Diversity and belonging.
This week marks 6 years since my interview to join Google, and this week I also felt the most proud I have ever felt to work there… I felt proud of myself, of working at Google, of being Costa Rican and Latina all at the same time.
Since I joined Google, there has been more and more noise about the concept of diversity, whether it’s important, what the problem is, and how to achieve it. And whenever I talk about diversity, I usually end up with a bad taste in my mouth.
The most common thoughts are that it’s about “lowering the bar” for minorities, so those in the industry see us as less. Some people think it’s important but don’t know why, and basically they’re just repeating that it’s important because others say it is, and it wouldn’t be politically correct to say otherwise. Or the efforts are all about hiring minorities, and then they wash their hands and say, “done!” without stopping to think that people have to feel appreciated and belong after being hired to truly have a diverse workforce.
This week, Google announced $25 million in donations to attract and help more Latino and Black students get involved in computer science. By many coincidences (and some fights), I volunteered at the event where they announced the first $5 million to organizations led by Latinos and working specifically for Latinos, and at that event, I felt surrounded by people who understood why diversity is important. I felt surrounded by people in important positions who are bringing up the topic as it should be brought up. I felt that those people echoed my voice, and my voice echoed theirs. I felt part of something.
First, Ana Corrales spoke, and I understood the importance of representation, of being able to see oneself in someone else. Seeing Ana, a VP at Google for consumer hardware, with her long hair, red dress, and talking about Costa Rica, filled me with inspiration and a desire to keep going. She talked about opportunities, she talked about education, and bringing computer science to populations that traditionally have not been involved in such careers. She talked about the importance of having resources in our own language, but above all, the importance of having those resources taught by people who speak like them, are like them, and have life experiences like them. People whom they can see themselves in and who they can truly see as role models.
Then a congresswoman spoke, Latina Xochitl Torres, and spoke about why these initiatives were important to her. She said that although Latinos have the same interest in science and math, and we develop equally in school, when it comes to the job market, the proportions change, and in STEM fields, only 6% of the population are Latinos. She also said that if that was the situation for Latinos in general, it was scary to think about the situation for Latinas. But she was sure that giving Latinas these opportunities is what needs to be done because it benefits us, but also our parents, siblings, and uncles… because if there’s one thing we know, it’s that Latinas are going to bring everyone with us, we’re not going to leave anyone behind.
Then Janet Murguía from Unidos, also used the same ideas but thanked having a congress that reflects the population of the United States. Finally, Alejandra Castillo from the YWCA spoke, starting in Spanish because she could not deny that there are things that are better explained in our native language and she felt it was necessary.
Héctor Ouilhet, Google’s Head of Design in Search and Assistant, spoke and told his phenomenal story. How he always liked creating tangible things, and one day he realized that creating with invisible things, like writing code, was just as satisfying. How engineering was not his thing, but design was, and the skills he learned as an engineer help him every day.
Seeing a group of people support these ideas for once in life without fear of “taking power away from someone,” without taking jobs away from anyone, knowing that it’s good for the entire world, they didn’t even say that CS was something everyone had to do, they said the skills gained like critical thinking, logical thinking, and problem-solving apply to anything they want to do… I just wanted to dance the conga…
At the end, my part was to give a class with one of the activities from CS First (Google’s curriculum for teaching computer science). We wrote a script in English and all that, we rehearsed, and in the end, it turned out that many of the parents accompanying the students didn’t speak English. So they said to me, “if you can, translate what you want and speak in Spanish.” For me, it was an honor. I really felt like they followed our class with their children and how happy they were to be able to help them when they were doing the activity.
I undoubtedly experienced why these things are important. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been told many times, “you’re not technical enough,” “yes, you’re good with people, but you lack technical skills,” “yes, but you have to program more,” etc. So when I do these things, I often feel like I’m wasting my time. When I got off the stage, someone said to me, “you are so good at what you do,” and I thought, but it’s not my job, it’s not “what I do,” and immediately I thought, fork! IT is what I do, IT is what I just did… maybe it’s not why I get paid, but I do it because it’s important, and I’m good at it.
Finally, the school principal arrived where we gave the class, an older gentleman, and he said, "I was so excited, and you did so well that I felt like doing the activity myself," and I said, this is the most important reason to do these things. Yes, it may be delaying my career as an engineer, which is what has allowed me to do these things... but as a human being, teaching helps me sleep much better at night.