Fresh Off the Boat

Fresh Off the Boat is one of the few American sitcoms featuring an Asian-American family. The show centers around the Huang family who have recently moved from Chinatown in Washington, DC to Orlando, Florida. It is mainly told from the point of view of the oldest son, Eddie. Eddie’s parents, though immigrants from Taiwan, exhibit few of the usual stereotypes one sees in the typical Western portrayal of Asian-Americans. Louis, Eddie’s father, owns and runs a western steakhouse while his wife Jessica simultaneously flips houses and takes care of their family. The portrayal of the Huang’s day to day life shows a different side of Asian people: grandmothers who play mahjong and begin to date again, sons who hate school and love hip hop, men who respect women and women who refuse to be submissive. The characters are initially culture shocked by the stark whiteness of Orlando compared to DC’s Chinatown. The kids experience the struggle of being the only Asian person in their class and the parents have a hard time finding similarities between them and their white neighbors. Because of the struggle, the entire family is able to form a Taiwanese-American identity that embraces both cultures.

The show combats the European image of the other described in Edward Said’s Orientalism by showcasing the Asian perspective. Fresh off the Boat is based on the memoir by Eddie Huang, a Taiwanese-American chef, and was created by Nahnatchka Khan, a Iranian-American producer. Rather than whitening the story by exclusively using white people in the production, Khan and Huang's visible role in the show gives a voice to Asian and Middle Eastern points of view. Taiwanese culture is treated with respect in the story lines without being exploited because Asian-Americans have control over their own story.