<Begin Segment 21>

AI: Well, at that point that you were just going to enter investment banking, did you have some sense that that's the world that you were entering? That you, did you have some sense of the racial and the gender inequities and the kind of prejudices that you would be facing?

PJ: Not really. My sister had been investment banking and I was kind of following in her footsteps. She had done very well at Goldman Sachs and again, like I said, my sister is, you know, she just doesn't focus on that stuff at all, and so, in a way, I think we had this kind of modus operandi of, like, the way you were supposed to deal with that stuff was just not talk about it. And if you did, you were actually weaker for doing it. And it took me a while to realize that's not my process. I need to process it through, but it really did take me a while. And so, no, I didn't really have that sense. And then plus, I had this thing from my father of, "You can do anything." And so I've always believed, "Well, I can, why can't I do it?" And so I didn't really have that sense until I was in it, and then it was just really abundantly clear to me. But I almost think that the being a woman piece was stronger, even, than being a person of color until maybe later. I think, I think the time when I really experienced the most around being a person of color was, was actually when I was working for Physio-Control and I was based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was a sales rep for medic, you know, doing medical equipment with a district that had never had a woman before, much less a person of color, and then would have to go into these tiny little towns in Indiana, where nobody had ever seen anybody who looked like me. And I got a lot of stuff then. But when I was in New York, there was enough kind of awareness of people of color in New York that that didn't seem to be the thing as much as it was being a woman.

AI: Well, and of course, New York City is a whole world in itself.

PJ: Exactly.

AI: With so many international influences, although they might not have been apparent within the corporation.

PJ: Within the corporation, but they were in the city, completely. And so I think people were, it just wasn't as much of an issue as some of the smaller towns where they had never seen anybody like me. And I remember, for example, having to go... I, I can't believe that they would let us do these things, but I represented this company that was in bankruptcy. I mean, I was all of twenty-one years old, and got a call one night that I had to go fly to West Virginia to some little tiny town to represent the shoe company called Craddock Terry in bankruptcy proceedings, and then I was gonna have to work with the senior management to figure out how we were gonna tell everybody that they had to be laid off. I mean, it was ridiculous. Anyway, I remember going to port in this small town in West Virginia, and then I remember people just looking at me like, "Who are you, and why would we..." and there it felt like the, being a person of color was a, was a big issue. But not in New York, really, as much.

AI: Well, in a place like that, like in West Virginia, do you think people understood anything about you, or do you think that they just perceived you as, as an African American, as a black person? Or that, that it didn't matter, it was just simply that you were not white?

PJ: I think, actually, I think they perceived very little about me. I think that they maybe thought that I wasn't an African America, but I must be close or related. [Laughs] I think, I mean, certainly in Indiana, people would say, "Where are you from?" And I'd say, "India." And they'd say, "Where in Indiana?" And I'd say, "No, no. Not Indiana, India." And they'd say, "Where is India?" And they'd say, "So, are you black?" And I'd say, "Well, yeah." You know? I mean, depending on how you look at it. [Laughs] "Blacker than you." So, so I would get those kinds of questions, and I think, I think people, I think people also didn't know how to interact with me once I opened my mouth, because here would come this American accent. And even today, people don't know how to, everybody thinks I'm born here. And I sometimes feel -- especially in the work I do, I have to establish my credentials as, as an immigrant. And no, I only got my citizenship two years ago. And people are just kind of stunned, and they say, "Oh, well, you were, you must have been born here." So I think it's very difficult for people to figure out what I am, and it throws them off. They don't know how to, they don't know how to deal with it, I think. 'Cause if you're a foreigner, then you shouldn't speak English well. And so, you know, you get all these things about, "Oh, but you speak English so well." And, "But, where's your accent?" Or, you know, just kind of all those silly questions that people ask.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.