The New Pressure to Shrink: Why We Can’t Afford to Stay Small

When you're an immigrant navigating life in the U.S., “shrinking” isn’t always something you choose. Sometimes it’s something you do to survive.

We shrink our accents in interviews.
We trim down our résumés to look more "palatable."
We dilute our stories, our culture, and our voice. Not because we want to, but because we’re told (directly or indirectly) that doing so keeps us safe.

And lately, the pressure to shrink has only grown louder.

There’s been a noticeable shift in the air. Not just politically, but professionally.
DEI programs have quietly disappeared (and you don’t have take my word for it; take a look at this LinkedIn article). Immigrant workers are back in the headlines, but not in a good way. In corporate spaces, people who once felt celebrated now feel invisible again.

That kind of cultural shift doesn’t just show up in the news.
It shows up in how we behave at work.
It shows up in how we describe ourselves on job applications.
It shows up in how we edit our LinkedIn profiles to “fit in.”

What happens when the very things that made us strong — our background, our voice, our journey — suddenly feel like liabilities?

We start to minimize.

And not just socially. We start to minimize professionally.
We strip our story down to something small and sterile.
We prioritize being “safe” over being seen.

Shrinking Feels Safe. But It’s Not Sustainable.

Here’s the thing. Shrinking might feel like protection in the short term, but it becomes a trap in the long run.

It’s hard to advocate for your worth when your résumé barely reflects your real skills.
It’s hard to lead when you’ve spent years avoiding attention.
It’s hard to feel like you belong when you’ve erased the very parts of yourself that got you here.

And for many of us — especially those who are Caribbean, African, South Asian, Latin American, or first-generation professionals — this tension runs deep. We were raised to work twice as hard, to stay humble, and to let our results speak for themselves.

But the truth is, results don’t always speak. Especially in spaces that weren’t built with us in mind.

I’m not saying we need to shout from the rooftops or center ourselves in every room. But I am saying this:

There is nothing professional about erasing your identity.
There is nothing strategic about pretending you didn’t come from far.
There is nothing sustainable about constantly trying to shrink your story to fit someone else's frame.

You are allowed to build a career that honors where you're from and where you're going.

You are allowed to write résumés that include your global perspective, your bilingualism, your lived experience.
You are allowed to show up in interviews and sound like yourself.
You are allowed to bring your full story to the table and still expect to be respected, paid well, and promoted.

What This Means for Us Right Now

The pressure to shrink will likely get worse before it gets better. But that doesn’t mean you have to fold yourself in half to fit into a box you were never meant to occupy. This is a time for strategy, yes. But it’s also a time for reclaiming.

Reclaiming your résumé.
Reclaiming your voice.
Reclaiming your belief in your own story.

Because when you tell your story with clarity and confidence, you don’t just stand out. You become undeniable.

So don’t shrink. Not now. Not after everything it took to get here.
You don’t have to twist yourself to be seen or shrink yourself to be safe.

Because even in this climate, even in this economy…

Wah fi yuh, cyaan un fi yuh.

~Meisha