What is the Mid-Autumn Festival?
The Mid-Autumn festival takes place on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month (September or early October on the Gregorian calendar), sometimes called the Moon Festival or the Mooncake Festival. This year the festival fell on September 19th. During this period Chinese people enjoy three days of public holidays.
During the Mid-Autumn Festival, Chinese people gather to worship the moon, light paper lanterns, eat mooncakes, and open their doors to their friends and family. It is the second most important festival in China after Chinese New Year.
The traditional Cantonese mooncake that’s popular in Guangdong and Hong Kong is made with thick lotus seed paste and salted duck eggs. The crust is wrapped around one or two whole salted yolks.
What does this mean in North America?
The Asian American Diaspora is a population of greater than 20 million citizens. 97% of America’s Asian population comes from 19 major origin groups. For this growing population, finding an ethnic identity that combines what it means to be American and Asian.
For many, celebrating traditional holidays such as the Mid-Autumn festival is a way to remain connected to their roots. According to the BBC, The impact of Covid-19 has seen Anti-Asian hate crimes rise by 1200% in regions such as Orange County.
A Corporate Shift
For members of these group, the choice to embrace one’s culture comes with the fear of discrimination. As such, it is important for companies to consider how they can support their employees during this time. Here are three steps that can be taken:
- Acknowledge: It is important for companies to acknowledge the increase in targetted discrimination against Asian Americans. There should be a strong message from leaders in the organization to the AAPI community that hate crimes and anti-Asian racism is unacceptable. This clear and decisive action sets the organizational tone to support the Asian American community.
- Listen: It is important to embrace the voices of members from within the organization. This can be accomplished by creating safe spaces and communities for open communication about workplace problems and discrimination that they faced.
- Commit: Finally it is important for companies to commit to fostering an inclusive environment. This can be achieved through a wide array of options ranging from diversity training to inclusivity workshops.
At Diversio we use data analytics to determine the core problems companies are facing in relation to diversity and inclusion. We are then able to analyze the experiences of marginalized groups in conjunction with each other and benchmark them against the dominant group in their workforce. This allows us to provide tailored solutions pulled from a curated database of Diversio Recommendations.
To learn more about the role of data analytics in diversity and inclusion visit www.diversio.com
