A former Asian American employee is suing the Silicon Valley tech company Lumentum, alleging that a yearslong pattern of racism ended with his termination when he tried to speak out.
Andre Wong, 52, filed the complaint in the Santa Clara Superior Court on June 30, seeking $20 million in damages. His suit comes amid others by tech workers who say they’re pushing against the “bamboo ceiling,” barriers that have kept Asians from advancing to high-level leadership positions.
During his two decades at Lumentum, Wong alleges, he saw management ban Mandarin from being spoken informally at the office, and that he was ridiculed for the way he pronounced his R’s, and was told speaking up about racism “made white people feel bad.” In an NBC News interview and in his official complaint, he also says that he was passed up for an executive-level position overseeing a technology he created.
His lawsuit says his termination was a direct result of his speaking out about workplace discrimination against Asian Americans that he had experienced and observed.
“My primary goal is to drive change in the industry,” Wong said. “There are a lot of stories out there that just aren’t being told. There’s a fear of retaliation.”
Lumentum, a multinational telecommunications equipment company, did not respond to a request for comment.
Wong, a Canadian-born Asian American, had been working at Lumentum for 22 years before he was fired in December. While he was there, he says, he developed a 3D sensing technology that the lawsuit claims brought $1 billion to the company.
But Wong says that despite the fact that he pioneered the program, he was denied an executive role overseeing it and was instead subject to a revolving door of white managers.
“These white managers, I had to train and introduce to my industry contacts, and that itself made me feel so frustrated,” he said. “I felt like I was banging my head against the door thinking, ‘What do I need to do?’”
Read the full article here
