Zscaler launches AAPI Employee Resource Group in honor of Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month

As a country, we’ve thrived because of the contributions and sacrifices made by immigrants and their descendants from across different races and ethnicities, generation after generation.  

May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, which commemorates the wide impact and contributions made by the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) community to the history, culture, and achievements of the United States. 

While recognized as a minority group, we’ve played a crucial role in the American story, crafting its identity and influencing its history all the way back to its westward expansion. We’ve helped build its culture and have contributed to great achievements in the arts, sciences and medicine, industry, philanthropy, government, and more. 

In the 1850s, Chinese laborers contributed to building the American economy by working in mines, factories, and agriculture. Between 1863 and 1869, roughly 15,000 helped build the transcontinental railroad, connecting the two coasts for the first time. In fact, May was chosen for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month to mark two significant events: the arrival of the country’s first Japanese immigrant on May 7, 1843; and, the anniversary of the transcontinental railroad, which was completed thanks to the labor of Chinese immigrants on May 10, 1869. Their journey to the United States was an incredible trek filled with adversity, including language barriers, nonacceptance, assimilation, and discriminatory laws. 

It is with sadness that we must also balance this month’s celebration with recognition of the increased anti-Asian crimes and harassment we’ve seen this year against the backdrop of the global pandemic. We must work together to #StopAsianHate.

At Zscaler, we’re proud of the culture and heritage of our AAPI predecessors, while celebrating their descendants and the new generations of Asian/Pacific Americans who continue to honor and advance our home countries’ interests while enriching the American experience! 

Within Zscaler, we have more than 100 AAPI employees within the U.S. across all functions, from engineering to product management to customer services to marketing/sales/business development. Recently, a few of our AAPI employees, including Chris Louie, Kim Howell, and Valerie Ng, drove an initiative to generate awareness of our accomplishments, and I’m very proud of them.  

As a member of the Diversity & Inclusion Committee at Zscaler, I’m also ecstatic to see them launch the new AAPI Employee Resource Group to build a diverse AAPI community at work.  Thank you Chris Louie for your tremendous initiative, thank you to all including Kavitha Mariappan, Michelle Smith, Bakshi Kohli, and Greg Pappas, who’s also contributed to this effort. I’m also pledging to help our AAPI employees to develop a stronger sense of belonging here at Zscaler! 

Moreover, we’ll embrace opportunities as a company to celebrate AAPI cultures and contribute to our local AAPI organizations. 

It is my strong conviction that we as a country, a community, and a company will thrive as long as we prioritize diversity and inclusion. While May is the month we pause and take note of who we are, where we came from, and what that means, every month should be a D&I celebration for all races and all minority communities worldwide.

Sources and more information:

Wikipedia: Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month

CNET: AAPI Heritage Month: What it is and what you can do today

Asian Pacific Heritage dot gov: About