Vaishnavi J

A few months ago, I was the only person “laid off” from my team, and I think it happened because my manager wanted to punish me for filing an internal complaint about them.

I’ve been in trust & safety for more than a decade across leading companies, both as an individual contributor and a people manager, working on content moderation, product policy guidance, and addressing issues like child safety, bullying & harassment, eating disorders, and mental health online. And I’ve worked on these issues from San Francisco, Singapore, and Hong Kong, making my lens pretty global.

I joined Meta about 3.5 years ago and my manager was generally pretty absent. They rarely showed up for our meetings on time, never offered much guidance, and generally was pretty hands-off. Despite this, I built up a strong portfolio of work in my first two years at the company and got a lot of positive feedback both from my manager and my colleagues across different teams. My manager kept putting more work on my plate, praising my abilities, and increasing my responsibilities.

So about two years into the job I asked my manager what I thought was a pretty normal question to ask your manager: “What are my prospects for growth or promotion?” 

Overnight, they went from being appreciative to antagonistic. My manager immediately demoted me, reassigned my responsibilities, told me there was no business need for a promotion, and then proceeded to hire externally for that promoted role. Suddenly, they started telling me that I wasn’t “seen as a leader” or wasn’t seen as “senior enough”. When I asked for examples so that I could improve, they initially refused to provide any and then started inventing stories that never happened.

To me, this behavior reeked of a modern-day neocolonialism. As an Asian in policy, I was senior enough to take on complex strategic projects, build strong cross-functional relationships, and deliver impact for Meta – all as long as I kept my head down. But I wasn’t “senior enough” to be actually recognised as a leader, despite incredible support from other teams.

At some point, this constant exclusion and layering just scared me into silence. I convinced myself that I wasn’t good enough and I kept repeating to myself what another Asian colleague at Meta had once told me – “We’re brown girls. We don’t get a seat at the table.” I internalized what my leaders were saying – that as an Asian woman, I was destined to be a worker, not a leader.

It’s been so helpful to talk to other Asian colleagues and industry peers and realize that this anti-Asian discrimination is shockingly widespread. A study of EEOC data shows that while Asian women may be represented in the non-managerial professional workforce, they are severely under-represented at the executive levels. A May 2022 study by Ascend shows that almost half of Meta’s professionals are Asian American, yet only 25% of its executives are, resulting in an Executive Parity Index of 0.52 (where parity is 1.0). Our community is saddled with racist stereotypes like us not being collaborative, seeming untrustworthy, or lacking that mysterious executive presence. 

SwAA’s efforts to build a community of Asian Americans who can collectively heal and fight back against workplace injustice is incredibly important as we deepen our longstanding roots in this country. Sharing our stories allows others to know that they are not alone, that this isn’t something we can address on an individual level, and that we are mobilizing as a community to seek justice.