How A Latina-Asian American Ascended Amazon’s RanksPosted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Economics, Latino Studies, Media Archive, United States on 2015-05-29 19:28Z by Steven |
How A Latina-Asian American Ascended Amazon’s Ranks
NBC News
2015-05-29
Stephen A. Nuño, Associate Professor of Politics & International Affairs
Northern Arizona Univeristy
If you have ever bought anything from the online retail giant, Amazon.com, you probably didn’t know that a multicultural woman is one of the managers leading the work behind the scenes with software developers, user interface (UI) designers and product teams to help you spend your money.
In an age where the tech industry has increasingly come under fire for being mostly male and for its lack of diversity, women like Erica Gomez are serving as role models and urging others to break through the technology ranks. Currently Amazon’s Senior Technical Program Manager, Gomez has also worked at Microsoft as an engineer and program manager for the Bing search platform and at Boeing as a software developer for real-time aircraft monitoring programs.
A lover of trivia and a tennis athlete, Gomez illustrates the proliferation of people who identify with multi-ethnic backgrounds since the U.S. Census began allowing respondents to check multiple boxes for their racial and ethnic identity in 2000. She is also an example of the growing diversity among Latinos.
Gomez’s mother, who is of Japanese-Scottish descent, was born on an Air Force base in Texas and grew up mainly in Taipei. Gomez’s father is Puerto Rican; her grandparents moved from Puerto Rico to Los Angeles before her dad was born and he grew up bouncing between the island and Los Angeles. His family eventually settled in San Clemente, California, a sleepy surfers’ haven in Orange County…
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