All Stuyvesant alumni are invited to attend our first virtual book talk. The event will be held on Wednesday, October 7 at 7 p.m. EDT.

Margaret M. Chin ’80 recently released her new book, Stuck: Why Asian Americans Don’t Reach the Top of the Corporate Ladder, which gives a behind-the-scenes look at the struggles Asian Americans face in the workplace and shows that there is a “bamboo ceiling” in the corporate world. You can read the introduction here. Airie Stuart ’86 will be conducting an exclusive interview of Margaret and her newest release.

Tickets for this event are available for $5 for dues-paying members, and $25 for all other alumni. You can purchase a ticket plus membership at the discounted rate of $50.

Please note: You MUST log into MyStuy to purchase a member ticket. 

Current Stuyvesant students can join this event for free. Please email us at [email protected] for details on how to join.

Use discount code “STUCK30” for 30% off the book price if you purchase at NYUPress.org.

In the classroom, Asian Americans, often singled out as so-called “model minorities,” are expected to be top of the class. Often they are, getting straight As and gaining admission to elite colleges and universities. But the corporate world is a different story. As Margaret M. Chin reveals in this important new book, many Asian Americans get stuck on the corporate ladder, never reaching the top.

In Stuck, Chin shows that there is a “bamboo ceiling” in the workplace, describing a corporate world where racial and ethnic inequalities prevent upward mobility. Drawing on interviews with second-generation Asian Americans, she examines why they fail to advance as fast or as high as their colleagues, showing how they lose out on leadership positions, executive roles, and entry to the coveted boardroom suite over the course of their careers. An unfair lack of trust from their coworkers, absence of role models, sponsors and mentors, and for women, sexual harassment and prejudice especially born at the intersection of race and gender are only a few of the factors that hold Asian American professionals back.

Ultimately, Chin sheds light on the experiences of Asian Americans in the workplace, providing insight into and a framework of who is and isn’t granted access into the upper echelons of American society, and why.

Margaret M. Chin ’80 is Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center (CUNY). She is the author of Stuck: Why Asian Americans Don’t Reach the Top of the Corporate Ladder and Sewing Women: Immigrants and the NYC Garment Industry.

Margaret was born and raised in New York City and is a child of Chinese immigrant parents. She is a Stuyvesant High School graduate, received her BA from Harvard University and her PhD from Columbia University. Her specialties include immigrants and their children, family, work, education, race, ethnicity and Asian Americans. Margaret was also a witness supporting holistic admissions and affirmative action in the Harvard admissions case represented by the NAACP LDF. She is a trustee for the Tenement Museum and is a founding board member of the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard. Her work has been featured in the Atlantic, Inside Higher Education, and in exhibits at the Tenement Museum and the Museum of the City of New York.

Margaret’s honors include an American Sociological Association’s Minority Fellows Award, a NSF Dissertation Grant, a Social Science Research Councils Post Doctoral Fellowship in International Migration, and a Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellowship for junior faculty. She was the Vice President of the Eastern Sociological Society from 2015-2016 and currently serves on the Contexts review board. Her specialties include immigration, family, work, Asian Americans, and children of immigrants.

Airie Stuart ’86 (Cornell BA, Columbia MFA) was voted one of the top 50 women in book publishing by Book Business Magazine during her role as SVP and Publisher of Palgrave Macmillan. She has held editorial positions at such companies as HarperCollins, Warner Books and Simon & Schuster and worked with NY Times bestselling authors Brad Meltzer, General Wesley Clark, TV personalities Christina Saralegui and Chris Mathews, Charles Ogletree (at the Harvard’s Center for Racial Justice) Abe Foxman (then head of the ADL), and many others. As an Editorial Consultant she works on the literary development of authors, and she also sits on the PFAC committee at Mount Sinai hospital.

If you have any questions, reach out to [email protected]. The Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association office is currently unable to take phone calls to our main line. Please email us to schedule a phone call.