Navigating Intersectionality and Adversity as Google’s First Afro-Latina Corporate Engineer
In the tech industry, where innovation and progress are often the watchwords, the journey of Luciana Melo stands out as a poignant reminder of the complexities and challenges faced by underrepresented individuals.
As the first Afro-Latina woman from Brazil to join Google’s corporate engineering team in New York City, Luciana’s story is one of resilience and determination amidst significant adversity.
Intersectionality in Tech: Being a Woman, Black, and Latina
Being an Afro-Latina from Brazil in the tech industry means navigating a landscape where gender, race, and cultural identity intersect in unique and often challenging ways. For Luciana, these intersections created a multifaceted identity that should have been celebrated but instead became sources of bias and discrimination.
Despite Google’s outward commitment to diversity and inclusion, Luciana’s experience highlighted a stark contrast between corporate branding and workplace reality.
The Challenges of Being a Trailblazer
Joining Google in February 2020, Luciana entered with optimism and a drive to excel. However, she quickly encountered resistance that had little to do with her professional capabilities. Her identity as a Black Latina woman was not met with the inclusivity that Google professes.
Instead, she faced challenges related to her national origin and cultural background, even though she is also an American citizen.
Unwavering Determination Amidst Adversity
Despite these challenges, Luciana did not give up. She pursued numerous cybersecurity trainings, often exceeding the requirements to improve her skills and contribute more effectively. However, her dedication was met with suspicion and criticism. The security blue team director, instead of supporting her “out of my way” attitude to take as many SANS courses as possible (already having an MBA in IT), took it as a threat. This attitude reflects an awareness that minorities doing extra work should be recognized, as it is often not optional for them. She was not supported as her white, Asian, male, and light-skinned Latino colleagues were. Her extra efforts made her seem like an “outlaw” (literally). She was retaliated against, her blue team security rotations projects were boycotted, and she was set up for failure. Her security manager rotator, Fatima Riviera, did not support her growth or give her a “you belong” attitude.
She became familiar with this “bias by default” in the cooporate engineering, cybersecurity and DevOpsec teams (plus the “bias by default” was normalized by HR. They advised Luciana this was Google’s culture. Instead of making these people accountable for their actions, they redirected Luciana to the retention team (team to retain minorities groups). Luciana’s high level of education and going above and beyond atittude was not taken into consideration.
Google’s HR diminized her capability and experience, and the approach “we are doing a favor of keeping you here” was applied (there was not a “you belong here” neither “Building Multicultural Capacity” approach.
Lack of Support and Recognition
Luciana’s efforts to advance within the company were consistently undermined. Despite receiving excellent feedback and peer bonuses from colleagues across various levels of Google’s staff, her core team in the corporate engineering branch did not support her promotions.
The lack of recognition from her direct team, coupled with the discriminatory treatment from the cybersecurity team, created a hostile work environment that stifled her professional growth.
The Reality Behind Google’s Diversity Branding
Google’s branding suggests a culture where everyone belongs, but Luciana’s experience tells a different story. Her journey reveals that the path to true diversity and inclusion is fraught with systemic issues that cannot be resolved through branding alone. The disparity between Google’s public image and the internal experiences of its employees calls for a deeper examination of the company’s practices and policies.
Moving Forward: A Call for Change
Luciana Melo’s story is a powerful call to action for the tech industry. Her experience at Google underscores the need for genuine support systems that go beyond mere lip service.
Companies must foster environments where all employees, regardless of their background, are given equal opportunities to succeed and are valued for their unique contributions.
Companies must foster environments where all employees, regardless of their background, are given equal opportunities to succeed and are valued for their unique contributions.
Pros and Cons of being a trailblazer
Being a trailblazer is never easy, and Luciana Melo’s journey at Google is a testament to the strength and resilience required to navigate the complexities of intersectionality in the tech industry. As the first Afro-Latina woman from Brazil on Google’s corporate engineering team, her story is both an inspiration and a sobering reminder of the work that still needs to be done to achieve true inclusivity.
Luciana’s experience highlights the importance of moving beyond corporate slogans to implement real, meaningful changes within organizations. Her legacy is not just one of personal achievement but also a catalyst for ongoing dialogue and action towards creating a more inclusive and equitable tech industry. Reflecting on the insights of Demma Rodriguez from “Chapter 4. Engineering for Equity” in Software Engineering at Google, Luciana’s experience underscores how “bias is the default. When engineers do not focus on users of different nationalities, ethnicities, races, genders, ages, socioeconomic statuses, abilities, and belief systems, even the most talented staff will fail their users.
Such failures are often unintentional; all people have certain biases, and social scientists have recognized over the past several decades that most people exhibit unconscious bias, enforcing and promulgating existing stereotypes.” Luciana does not believe this is unintentional; at this point, this is Google’s choice to have the “biases by default”.
For more on these insights, you can refer to Demma Rodriguez’s work in Chapter 4. Engineering for Equity.
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