do
that, or “let’s” give each other a call . . . when is that happening? And
we, in Holland, we say ok we’re going out to dinner next Thursday at
6:30, I’ll meet you at that restaurant—and you do it! And here it’s like
“oh yeah lets have dinner” and it never happens! (Michelle, Holland)
I would be in meetings and afterwards people would go to my boss’s
office and ask “can we not have that guy in there next time because he
just kind of starts shouting and it’s just really awkward.” (Jon, Holland)
I asked my students to recite a text for me, and they said, “I have never
recited anything in my life” . . . I was shocked. It was a culture shock.
(Lin, China)
I think that [English] was sometime an issue . . . the company would ask
me to not do them (product demos) even if it was my product because
they felt that sometimes I would not be able to explain things very well
because of my limited English. (Shane, Cameroon)
Critical/discursive sensemaking strategies
•• Taking ownership/blaming self
Accepting adaptation responsibility:
I believe that you can be more effective by trying to fit in than to fight it . . . I
mean, I made the choice to come here so that’s my responsibility for sure.
Appreciating cultural differences:
So when I first moved here I struggled. We were, we were never taught uh
how to sugar coat things. Power distance culturally is a little bigger here
than what it was from where I was used to. I’m from an insanely egalitarian
society, like nobody is better than anyone else.
Adapting to disparate expectations:
I try to appeal to my students negotiating with students and being friends with
them. In China, it’s, “I am the teacher and you have to listen to me.”
Normalizing:
I just know that um if the client asks really, really deep questions I’m not going
to be able to answer because I don’t know the language, I don’t know how
to express things. So I think it’s pretty normal, sometimes.
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Rationalizing. Here, rationalizing is conceptualized as producing an explanation
or creating a personally convincing argument for perpetrators’ behaviors and
intentions (i.e., giving communication partners the benefit of doubt). Participants
did this by perspective-taking, dismissing/blaming ignorance, and using humor.
Perspective-taking. Participants engaged in other-centered perspectivetaking rationalizing processes. IPs emphasized the need to understand their
coworkers’ positions better. They reflected on their own communication
approaches and wondered how they could have improved that experience for
themselves and their coworkers.
Dismissing/blaming ignorance. IPs reasoned that microaggressive words
and actions arose from their coworkers’ lack of or limited non-U.S. cultural
knowledge. Using dismissal as a strategy allowed IPs to let go off hurt feelings and instead, focus on more constructive ways to adapt. Dismissing may
be a self-preservation mechanism. Furthermore, associating microaggressive
acts as performances of ignorance allowed IPs to construct coworkers’ potentially unintentional but offensive remarks and behaviors as nonmalicious.
Using humor. In accepting the magnitude of life and professional changes
as well as the microaggressions to which one has to adapt, humor can alleviate acculturative stress and facilitate collegiality.
Creating alternative selves. In making critical sense of the power dynamics
embedded within majority–minority, or rather dominant–nondominant, communication, IPs sometimes resorted to creating alternative selves that they
could use to mute, give in, or give up.
Muting/creating dual selves. Continued discouragement of their adaptation efforts and being muted from workplace discussions caused some IPs to
engage in self-silencing and limit workplace contributions. Some also chose
to create a work self that is separate from their individual authentic self.
Giving in. Having learned about cultural differences, some chose to appropriate complying behaviors begrudgingly with silent resistance. This “resistance” retains the dominant cultural status quo and, seen in terms of CSM
strategies, can be interpreted as giving in to local organizational cultural
norms as a matter of workplace “survival.”
Giving up/dissociating self. An extreme sensemaking strategy used by
one participant was to dissociate from her coworkers. This strategy, which
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involves a learned disinterest in one’s coworkers for fear of rejection, and
separating oneself from any interactions with them, is not helpful to either
parties’ socialization and further isolates IPs. Instead of crafting a work self
and a personal self, the IP is authentic at least in the sense that she no longer
pretends to get along and simply stops making any effort toward workplace
integration.
Taking ownership/blaming self. As immigrants who came to the United States
voluntarily, IPs understand their own role in the adaptation process. They
embraced this by accepting adaptation responsibilities, appreciating cultural
differences, adapting to disparate expectations, and normalizing.
Accepting adaptation responsibilities. Assimilation/Integration-friendly participants considered their adaptation efforts as a matter of course because
they made the choice to live and work in the United States. IPs depicted a
give-and-take perspective where remaining mindful of their native cultural
behaviors, they retained some of its essential elements but let go of others to
gradually integrate host work/culture practices.
Appreciating cultural differences. From their vantage point as outsiderswithin, IPs had the clarity to view how behaviors they had learned and practiced in their native countries could make them vulnerable to potential acts
of microaggressions. They evaluated what behaviors did or did not work and
appreciated cultural nuances.
Adapting to disparate expectations. The experiencing of microaggressions
harshly or organically, alerted IPs of the different standards for evaluating
skills, expertise, and competence. Having acknowledged the differences,
they talked themselves into adapting and learning about their new workplace’s professional expectations.
Normalizing. Participants made sense of microaggressions as “normal”
given their acceptance of their “limitations” with language or other nonculturally transferable expertise. On the flip side, normalizing and not challenging the status quo allows the dominant culture to continue to exert its power
and privilege while IPs appear to participate in their own microaggression.
Participants faced microaggressions as a result of national/cultural dissimilarity. In a majority of the cases, microaggressors were equal opportunity
offenders. However, within immigrant groups, IPs of color encountered more
microaggressive exchanges than did White IPs, a fact not lost on IPs. In fact,
Jon from Holland, even made the following observation,
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Because we are, you know, not very different culturally from you because
we’ve been exposed to it so much, because we don’t have a weird accent or we
don’t have a religion that’s not common here, we’ve been fairly easy to
assimilate into American culture. Aesthetically and socially, the more similar
you are to the locals, the more likely it is for you to assimilate.
Only three of the 16 participants were White but consistent narratives by IPs
revealed a strong “ethnic hierarchy” of acceptable and unacceptable immigrants based on “proximity to the majority or dominant group” (Ford, 2011,
para. 4). Therefore, the more demographically, culturally, linguistically,
racially, and religiously distinct an IP is from the dominant group, the more
vulnerable he or she is to microaggressions.
The sensemaking strategies discussed above are not exhaustive. Often,
these processes overlapped as IPs, aware of the power dynamics inherent in
their cocultural interactions, adopted one or more discursive ways to negotiate their identities, rearticulate their contexts, rationalize their experiences,
and develop appropriate reactions.
Discussion
Microaggressions are individually experienced personally significant events
encountered as microinsults and microinvalidations. Intent notwithstanding,
the experience, humiliation, and implication of the remarks are all too real.
Microaggressive acts are acts against human dignity and can potentially shatter the foundation of our being, shaking the confidence of IPs in a seemingly
hostile work environment. No wonder then that individuals develop creative
ways to interpret their microaggressive experiences.
Using CSM as a theoretical and analytical resource helped unpack the
underlying power dynamics within discriminatory communicative spaces.
CSM allowed for IPs’ experiences to be interpreted and made sense of
through the lenses of power and privilege apparent in their dominant–nondominant interactions. Analyzing participants’ experiences from a CSM lens
revealed how these positions create unfavorable organizational cultures
where the microaggressive voice (literal and figurative) of the “majority”
coworker overrides that of the targeted IP forcing the latter into creative ways
of communicative sensemaking processes, given that jobs as well as residence in the country is dependent on the employer. Utilizing a CSM-backed
perspective thus reveals the collective, discursive, and microaggressive practices that operate within organizational cultures.
Furthermore, analyses of data show that retrospectively making sense of
their microaggressions allows IPs to infuse their experiences with meaning
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even when the connotations and implications associated with the said experiences are ambiguous. CSM enables us to critically evaluate carefully concealed biases and prejudices, intentional or otherwise, and view them as
microaggressions when interpreted from the broader social/political/cultural/
economic context of immigration and IPs.
It is important to note that IPs did not deny being discriminated (see
Crosby, 1984) but instead, made sense of their interculturally ambiguous
organizational encounters in nuanced ways. According to Ting-Toomey
(2005), individuals engage in negotiated interactive patterns to attain outcomes like “the feeling of being understood, the feeling of being respected
and the feeling of being affirmatively valued” (p. 228). This process necessarily involves making sense of the sensemaker to completely grasp the communicative act as was evident in the findings. By rationalizing, creating
alternative selves, and taking ownership/blaming self, IPs acknowledged,
verbalized, and made sense of their coworkers’ microaggressive remarks
(often during the course of the interviews). They understood their own position in the communicative dyad, that is, their social context. In addition, IPs
channeled their discursive explanatory power to articulate their experiences
in meaningful ways. IPs realized the need to accept their nondominant positions at least temporarily (e.g., until they mastered English, developed a level
of accent neutrality, etc.) and chose to separate their coworkers from ill intention. Another explanation might be “people have not learned to contradict
racist thought and talk” . . . and that by not doing so, “the prevailing practices,
also in communication, are protective of the status quo” (van Dijk, 1987,
p. 394). As a heuristic device, CSM has thus brought attention to the issues of
power, culture, and identity so prevalent in multicultural workplaces today.
As already discussed above, implications for research are multifold. The
introduction of microaggressions and CSM as theoretical and analytical choices
of relevance can be explored across contexts and especially to strengthen diversity research in organizational communication. Both these concepts unpack
and help reveal the “what-is-not-being-said” subtexts underlying dominant–
nondominant communication. The challenge for communication scholars is to
explore, debate, and resolve these discursive premises, and further reveal the
often unvocalized, unidentified, and dehumanizing mechanisms that may be
outside of our conscious awareness, yet have very real consequences for organizational members. Furthermore, while this study is situated in the U.S. workplace context, its findings may be relevant to work cultures internationally,
wherever IPs have to negotiate their place amid a dominant majority.
IPs are a workplace reality. They may want to rearticulate a workplace to
better suit their experiences but get stymied in the process due to microaggressive experiences. Despite the cultural distance (Berry, 1997), to their credit, IPs
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Management Communication Quarterly 29(2)
show willingness for degrees of cultural shedding (Berry, 1997) and culture/
workplace integration. With the amount of human, social, and cultural capital
they bring along in the process of transcultural integration attempts while contributing to the economies of their adopted countries, immigrants in the workplace can hardly be ignored. Communication scholars should find ways to
couple IPs’ intentions with cross-cultural understandings and complementary
changes initiated by native coworkers for inclusive workplaces.
Practical Implications
Because IPs almost always place on themselves the responsibility to adapt to
their host culture, not everyone will report microaggressions for fear of it being
labeled petty, trivial, or nonracial. Therefore, I recommend that managers encourage discussions that allow space for informal socialization encounters among
coworkers, which can lead to better work relationships. Fear of the native worker
or the exotic foreigner may give way to mutual respect and admiration if organizations develop cross-cultural, cross-functional work groups, peer mentoring and
senior leadership mentoring to encourage diverse coworkers to collaborate.
Likewise, senior IP leaders who have successfully navigated their own share of
microaggressive interactions or those leaders with extensive intercultural experiences, may be partnered with younger/junior IPs as cultural mentors.
Highly educated, internationally experienced, multilingual, and multiskilled IPs are an asset when competing in the global marketplace. The need
of the hour is to consolidate these strengths and (re)design a formidable
workforce. To do so, successful coexistence between U.S. Americans and IPs
necessitates that both stakeholders take equal responsibility to eliminate
microaggressions from their interactions, educate and learn from each other
the value of mutual cultural accommodation, work collaboratively, and constructively negotiate the outcomes of an integrated and diverse workforce.
Limitations and Future Directions
Given the small number of participants, these findings are limited to this
group only and may not be commonplace among all IPs. Quite possibly,
some IPs may never experience microaggressions. Also, identifying microaggressions may be a matter of perspective. Because IPs may be sensitive to
the immigrant subtext linked to their experiences at work, they may read
more critically into coworkers’ potentially agenda-free communication. That
is, IPs may suspect a microaggression where none exists.
Regardless, the issue of microaggressions deserves further exploration. A
key finding that emerged out of this study is the existence of acceptable and
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unacceptable immigrants. Future researchers may examine how and if acceptable and unacceptable IPs from specific countries may encounter microaggressions differently. Also, one should explore what makes certain countries more
or less acceptable (e.g., history of immigrants to the host country, political/
economic/ethical disagreements, stereotypes, feeling threatened by unique
intellectual capital). Finally, one should investigate how IPs communicate their
responses to microaggressions. For example, at what point do IPs no longer
accept microinsults and speak up against the behavior? What consequences do
they face in such a situation? Do visa and job retention concerns override emotional well-being forcing IPs to accept microaggressions in silence? What
cocultural communication strategies do IPs utilize to assimilate into their host
work culture? Answering these questions would lead to a holistic understanding of our multicultural workplaces. Creating a microaggressions-free environment will ensure that the workplace thus created will encourage positive work
and life outcomes, emotional well-being, and cultural assimilation.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Editor in Chief Ling Chen, and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback on this article. The author also thanks the DePaul
University Undergraduate Research Assistant Program; her research assistants,
Catherine Vautier and Alexa Dogterom; and participants of the study.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Author Biography
Suchitra Shenoy-Packer (PhD, Purdue University) is assistant professor of organizational and multicultural communication in the College of Communication at DePaul
University. Her research interests include intercultural organizational communication, the socialization and assimilation experiences of traditionally underrepresented/
marginalized workers, and career discourses and meanings of work.
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