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ANCHORING CALIFORNIA
PAGE 6 OF 7
Despite the demands of her multiple-Emmy career, Tokuda cultivated a solid social network during her 14 years in the Bay Area. Several belonged to a small monthly reading group — which she helped organize — that tackled authors like Nabokov, Melville, Kawabata and Dickens. To this day Tokuda keeps a copy of the group's reading list. She founded the Bay Area chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association and spent time helping young journalists get started.
| "I haven't met Connie Chung, so I don't have a personal relationship with her. I like her work a lot." |
"She's the initiator socially, with our friendships, her family, my family," says Hall. "She's the sparkplug, but not the captain [of the family]. I handle the big picture. For example, I was the one who decided that we're going to build a house and where it should be. She would be the one to handle the interior decor."
The couple gave two big parties each year for their two main types of friends. One was the large Hannukah party for friends in the media who were, for the most part, Jewish, many of them from the East Coast. "We called them our media orphans," says Hall. The other was for people in the Asian community. Hall says she has now been MCing the Sansei Live event for "about 20 years in a row."
The couple maintains their Bay Area friendships. In December Tokuda flew up for the Hannukah party, now a tradition of over 10 years standing, though Hall wasn't able to go because of an illness.
Among Tokuda's closest friends are famed civil rights lawyer Dale Minami and his wife Diane. "I don't think a day goes by that I don't talk to somebody from the Bay Area."
At KPIX Tokuda enjoyed one of the most impressive careers in California TV history. In addition to her many awards, she probably broke records in the swiftness with which she rose to the position of lead anchor. She and her co-anchor also set a national record for longevity as a team. By the time the other Asian lead anchor, KRON's Emerald Yeh, was starting out in 1984, Tokuda was an established presence.
"I never thought of Emerald Yeh as the big rival," says Tokuda. "To pick out the only other Asian anchor and say she's the rival wouldn't be fair to Emerald or to me. She's one of the top anchors. She was one of my rivals. I didn't know her real well because she worked at another station across town. She came and talked to me when she was applying for her very first job in TV. I think she's got a lot of character and she's a good reporter."
One also can't help thinking of Tritia Toyota, the other notably successful California anchor. Tokuda is loathe to get personal in discussing a colleague. "When I got my very first job as a reporter in Seattle, I got this letter from Tritia congratulating me. She's always been very generous. I have a lot of respect for her because of her longstanding commitment to the community and all the work she's done for the community."
About Connie Chung Tokuda says even less. "I haven't met Connie Chung, so I don't have a personal relationship with her. I like her work a lot."
After ten years of anchoring both the 6 and 11 p.m. broadcasts, in 1987 Tokuda voluntarily gave up the 11 p.m. slot to return to reporting half-time. "I didn't see it as a demotion. I had been doing it for many many years and I really wanted to be more connected with the community and fieldwork. I was beginning to feel isolated. It's hard when you work the 6 and 11 to get out into the field. You can't really do it between shows."
The change was no doubt a symptom of Tokuda's growing ennui with a situation that had become too comfortable. It foreshadowed her move down to Los Angeles and her contract, beginning December 1991, as KNBC's co-anchor at 5 and 11. L.A. is the nation's second most important TV market after New York City, and a logical progression from the Bay Area. "About a third of the people I was working with at KPIX are down here now," observes Tokuda. Her current position is a distinct step up in the ladder of the network-news field.
"The move was definitely mutual," says Hall. "This is a mecca for both our industries. San Francisco had problems with its media economy. I was fortunate but I didn't like seeing what was happening up there."
Today Hall produces documentaries and news specials. A current project explores the forces behind the making of Heaven and Earth, a new Oliver Stone film starring Joan Chen based on an autobiographical book by a Vietnamese woman named Le Ly Hayslip. Since the move, Hall says, he has been working steadily for three local TV stations. Even so, Tokuda's contribution to the family income pie, one can safely assume, is considerably greater than Hall's. Yet, nothing in her tone or words — except maybe a hint of overindulgence in the way she praises Hall's virtues — suggests that she considers herself the family's senior partner. Nor is there anything to suggest she considers herself exempt in any way from the mundane cares of wife and mother. If there is one thing she can be accused of bragging about, it is the degree of closeness she enjoys with family, hers and Richard's. PAGE 7
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