However, I also benefit from being an Asian male software developer. Whenever I meet new people in business, I am automatically assumed to be smart which has proven highly profitable. Finding work is never an issue and I make quite a comfortable living because people with money assume I am good at what I do - I have less to prove than a programmer who is say, Latino or perhaps female.

My solution? If you can't beat em, join em. Why don't you volunteer to teach at a girls code school? Might meet some cute female instructors who also like programming - pretty rare. Use your strengths in whatever way you can.

As a post-script to the "Jap" guy, a few weeks later he got fired from his job and has been out of work since. He is a high school educated white male in his late 20s. We all have our challenges and if being white also included being stupid, ignorant and money-less like this guy, I'll take Asian.

Yes, some people might think I'm more intelligent based on my race. On the other hand, some people may think I'm not qualified for leadership or public facing positions because of male Asian stereotypes.

I am white. I get called 'brit' or 'pom' or 'white guy' and so on all the time by colleagues of various ethnic or cultural backgrounds. I take it as friendly jibing unless I can see there is clear intention to upset.

edit: Downvotes? Yikes. Like most people, I'd prefer some constructive replies instead of silent detractors, but it is what it is.

More importantly, I'm not asking you to understand. It's not your responsibility and I don't blame you for any of this. It's just something that Asian males have to learn to deal with. We just have to man up and deal with it.

So while one powerful group is pushing for representation of women in engineering, another is fighting for broader social equity for Asians - the latter is often seen as less legitimate when applied to Asian men specifically (low social status, lower marriage/dating prospects), or which are huger racial things that may never be fixed anytime soon in a US society while Asians remain a tiny minority, because those are the kinds of inequalities that people tolerate, while under representation of women in engineering is widely recognized and addressed as a bad thing.

I was trying to say that Asian people are also at a disadvantage, and that we should try to help them as well. I have seen several "X for Women in Tech" initiatives, and absolutely none for, say, "Asian Men in Tech".

> You are also implying that we should help women less and Asian people more

That implication may seem true if you think of "resources for helping" as a finite amount. I was just saying that we should help Asian people more. This could actually be a good thing. Maybe there are rich Asian men who don't donate to "Rails Girls Summer of Code", but who might consider donating to a similar program for Asian people? I don't know.

> There's absolutely no need to try to empower one group while lowering another one.

Definitely. But as a disadvantaged person myself, it would benefit me and others like me more to promote the empowerment of an often-overlooked group of people.

Especially social inequalities: there isn't going to be an affirmative action program for dating, and no one's going to create a "make asian guys popular" program.

I've found that expecting the modern political system to take care of us is still a fantasy, so the best solution is to not complain too much, focus on your blessings, and work on improving yourself.

A side effect of the political system trying to prop up a given group is that those groups end up doing worse on a number of metrics. So, to your point about blessings: one of our blessings is that we aren't the targets of these kinds of initiatives.

I'm not highly-education and lived well below the poverty line for the majority of my life. If not for programs like this I would still be there.

Study after study has shown that different groups learn and interact in different ways. Programs like this can teach to those differences without treating them like a defect. For instance, women don't respond to competitive environments the same way men do. Women tend to shutdown while men push forward. I've taught unisex (although it was mostly male) and women only coding classes. Women tend to pair more and help each other. Men tend to work alone.

That said, if it bothers you that there aren't more "Asians in Tech" programs, why don't you start one? No one is stopping you, except maybe the people who would complain about it being unfair to THEIR underserved minority groups.