Immigrant Professionals,Microaggressions,and Critical Sensemaking in the U.S. Workplace

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 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 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 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:

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 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.

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 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 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.

Table 1.

Examples of Microaggressive Experiences and Critical Sensemaking Strategies.

Experiences with microaggressions	Critical/discursive sensemaking strategies
	• Rationalizing
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)	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.
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)	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.
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)	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) . . .
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)	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
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)	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.
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)	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.
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)	Giving up/dissociating selfI 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.
	• Taking ownership/blaming self
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)	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.
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)	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.
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)	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.”
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)	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.

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 perspective-taking 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 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 outsiders-within, 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,

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 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 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 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.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

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.

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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