Exploring Anti-immigrant Attitudes and Workplace Discrimination from the Perspective of the Sociocultural Minority

Employees born and raised in the United States (U.S.) often demonstrate sociocultural insensitivity and prejudices toward employees with different sociocultural backgrounds. The research problem focused on a) prejudiced attitudes of the sociocultural majority toward the sociocultural minority, b) a lack of opportunities for professional advancement of socioculturally diverse employees, and c) unequal hiring practices in business organizations in the U.S., as experienced by the sociocultural minority. Van Manen's phenomenological method was used for discovering, describing, and interpreting the meaning of main themes and categories. The essence of lived experience was illuminated through textural descriptions and interpretations of experiences related to the phenomena under exploration. Individual, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were the main data collection instruments presented to 15 participants who resided in Jacksonville, Florida. The process of analyzing and interpreting data consisted of transcribing interviews, identifying general ideas, grouping similar data into categories, coding, creating detailed descriptions, and interpreting the data. The focus of the inquiry was first generation immigrants who a) came to the U.S. within the last 10 to 15 years, b) worked legally in selected U.S. organizations located in Jacksonville, Florida, and c) were at least 30 years of age when each immigrated to the U.S. The results of this study indicated that the attitudes of the sociocultural majority toward the sociocultural minority were recognized by the participants as prejudiced and unfavorable. The participants indicated that hiring practices endorse inequalities and reduce the likelihood of establishing employment by socioculturally diverse applicants. The barriers for career advancements for foreign-born employees were significant, especially for senior-level or high-paid positions. The conclusion was that organizational leaders and human resource managers should promote behaviors and practices designed to reduce or eliminate the obstacles to the equal status of the sociocultural minorities in the workplace. Recommendations for future research include: a) adding a quantitative component to the research method and expanding the sample size to increase the transferability of the results, b) performing similar research on a national level, and c) repeating this study in the future to determine if the results significantly differ from the original results