Fresh Off The Boat finds a safe harbor

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A new American Gothic 

EDDIE HUANG, the 11-year old boy in Fresh Off the Boat, looked familiar: a little bit pudgy, black hair, darker skin, definitely Asian-looking - trying desperately to fit in at a new school and whose goal is to sit at the white kids' cafeteria table. That was me entering middle school at the age of 12.

Personal - sometimes painful - memories easily came flooding back while watching the highly anticipated TV sitcom that centers around TV's newest television family - the Huangs.

But isn't that the point for all the Asian-American hubbub surrounding this new show: to see someone like me/us on the tube beyond playing the second fiddle, the butt of jokes, the servant, the stereotype? 

(NOTE: To all the non-Asians reading this blog, my apologies if I occasionally use personal pronouns, but the original intent of this blog, after all, is directed to my extended family. If you still dig reading it, thanks. I truly appreciate it.)

As young Eddie navigates his way through pre-adolescence and being a stranger in a strange land, (Orlando, Florida) F.O.B. has its funny moments, a few outright laughs and moments of deja vu as an added bonus 

The real Eddie Huang

Don't think this is just an ordinary American TV sitcom with the parents and kids simply replaced with Asian actors. If you're looking for comparisons, its The Wonder Years with Hunan chili peppers. The groundbreaking show, loosely based on restaurateur Eddie Huang's memoirs of the same name, doesn't shy away from race but it doesn't hit you over the head with a sledgehammer about race relations either. 

Being a person of color allows you to pick up on the sometimes subtle nuances provided by the plot. Almost every Asian American, at some point in their lives, remembers how it felt being called the c-word ... hell, it was on national TV for goodness sake ... "chink!" For many of us, that moment is a critical point in how we perceive ourselves and where we fit in this society.

When the c-word is uttered in F.O.B., I gave a silent gasp as the camera briefly focuses on Eddie's face. In that fleeting instant, you can see the anger simmering inside the young boy. (Perhaps, I'm projecting.) Somehow, miraculously, the writers turned it into an incident that leads to a funny confrontation between the parents and the principal.

But the fact that hip-hop loving Eddie had that moment between him and the only African American student in the school as they jostled to avoid being at the bottom of the social pecking order, says so much more than any documentary about race relations on public television.

Constance Wu underplays the mother.

At the same time, to the producers' and writers' credit, they didn't dwell on it. They quickly moved on quickly to other things, often, funny things. The funny moments didn't always have to do with race. The creators use race is just another element that has been missing in most TV shows but one that makes F.O.B. different from your run-of-the-mill half-hour sitcom. 

The other scene that struck a chord was right after the meeting with the principal, the family is strolling across the school playground, when young Eddie comes across his white classmates playing basketball. They stop and look at Eddie. He struts and acknowledges them with a chin-jutting gesture. Yeah. Its all about respect, right? Yeah ... but it came at the expense of the black student.

Constance Wu, who plays Eddie's mother, is a star in the making. Although using a strong accent, it would be easy to slip into the stereotypical tiger-mom, but the writers allows her to soften the character so we see that all that she does is out of love for her family.

In a lesser actress, some of the lines she delivers, or the silent "looks" she gives,would not be as hilarious. She has the best lines of the night and she steals the scene every time she's on the screen. If there's any justice in the world, she would be nominated as best comedic female actor for next season's Emmy's. 

Hudson Yang is perfect as Eddie Huang.

The father, played by Randall Park, fresh from his role in the controversial satirical movie, The Interview, is the likable father trying to do what's best for his family, aware of the uncomfortable situation he put them in by uprooting them to from diverse Washington D.C. to mostly-white Orlando. His unrelenting belief in the American Dream and America as the Land of Opportunity makes him a bridge that many non-Asians could relate to and admire.

Bottom line, the Huang family is extremely likable, something that will go a long way in determining the show's longevity if we are asking America to invite them into their living rooms every week. The non-Asian writers walk a tightrope between the real Eddie Huang's story and the all-too easy tilt towards racial stereotypes. Let's hope they can maintain that balance. 

What the show does best (mind you, I've only seen two episodes) is allow viewers to peek into a world and perception of that world from an Asian immigrant's point of view. No other TV show does that.

Let's hope that it does that for several more seasons. I'd love to see young Eddie turn into a teenager with all the angst that period between childhood and adulthood brings to it. Overall, the show works. The situation and environment of the show is ripe with possibilities - some funny, some poignant. 

One other inside joke that may bypass non-Asian viewers, F.O.B., long a derogatory term for newcomers, is on the ABC network, which in the Chinese-American community, stands for American Born Chinese, also a derogatory term used against Chinese Americans.

I know what I'll be recording Tuesday nights. Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Oh, I can't take credit for that last line.

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