“The survey is by no means comprehensive or exhaustive,” he wrote in his summary of the findings on Medium. “But I hope it can shed light on some of the experiences of the nine million Asian men living in the United States and perhaps spark some important conversations.”

Brian Wang, CEO of Fitocracy, says that many people are simply unwilling to accept that Asians are affected by prejudice. “That’s an unfortunate lack of empathy because people will look at the statistics, they’ll look at how well Asian Americans in general supposedly do in the U.S., and that ‘model minority’ myth, and I think that colors a lot of the discussion,” he says.

Wang knows Shen—they’re in the “ecosystem of tech start-up land,” Wang says—and he took the Asian American Man survey. Wang said that the survey topics, which included challenges in the dating scene and the workplace, and bullying at school, were familiar to him. “All of these questions are inescapable for Asian Americans,” Wang says.

In the comments respondents left on the survey itself, Shen said he noticed a couple of trends: one, respondents who thought the overall premise “reeks of victimhood,” and two, respondents who were excited to extend the dialogue on racism to include Asian Americans.

Some of the prejudice may stem from the perception of Asian success. Asian Americans do outpace other American ethnic groups in terms of bachelor’s and master’s degrees, according to U.S. Census data. The overall picture, however, is more complex.

Ascend, a nonprofit organization for Asian-American business professionals, released a study in May called "Hidden in Plain Sight: Asian American Leaders in Silicon Valley," which found that Asian Americans at five Silicon Valley tech companies represented a much larger portion of the professional ranks than the executive suite. The survey found that Asian Americans made up 27 percent of the professional workforce but less than 14 percent of executive positions. The study pegged a lack of awareness by employers, a need to change the behaviors of potential hirees, and an overall lack of role models to provide guidance on this issue.

theasianamericanman.com

At first glance, it seems Asian Americans are entering the workforce in significant numbers, says Anna Mok, a partner at Deloitte who serves as executive vice president of Ascend. The superficial numbers lead people to believe that the “model minority” concept has validity. The “Hidden in Plain Sight” study, however, tells a different story: Asian-American professionals aren’t being promoted.

“You look at the numbers and people say, 'There’s so many Asians going into the workforce or going into these companies,'” Mok says. “And that’s true. But when you really look at it, you see they get stalled pretty early.”

Janet Wong, a coauthor of the report and board director for Enviva Partners, helps conduct training for companies and employees to help Asian Americans reach their career goals and help companies retain and promote Asian-American employees. Wong, an executive adviser at Ascend, worked her way up the ranks at KPMG, eventually becoming a partner, but only after she started to understand what it takes to get a promotion.