According the Human Development Report 2013, published by the United Nations, the Asian middle class will grow from 500 million today to 1.75 billion, or three times its current size, by the year 2020. The report notes that all across the southern hemisphere countries have increased economic productivity and raised human development indicators that show improved quality of life. This “Rise of the South” has precipitated a global transition in economic, political, and cultural relations.
In my first business, I was a federal minority subcontractor providing software development servicing to the energy industry. Even with only one client and one type of revenue source, I still didn’t put forth any sales and marketing efforts.
It was my birthday recently and I was presented with the following question – “Do you celebrate your birthday with a cake in your culture & country? Would love to know if this a recent cultural phenomenon or long established? Is this a personal sign of globilisation?”
Six years ago, I described how Inclusion-related policies and legal regulations have long been part of economic and social change, and, at times, part of emotional and combustible debate. Inclusion took 50 years of wrangling after the first Women’s Suffrage conference in the mid-1800s to achieve a constitutional amendment granting women the vote. It took another 50 years for the Civil Rights Movement to seriously impact the workplace and establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Now, with COVID-19 and serious calls for racial justice, we are seeing another major societal and economic transformation that questions how we can achieve an inclusive diversity.
The nation is crying out for universal health care reform to provide adequate health insurance for the diverse citizens in the nation. Yet, American diversity includes a group of individuals who remain silent as they continue to face limited access to health care because of their limited English proficiency (LEP). A study released by the Kaiser Family Foundation in April, 2008 indicated that during 2004-2006 almost one third of non-elderly Korean Americans in the US do not have health insurance.
