PART 1

OUTER FORCES: THE CHALLENGE OF BEING LATINO IN CORPORATE AMERICA

Latino executives and aspiring leaders must confront forces both outside of themselves (discrimination, unconscious biases, pressures to conform) and within (sorting out their career aspirations, defining their Latino cultural identity) as they press on to ascend as leaders.

In addition, like other underrepresented groups in corporate America, Latinos face seemingly irreconcilable corporate pressures: on one hand, to assimilate in how they look, talk, and behave; and on the other, in how they handle personal pressures to be different as Latino leaders.

How do they overcome these pressures without burying their own diverse identity for the sake of fitting in?

For many Latinos who come from cultural backgrounds and environments quite different from that of most individuals in corporate America, this dilemma is particularly acute.

Part 1 traces these invisible—yet very real—forces and the different types of trajectories the leaders chose and why, and how corporate America responded. Let’s look at how these encounters have led to both conflict and resolution.