Analiza: Welcome to the Women of Color Rise Podcast. I'm Analiza Quiroz Wolf, proud Filipina American mom of two, and former CEO of a nonprofit and Captain in the US Air Force. I'm on a mission to support having more diverse leaders at the table. We'll be talking with successful CEOs and C suite women leaders of color and learning about their leadership journeys. If you're a woman or woman of color, who wants a seat at the table, you're in the right place. Now let's get into today's show.

I'm so happy to be talking with Sau-fong Au today. She's the director of the Women's Center at Brooklyn College and the co-chair of the Asian American faculty and staff association. Sau-fongearned a BA in history from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a master's in education from Rutgers University, as well as a Doctorate in Education Leadership from Manhattanville College. Sau-fong I'm so happy to have you here, especially with your expertise, women of color and leadership. Thanks for joining.

Sau: Thank you for having me.

Analiza: Sau-fong, your trajectory from Hong Kong to the United States and finding yourself at this leadership position. Can you talk about how your identity shaped that career path?

Sau: Well, I came to this country to study, embarrassing as it is I came here to get married to my college boyfriend. And obviously that didn't work out, I came and pretended for me to come to go to school. And that's why I decided to go to Rutgers at that point. And I think that coming from a pretty one homogenous society to the United States, it is a cultural shock. I think that back in Hong Kong, I really felt a need to think about myself as a Chinese woman, or Asian Americans. But the minute you let it in this land, then you realize the environment has to remind you that you are not Americans. That is a cool word for not being white. So I think that over the years, the longer I lived here, the longer I realized, the experience of being reminded that you're different really informs my decision, and also my intention to see connections with people, like, reply to me and have a live experience, just like me. And I think that experience really has changed the way that I see myself. And changed the way that I see the world, I think a lot of immigrants would not really talk about this explicitly, is that there is a chicken identity. And for middle class women like me, growing up in Hong Kong went to university. And when I moved to the states, in 1987, all your identity got stripped away. You are a nobody, that international people, faculty can talk to you they like they can ignore you if they like. And all your words are not based on who you are, but based on who you are not. So I think that is a very entry point that I have into this country. Over a year, I definitely had moving from calling myself a Chinese into a thing, decidedly Asian American in this country,

Analiza: Sau-fong, it's fascinating as someone who was born here. And then notice that the get go that I was not of the dominant group, I went to majority whitening schools, and was trying to assimilate and trying to be more white, and not wanting to identify with my culture, and hearing your arc of being part of the dominant group in Hong Kong, but then coming to the US and realizing I'm not right. I'm not part of this group. I feel like all these things that are wrong about me that don't fit in, are not working, it's making it's taking my self worth. And therefore I'm going to seek connection with people of my background to help me revalidate and it's so fascinating because I took time, it took me a few decades to actually want to go back to my own culture and say, I need to understand I need to embrace I need to love that part of me, for me to love myself and to me to lead. And I want to talk about that mindset, this, okay, I'm not feeling like I'm part of this culture. I'm going to want to connect and you're leading The Women's Center and you've done it for 23 years. I mean, it's such a long, amazing career at Brooklyn College. I'm curious, when you look at the women of color, especially that you serve, do you see this happening as well? This not enough. How is that playing out with the people who serve.

Sau: And I think that it is really important to recognize that there is not a single experience of women. And I think that what we're looking at is a lot of commonality, a lot of similarity. And I think that one thing that in my 20 years of career that I really noticed a lot particular for women of color as a first generation college student, often college is often this perceived kind of dipping to receive as a gift that you're not supposed to have, now you have it. So the only sentiment that you should express is grateful, and lucky, because the feeling that you had to be grateful, and you had to feel lucky to be in the place, makes it virtually impossible to ask more. And yet, the reality, particular for college women of color is that they really don't have as many what we call social capital, when compared to their white counterparts, or their upper middle class counterpart, where they got exposed in their life, what college look like what professional life look like, how to dress, how to use life, and frogs, and when to raise your hand and all those nuances that have never experienced by women of color. And because the sense that you should feel grateful, makes it impossible to ask when they don't know the allotted time, those who lack knowledge, but internalize and feel immensely inadequate by the students. And I think that those emotional turmoil, and the burden of those emotional turmoil is not mentioned and not discussed often enough. I always say that putting self esteem to yours, and destroying self esteem only leads to one incident. So I think that is the thing that as an educator, I think that I will always be aware of that. The narratives that we share and create for our students reflect their lived experience, and not a standard that is imposed by traditional white middle class male institutions.

Analiza: Sau-fong I'm trying to pair what you shared earlier with this really beautiful nugget, we go into environments, we don't feel we're enough. We also don't have exposure to all of the possibilities, whether it's networks, or jobs, or what we could have. And we're entrenched in this, be grateful, be grateful for what is given to you now, and don't ask, all of that leads us to not seek the next thing that we deserve. But internally, when we get to the core of all of it, it's the sense of, Am I enough? Do I have self worth? And that's constantly destroyed? Sadly, right? It's like these moments, these cuts that even as we build self worth, and try to build confidence inside the Corps is not solid. I want to go there South long, because you have I mean, it's incredible this career focused on this area. How do we do it given that we live in this context, right? We can't necessarily surround ourselves with people who look like us and the same values, and we want to embrace diversity. We're gonna work with white people. So given we want to rise in these contexts, how can a woman of color build self worth? Like what would you say are these actions that we can take to actually say, Yes, I'm moving along, as I'm getting cut. I'm moving along. I believe in myself.

Sau: Well, I think that the issue is really complicated. I don't have a magic answer for it. But in my work, the couple of things that I do all the time, I think one is we need to create a sense of community and communities people feel that they cannot do, they have a stick in it, they're entitled to it. And they can take ownership, they can move, they can change, and they can shake, and I think that to grow those communities, it is extremely important.

So as educator for me, so the work the Women's Center, it is really about creating those community for students that they can come in, they can call they are and they are creating a cultural alarm and that behavioral advocate than the one judging each other like so I think that is one part of that as educator we can actually do and also as Asian American woman, because I really am acutely aware of how lonely it is. And I'm in the car. I have been in college for 23 years. Obviously. I have a lot of friends, a lot of college friends. Except I know for years, but it is constantly feeling that you're alone, it is really the old saying the things that really do. It is always there. So I think that that's one part of it. And I think if anyone asked me for advice in terms of how to see the community, I think that we need to go and look for the community.

And in my career, I think the one thing that actually became more and more apparent, and it is the age of the internet, that's the people actually students actually can go out and look for different groups, different entities, or different people to get together to do a lot of those kinds of affirmation work. So I don't have a short answer to that.

But it is something that is ongoing, and needs to be done all the time. And I also want to really make clear that the interesting thing about knowing who you are, is also creating a whole host, the possibility that you're allowing people who don't share the same experience into your life. Because when you think about it, if you are secure and you're grounded, then you are not so afraid of closing the door all the time. So when you know who you are, the ability to tolerate differences, allow the influence of different people into your life, and actually go up. And I think that is what a multicultural society should look like. That is there is a way that we can allow folks to be who they are, and interact with people who are different. And those organic interactions create changes and reach people with life and culture. Being my Asian is really different for my children's Asian as caused by racial cooperation over them and all my leads to Asians who are both my brother and my sister, not Asians. So the experience is going to be different, right? And I think that the more quant the person is, the more open and accepting How we will see ideas, perspective, friendship, love, plus in the community and the world is endless.

Analiza: Sau-fong, I'm hearing that if we want to build self worth. First, it's surrounding ourselves with a community of people who are not judgmental. And we can find those, even if it's not in person online, but these affirmations help us feel like we're not alone. The second thing is that when we build community, we also support ourselves, but we support a larger diversity effort. Because now if I'm secure in myself, I'm able to open myself to different perspectives, knowing that even if we disagree, I am still solidly okay. I am still solidly worthy. I'm curious, Sau-fong. When you think about myths about what women believe, that actually aren't true, we have this idea that we're not worthy, right. But we are. And I'm curious if there are any other myths, as you've supported women, women of color that you also find pretty thematic.

Sau: I mean, I think that the other thing that I found at that time, and I should mention it, not immune to it. And I think that is the need to be like, so if I don't belong to a place, then the only way that I can occupy a space is that I am liked, and then like, by people who occupy those spaces, and I think that is very, they have not changed within the RDCs.

And when people speak up, and instead of calling ourselves assertive with being caught, aggressive, or catty, when we are introspective and thoughtful that we are labeled as submissive, or passive. And I think that it is really important for women, particularly women of color, to create those. It is really in some ways, it's almost like a raider, to know what a boundary is, that is my space, that you're grounded in your space, so that you can assert yourself with those boundaries.

And I think that’s got to be expanded. And I think that contrary to a lot of things people and one thing that I really do believe in as a practice is that as a person, my job is to push the boundary. And even it is not an aggressive act. And it's not like I bid one to one a bigger office. What I am saying is that I am entitled to be here, and the one slice of pie that they offer me, it is peanuts, it's not the pie. I can have the pie, I can have the dough to make the pie, I can have the ingredients to make my own pie, right. And so I think that it is really to stretch those boundaries so that we can feel more at ease and that a piece of the occupied space will be occupied. And I think that is really important.

And also the other thing is that I I think about this a lot is that I mean, psychologically speaking, we really breathe in these kinds of stereotypes. Me. I mean, sometimes I call it self destruction, but that button that you go there and tubular here, right. So it is going to be a lifetime process for us. But I also think that they can be managed by reminding ourselves that we can ask for more, we can assert ourselves, we can do more, we can push a limit. Now two things that seem almost diametrically opposed to each other. But as human beings, we can actually hold opposing ideas and opposing feelings.

And a lot of times, when people come to me when they feel that they cannot, they're so concerned about how people see that they can do it, I always say, No, fake it, until you make it, you're going to go into womb, believing that you can do it. Now there's a lot of trauma, but by doing the emotional toll that we had to carry to do that, we can only come back. And that's where the community can process together. What happened to YouTube? He cut me off. And I also want to say, Oh, I haven't finished my thought. And the agenda did not include me, I have to say, I believe in five minutes, can I be on top of the agenda. And that those kinds of things can be processed. Most of them are to actually separate the emotions within the community so that when you do things that you want to do doesn't come back to haunt you.

Because when I say that I find a lot of time, particularly people who want to be like, happen a lot, is that they are in a loop in their head as a judge, so I thought that I should do this, I do this? No, no, I shouldn't do it. This time it should take, I should have been nicer. Because I can see his face, I can see his eyes, I can see so and so well, they suck the teeth. I mean, like all these thoughts in their head, and it is, it's wasting a lot of energy. I mean, it should just say that you have a meeting for an hour and come back home for two hours to process the meeting in your head.

Analiza: So Sau-fong resonates so much, because our judges are so loud. And sometimes we don't even know we're doing it. And we have a five minute interaction, a one minute interaction, and we'll spend five days processing this thing that didn't even matter to the other person. So I'm hearing you say, Go we belong, ask for more people who are wanting, you know, we might want to seek them liking us. But let that go. Go out and fake it till you make it. Yes, it's going to bring emotional trauma.

But when that happens, instead of going into our hole, spend five days, five months, five years, right processing, go out to our community, our place of support and love and figure out the next action. Get on the agenda. When someone cuts us off, what's the step? Because we can't do it alone, Sau-fong, you had said something that really was powerful in that we are not the slice right? This slice that we're getting, we shouldn't just say thank you, thank you for my tiny slice. But actually, I deserve the pie. I deserve the ingredients I deserve making my own. And that's quite profound. Because in wanting to be liked, and trying to fit in and not feeling well enough. I mean, all of this builds and builds and builds. How dare I ask for more money. Let's go there with these dirty things that we shouldn't be talking about. We shouldn't be talking about love and helping people, not about greedy money. So can you talk about yourself? I mean, you want a huge grant, congratulations on behalf of the work you're doing. How do you advise women, women of color, especially to go for the ask of I want the pie to want to make our own? How would you advise that because we do want it but it feels so scary?

Sau: Well, I'll think about things that I personally do. One is that I do personalized success and failure. And that is I do my best. And when I do something, most of the time I clean and more than abuse, but I don't personalize it. And I always remind myself that my room might lose it because recent bigger than me, and my room often is the support that I got, like when you talk about this big photo grant that we received at Brooklyn College that allowed us to start API service program is obviously I mean, I put in a lot of work to it, and my collaborator, Dan UPenn, and I hold it together.

But at the end of the day, it's not just our ideas. It is ideas from our colleagues, ideas from our students, ideas from meetings. And there's a lot of research and studies that people have done on campus off campus nationwide, globally, to understand the life of an API, the service lead, right. So those are like big things. And then sometimes we don't get what we want. And it is not always because of us. And a lot of time is because of the bigger picture.

For example, I'm also engaging in a fight with our administration at this point, because the woman center I am running now is really facing severe staffing and budget cuts, and they start stabbing in particular, so deep, if that happened, that we almost cut 80% of the staff. So we further some of the fight. And so at this point, I will say that it's about between 30 and 40% of staffing, cut, staffing our cut, and predicted really significant damage to a lot of operations right now. I'm struggling. I am asserting myself, I am asking for I'm saying that is not right, that cannot be done now.

But whether I get it or not, at the end of the day, it's not just me, there's so many things that need to happen that for example, the camera, they had to burn it, it should not be equal on it. Because I want you to be fine, I got you to it by you. I mean, I'm in a pretty good place. And I just want a big word and pretty good, right? So it's not just me, it just the committee had to really say, Well, that's what we lead. That's what we want. That's why I'm tired. So the committee had to truly want it, and then surely want it and put it in action, right. And also this topic of pictures, and they are in higher education can through a transformation at the pandemic.

Many people say that at the time the pandemic helped accelerate the transformation. And institutions do not always catch up at the speed that they are tasked to do. So on top of what it does to a hierarchy, people on top make decisions and the whole idea. That'd be an alien talk about racism, sexism, homophobia, all these things that intersect Shinto intertwine and permeate into our lives, how imperiled was, so there's a lot of things that contribute to a loss. So all they say is that when we go out and do something, we really cannot depart. We cannot personalize it but that doesn't mean that we don't feel the joy. We don't feel the anger, we don't feel the sadness, but we really have to be in perspective, that is, wow, I got this added item that says it's great, it's perfect. So I think that that is one part of it.

And the other part of this is that if one can personalize this, then you can always add your account from Hong Kong. I am learning, you know, public English, and I learned English in school. So my articulation or my writing is almost like bookish English, the colloquial English I left where we couldn't quite get it like it had to acquire over the years. And one of the things that I was really amazed that people say this is that if you ask nothing to lose, that is really true, right? Because if you don't invest in the success, if you don't personalize the final outcome, then the answer is just a process. So yes, and then they don't give it to you, then they don't give it to you, that once again, doesn't mean that we are not upset or angry or happy.

But those are emotions that inform us of the decision. If the as it is appropriate, it is fair, it is reasonable is comparative, it is equitable. And I think that it's nothing wrong to decide that, oh, that's not my place, I want to go someplace. So I really do encourage the people as and the other thing that I also think a lot of time has happened to women is test, we put values on certain work, and put values on the commitments and impact on people. And I think that how not to care too close and not care about people that's doing it right. And I think that is not good. We can do as caring people still quite like money. I always say this, if I hire a babysitter to come home to take care of my kid, that is the money that I should be entitled to as a mother, right? Let's think about it. If someone answers the phone for me, we're patient with the more money than I should be entitled to. And I think that a lot of time to be lost sight on doesn't post structural inequity.

And on top of all this for women of color, because we don't know how much we can ask. We don't even know we can negotiate salary. And when you ask for $10,000, then you realize you care about making $50,000 more than you. And I think that some of those are really about social capital. And I do feel that pay transparency, it is important that everyone know what people are making, and mean. Particular days and ages the job becomes, I mean, I think that the world in terms of the job will become more and more equitable. And I will put the valid values, and C suite or the executive level and my perspective. I don't know whether I can do your job, but you'll never give me the opportunity to do your job, but I know you cannot do my job.

Analiza: Sau-fong I want to summarize. First is don't personalize it. Whether you succeed or fail there is a bigger picture, there are many things out of your control. Feel the emotions, but allow yourself to let go of this wasn't all me like I made this all happen. Second, I heard that if we don't ask, we are 100% likely not going to get it. But asking, there's no nothing to lose. So go for it. Third is we don't have the social capital, the role models to allow us to know what's possible. So hopefully we can find them. But that is in our way. And fourth, it's this idea that when people are having these standardized salary scales, it helps not have to work so hard to advocate. And so we're moving towards that. We have a lot more to go. But at least we're in the right direction. Sau-fong, this has been an amazing discussion. I've loved all the beautiful gems you've shared. Are you ready for lightning round?

Sau: Sure. Yeah.

Analiza: Okay, chocolate or vanilla?

Sau: Definitely vanilla

Analiza: Cooking, or take out?

Sau: Cooking

Analiza: Climb a mountain or jump from a plane?

Sau: Climb a mountain?

Analiza: Have you ever worn socks with sandals?

Sau: I have said that? No never

Analiza: How would you rate your karaoke skills on a scale of 1 to 10? 10 being Mariah Carey?

Sau: Three

Analiza: What's a recent book you read?

Sau: I read a book called Tomorrow, Tomorrow Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, ZEVIN. And very interesting book and it really speak to the culture of millennials. I really like it. Yeah.

Analiza: What's a favorite way to practice self care?

Sau: Well, there's many things that I do. But what I love the most is to have a swim, or to buy my bike and just go.

Analiza: What's a good professional development you've done?

Sau: One of the best professional development I have had, I was engaged in is with the Center for Asian American Women, a database in California, I was selected as one of the leadership fellows. So we met a few times a year. It is a very comprehensive development and really looks at interest by country by sense itself, and also looks at skill and knowledge. So I definitely appreciate the experience.

Analiza: What's your definition of a Boss Mama?

Sau: A Boss Mama is someone who takes ownership of the decision, and is not afraid to allow people to make a different decision. And then also someone who gradually can have fun.

Analiza: What advice Sau-fong would you give your younger self?

Sau: Don't be afraid, just do it.

Analiza: And then where can we find you like LinkedIn anywhere else?

Sau: You can find me on LinkedIn, you can send me an email. My email is the way that my name saufongau@gmail.com or whichever ebook and college and LinkedIn social media, we do have a woman center Instagram account. So I'm the only Chinese lady at Brooklyn College, you can find it.

Analiza: And then last question, do you have a final ask recommendation or any parting thoughts for us?

Sau: Really do not believe what the world teaches you. And now tandoors alive. So it is up to us to pick out the two

Analiza: Beautiful. Sau-fong, what an amazing conversation. I'm so so grateful to you. Thank you so much for being here.

Sau: Thank you.

Analiza: Hi, thank you so much for carving out time to hear today's podcast. Please, 3 things before you go. First, if you found it helpful, please leave a five star review. Second, I'm excited to share that we have a new book. It's called the Myths of Success: A Woman of Color’s Guide to Leadership. It's based on the lessons learned of many women of color leaders, including those on this podcast. And you can get a free chapter at analizawolf.com/freechapter. Lastly, we have a Woman of Color Rise program, and it's a six week online cohort program this spring. They'll build relationships with an intimate group of other women of color leaders, and to also walk away with a career growth roadmap and strategies to grow and career. Check out analizawolf.com/course For more information, early bird pricing ends February 9. Thank you so very much.