Meta Honcho Battles Hate Against Asians
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Branding boy wonder thrilled to meet a fellow “marketing nerd,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta. (Photo courtesy of Eric Toda/Instagram)
Though wracked with anger and helplessness, the grandson locked the memory in the depths of his psyche, a survival response common among those who experience violence, directly or vicariously.
Close to 25 years later, that invisible scar almost forgotten by the grandson was ripped raw, exposing his feelings to be as intense now as then, in fact heightened by inescapable images and headlines blaring similar incidents occurring all over this country to people who look like him. Like his parents. Like his grandfather: Asian Americans.
The year was 2020, the deadly coronavirus had landed in the United States where it would take over a million lives and bring the world to its knees as it spread throughout the globe.
By then the grandson, by his own assessment a high school underachiever but had gone on to build a successful career, responded differently. If he had kept his head down and said little out of self-preservation before, he waxed loud, proud and resolved now.
‘Big Enough’
Thus, in a Feb. 11, 2021 essay published in AdWeek, “My People Are Dying in Silence - And I’m Here with a Megaphone,” the transformed Eric Toda bared his soul:
“Today I am terrified—terrified that we are witnessing one of the largest stretches of hate crime against Asian Americans in my lifetime…And no one is paying attention. No big news outlets. No brands. No influencers. No hashtags. Silence,” he wrote, drawing attention to five of the most heinous attacks at the time, and then delivering his impassioned call to action.
“I’ve had enough. And I’m now big enough to avenge the hate visited on my grandfather when I was a kid. I’m here not to fight with my fists. Instead, I want to raise an industry that employs some of the greatest, brightest, and most creative Asian American minds in the world.”
“Big enough” is an understatement, as the author’s associates are fully aware. Toda, for outliers of the brand marketing universe, is Global Head for Social Marketing at Meta, formerly Facebook. Not yet 40, he previously headed marketing and branding for Airbnb, Nike, and Snapchat. He also serves on the board of directors of The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), Leading Asian Americans to Unite for Change (LAAUNCH) and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.
The industry leader burnished his role as champion for Asian American and Pacific Islander empowerment when he launched Meta Prosper, a pioneering program tailored to train and provide resources and support to small businesses in the AAPI community.
He is fulfilling what he envisioned in that heartfelt appeal in AdWeek:
“With tears in my eyes, I’m asking you to understand the gravity of my words. I am asking the industry that I’ve given so much of myself to for one thing: I don’t just want you to care, I want you to act. Love me and my people as much as we’ve loved you,” he ditched all filters in enjoining peers to utilize their individual and collective wherewithal toward empathy and solidarity.
He doubled down on his challenge:
“The brands and agencies we work with wield the most powerful megaphones in the world. As we stood for BLM [Black Lives Matter] today, tomorrow and always, I’m asking you to open your heart and stand with the AAPI community. Denounce the hate crimes regardless of race once and for all, and help shed light on what’s happening to us. Don’t let us die in silence.”
“What in the World is Ezra’s Art” is a children’s book exploring a boy’s resolve to do what he loves despite the odds, a theme driving Shay Fan’s co-author Eric Toda. (Photo courtesy of Eric Toda/Instagram)
Retraumatization
The Hawaii-born, California-raised Toda himself is no stranger to anti-Asian sentiment, he told Positively Filipino, citing “racist comments and ignorant remarks” such as a girl snapping, “I don’t date Asian guys” to his invitation to be his date to homecoming.
A violent crime against his grandfather stole the young Eric Toda’s innocence. (Photo courtesy of Eric Toda/Instagram)
“To a lesser extent, I’ve been subject to racism throughout my entire life, but this was different as it was targeted at the elderly. People who can’t defend themselves,” he explained the psychological impact of COVID19-related crimes on him.
Neither xenophobia nor racist rhetoric is novel and, therefore, each is culpable for the spate of hostility toward Asians, he concurred with the prevailing view, stressing that the pandemic was a “once-a-lifetime trauma” that drove culprits to “blame a common enemy.”
Once again his fears ran close to home.
“My parents are older, so I of course was worried for them. I told them not to go to Oakland Chinatown because many of the attacks happened there. That hurt. Oakland Chinatown is one of my favorite places on earth, theirs too, so to tell them not to go there because of attacks was heartbreaking,” he admitted.
Eric Michael Toda is a 5th generation Californian, a descendant of men beckoned to this country from Japan by the Gold Rush.
His Japanese ancestry is what’s come to the fore because of his essay and ensuing advocacy, but the blood of Lapulapu also courses through Toda’s veins. His mother, Ana Tomelden, came to this country as a child from Pangasinan, where his “Lola” still lives, he offered.
“A lot of people I meet don't know I'm Filipino because I have a Japanese last name. But my mother, my aunts, uncles, and Lola have given me such pride about our culture and where we are from in Pangasinan that I feel immense pride to know I am Filipino and I carry their dreams with me every day when I walk into an office, the White House, Congress, board rooms.”
A Filipino flag pin often glimmers on his lapel on his speaking engagements, to honor his grandmother and “where I’m from,” he emphasized.
The Philippine flag typically glimmers on Eric Toda’s lapel when he speaks in halls of power, like the White House, where the Meta Prosper ED thanked the president for supporting his program committed to generating opportunities for AAPI small businesses and communities. (Photo courtesy of Eric Toda/Instagram)
Unsilenced
His grandfather Kenji James Toda was born in Watsonville, Santa Cruz County, and served with the all-Japanese 442nd Regiment U.S. Army in World War II, “legendary” and “still the most decorated” in the branch, says the grandson.
Fourth generation American Kenji James Toda was a strawberry farmer willing to sacrifice his life for his country’s freedom and recognition of his people as Americans, says his grandson. (Photo courtesy of Eric Toda/Instagram)
Those who battered him in the San Francisco park would have no idea nor would have cared that he might be a hero who had fought to preserve their freedom.
“He was beaten mercilessly as his attackers hurled racial slurs at him. It was a senseless, unprovoked act,” Eric wrote in his essay, citing the tragic fate of mostly older Asian recent hate victims simply “for existing.”
“I was lucky to spend the final years of my grandfather’s life with him, so the trauma of his attack was somewhat put on the backburner until years after he passed (in 2008). It was potentially a coping mechanism, or life got in the way… and I didn’t think about it again until 2020 when the events that happened to the community triggered it back into my mind.”
Something had to be done. Sitting back knowing vulnerable Asian Americans were being preyed on was unconscionable where intervention was in plain sight from a multitude platforms, even in the Asian community itself.
While contemplating the issue, Toda realized he was not alone when he got a pitch from AdWeek to “share my thoughts.” He declined at first, he said, reverting to the kid taught by his parents not to “go looking for trouble.”
But if not he, an Asian American in a position to effect change and who himself has experienced racism, who would? Or, more to the point, who should address the issue and enlighten about the population scapegoated for the pandemic? The question answered itself with the silence on the issue among his fellow-Asian peers.
“We employ many Asian executives, yet no one wanted to say anything,” he recalled, “so I went back to AdWeek and said ‘yes.’”
Putting his feelings to words came effortlessly, though pressing Send took a while as he weighed possible outcomes, he told Positively Filipino. His apprehension proved unfounded.
“I cried all morning the day it was published, I didn’t sleep, then the piece went everywhere,” he said. “The response generally was positive, exactly what it was intended to do. It galvanized businesses to react to reflect on how they are supporting Asian Americans as a consumer, as an employee base, and questioned if there are biases and discrimination in the workplace that need to be addressed.”
Changemakers
There was pushback, he divulged, the “biggest” coming from some in the Asian community who asserted he was not the ideal “representative” and urged him to put the brakes on his work. He shook off the criticism, invoking a mentor from the Black community who cautioned him that “not everyone who is ‘skinfolk’ is kinfolk.”
“I believe in what I’m doing, and enough people see and support my vision to make progress for us, so we keep fighting for the future we want to see,” he vowed, having learned to “own who you are, own your voice, and always do the right thing.”
One organization wholeheartedly embracing his efforts to create that vibrant landscape is PhilDev, an organization founded by Silicon Valley luminary Diosdado “Dado” Banatao, whose vision is a “future where Filipino ingenuity leads the world in scientific and technological innovation.”
Ann Tomelden takes pride in her son’s many accolades, the latest being the Dado Banatao Legacy Award from PhilDev, though Eric says she’d like him to earn an MBA at last. (Photo courtesy of Eric Toda/Instagram)
Toda stands tall in that aspiration. For his “visionary leadership, relentless advocacy, and transformative contributions to the Asian American community and the tech industry” replicating the mission and values of its founder, the organization accorded him its inaugural Dado Banatao Legacy Award at the PhilDev Annual Gala 2024 last month in San Francisco.
“My parents are older, so I of course was worried for them. I told them not to go to Oakland Chinatown because many of the attacks happened there. That hurt.”
The event celebrated the “outstanding contributions of professionals whose inspiring work has made a significant impact on their respective fields.” Toda’s batch includes Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Toni Stabile Professor Sheila Coronel for Education; CEO and Co-Founder of ARK Solves Ayesha Vera-Yu for Innovation; The Mini Fund Managing Partner Eros Resmini and Ramar Foods President Susie Quesada for Entrepreneurship – all Filipinos, all Asians. All Americans.
“I’m proud to be Filipino every single day, and it’s the greatest honor to represent the progress we have made as a community,” Toda said in accepting the recognition.
“That statement was more a reflection of what PhilDev and other community organizations are, and that is something that couldn’t exist 50 years ago,” he explained to PF. “We have collectively found each other, and all have seen how we can lift each other up. We have individually found success, but it’s not enough; we must bring others along with us. That is a progress.”
The movement he sparked has just begun. In memory of Kenji James Toda, for his family, for every American of Asian descent, it’s a fitting and enduring tribute.
PF Correspondent Cherie Querol Moreno founded ALLICE in 2003 and serves as executive director. For more information, visit www.allicekumares.com.
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