Let's talk about race

ABC’s new sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, based on chef Eddie Huang’s same-titled memoir, is about 11-year-old Eddie and his Taiwanese-American family trying to adjust to their new life in a homogenous Orlando, Fla., suburban neighborhood (see WORLD Magazine’s review from the March 21 issue). But to many Asian-Americans, the show is more than that—it’s their story, aired on national TV to previously unreached eyes and ears that might have once seen them as foreigners, not fellow Americans.

“Today, we’ve arrived,”Huang told a group of 1,000 fans who attended the New York City watch party for the show’s premiere, echoing the sentiment and hope of many Asian-Americans who felt shuffled behind a bamboo curtain. At other watch parties across the country, many Asian-Americans laughed and cried to see their real-life narrative being played out on screen—with humor, charm, and enough bullheaded audacity to reclaim the same Asian stereotypes that might have previously bothered them.

Still, not everybody received the show positively. Some found the parents’funky accents and the show’s title offensive. (The term “fresh off the boat”is usually reserved for new immigrants who speak broken English and presumably wear white ankle socks with sandals.) Others have different ideas on how Asian-Americans should make their mark in Hollywood: Should Asian-American characters play down their distinct ethnic characteristics to appeal to the mainstream audience? How far is too far in portraying stereotypes that can pigeonhole an entire race? Is the goal to level racial distinction—or emphasize America’s racial and ethnic diversity?

Many online discussions so far have been among (mostly second-generation) Asian-Americans who already commiserate with each other. So we decided to host a conversation about the sensitive topics of race and stereotypes with three young WORLD reporters with very different American experiences. Sophia Lee is a 1.25-generation Korean-American who spent her childhood in Singapore but moved to the United States in the eighth grade. Angela Lu is a second-generation Taiwanese-American, raised in an upper-middle-class suburb in Los Angeles. And Daniel James Devine is a multi-generational white American who grew up in a mostly white town in Indiana.

Sophia: Angela, did you identify with any parts in the show?

Angela: Yes! I loved when Eddie shows up to the school lunch table with the noodles his mom packed for him while all the other kids eat their Lunchables. The kids laughed at his smelly noodles, and Eddie complains to his mom that he wants what the other kids have. I totally felt his pain—I always wanted Lunchables, too! All my friends had their fun Lunchables pizzas and cracker-ham-cheese combos, but my mom always thought they were too expensive. Sometimes I’d bring leftover pot stickers [pan-fried dumplings] from the night before, and my friends would scrunch up their noses. I thought the show did a good job of showing Asian-American frugality. Growing up, my family saw wasting money almost as a sin, so there was a clear delineation of what was a necessary expense, like education, and what was not, like Lunchables.

Sophia: Funny how as a kid, what you eat for lunch plays a significant role in how you fit in to the American identity. For the first year, I asked my mom to let me buy cafeteria lunch, because I had dreamed of eating “American food”for so long—all the cookies and milk, pizza, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and other “white”-sounding foods I read about in books as a kid in Singapore. And pretzels! How cool and delicious-sounding is that name? In reality, I got sick of cafeteria lunches pretty fast, but I had been burning with this desire to eat like an American for so long that I stuck at it for a whole year, even though I had to dip chocolate chip cookies in ketchup to drown the saccharine taste of cheap sugar and dough. I simply wanted to assimilate into the American culture as much as possible, and food was the first measure of my Americaness. Did you ever eat Lunchables, Daniel?

Daniel: Yeah, a few times. They were definitely cool lunches for a kid. I was homeschooled, though, so I never experienced lunch-table peer pressure growing up. And when I say “homeschooled,”I don’t mean the after-school home tutoring that Eddie got from his “tiger mom”in Fresh Off the Boat, but kindergarten-through-12th-grade homeschooling. That made me feel a little “different”from friends in my church youth group, who mostly attended Christian or public schools, so I understand Eddie’s desire to fit in. In terms of school grades, my parents were pretty relaxed—they wanted me to learn for learning’s sake rather than to know all the test answers. So it was interesting to see from Fresh Off the Boat how much some Asian-American parents emphasize academic achievement in a different way.

Sophia: So the desire to “fit in”is pretty universal. I wonder when kids start grappling with their self-identities?

Angela: Honestly, I didn’t think about my Asian-American identity much when I was younger. I mean, I knew there were parts of me that were different from my classmates at my predominately white school—obviously I looked different, my parents spoke to me in a different language, and the rules in our household were stricter than in my classmates’homes. I remember just really wanting to fit in. I wanted blond hair and a normal middle name and to spend my Saturday mornings watching cartoons instead of going to Chinese school. Then in middle school, I started to embrace being Asian-American. I’d listen to Chinese pop music and watch Korean dramas, and at lunch I’d sit with my Asian friends at the “Asian table.”I even changed my handwriting to look more cutesy and Asian, and we’d pass notes folded into origami hearts.

Sophia: Oh no! You were that Asian-American kid I used to avoid in high school! They were a group I just didn’t understand as a fresh immigrant. I had read so much about America and idealized it as a multicultural “melting pot”that when I finally arrived, it disappointed and angered me to see my “own kind”segregate themselves by race. Most of these Asian-Americans had never lived in an Asian country before, but somehow they formed their own version of being Asian in America without having truly experienced a full Asian identity. I thought self-segregation was just another subversive form of racism, and I was alarmed to hear all the bitter anti-white talk and “Asian pride”slogans among the Asian-Americans I knew. Their rhetoric and behavior were bizarre to me, because I had lofty, rather judgmental, ideals of what racial equality should look like in America: Skin color should no longer matter, and everybody—no matter what race or ethnicity—should work toward becoming hand-holding, Kumbaya-singing Americans.

Angela: I think people group up like that not because they purposely think, “I only want to hang out with other Asians and no one else,”but because people are naturally drawn to others who have shared experiences. You want to hang out with people who “get” you, and you don’t want to have to explain what you’re eating or why you need to stay home Friday night studying instead of going to the mall.

Daniel: I didn’t grow up knowing many Asian-American families, but my subjective impression used to be that Asian-Americans seemed standoffish. Watching a few episodes of Fresh Off the Boat helped me better understand their point of view. At one point in the first episode, a white woman from Eddie’s new neighborhood tells him, “Your English is very good!”—even though he just explained he was born in Washington, D.C. I laughed, because I realized how annoying it must be for Asian-Americans to hear that all the time. The show also reveals how Asian-American families have a hard time accepting some aspects of our culture, like spending money on hip clothes or letting kids play basketball in the afternoon instead of study.

Angela: I definitely feel more American after having moved to Taiwan this year. When I walk down the street, I’m surrounded by people who look like me, but the way they think and behave is so different because we grew up in different countries and had very different experiences. Now when I meet anyone from the United States, I feel an instant bond, especially as we talk about all the things we miss from America—Chick-fil-A, football on TV, good Mexican food.

Sophia: So do you think a secular TV show like Fresh Off the Boat can open up empathy and bonding conversations about racial reconciliation in America?

Angela: I definitely wish there had been a show like Fresh Off the Boat on TV when I was growing up. I think it would have helped my classmates understand me better, and it would have been comforting for me to know I’m not alone. Obviously in a sitcom format, a lot of the jokes depend on exaggerations and stereotypes, so it clearly doesn’t take the place of actually sitting down and having these conversations. But it acts as a good starting point.

Daniel: Also, it can help people like me see life from an immigrant family’s perspective. It’s too bad there’s sexually suggestive material in some of the episodes, because that will turn away many families who’d otherwise benefit from it. But the positive thing about addressing racial issues in an entertainment medium is that it allows us to interact with a sensitive subject without feeling like we’re walking on pins and needles.

Sophia: But Daniel, weren’t you offended by the way the show portrayed white Americans—as ignorant, trite, and sometimes insensitive?

Daniel: Not at all. I took it as good-natured comedy and felt like I was laughing along with the Huangs. I could imagine myself inadvertently making the same stereotypical assumptions the white people in the show make about the Huangs, like assuming an Asian mother should have a more exotic name than “Jessica.”I think racial reconciliation requires understanding on both sides. I’ll probably make insensitive mistakes when I try to interact with friends and strangers from different racial backgrounds, but that doesn’t mean I’m trying to insult them. I’m just ignorant of their culture and experience as a minority.

Sophia: Ignorance and discrimination exist in all people groups. I grew up in an Asian country where the Chinese discriminate against the Malays, the Malays against the Chinese, the Chinese against Indians, the Indians against the Malays, and yes, Asians discriminate against white people, too. Racism isn’t just a white guilt—it’s every person’s guilt. It’s a sin problem at the root, and we Christians have an upper hand in racial reconciliation because we start on a level playing field where everybody is a sinner.

Angela: Americans also have an additional advantage of having an amazing range of different ethnicities living together in one country. We get this unique opportunity to walk through life with people of vastly different cultures. It’s incredible when we find something deeper than our own culture to bond over, like Jesus.