Eddie Huang is being given a chance to do something few Asian Americans before him have done.
He’s going to produce a television pilot based on his memoirs Fresh off the Boat as a Chinese American living in Florida.
The celebrity chef who will host an upcoming MTV reality show talked to China Daily about his new project.
“ABC is giving us a chance to talk about Asian America and it’s beautiful,” Huang told China Daily. “It’s the American-born Chinese dream. I hope in the next few years, when Chinese people see the acronym ABC on their televisions, they say ‘American Born Chinese’.”
He says it will be the kind of show he would have love to see as a young child growing up.
Memories of being a “12-year-old Chinese kid being berated by ‘ching chong’ jokes in the lunchroom” are still vivid in the 31-year old’s mind. Yet he says the show won’t be heavy handed.
We all understand that trying to write an overly general and oppressive ‘Asian’ show isn’t the way to go,” he said. “What we want is a human story that every one relates to but represents the idea of difference simply with the faces on the screen and the voice of the writer. Martin, Fresh Prince, Seinfeld, to me these weren’t ‘black’ shows or ‘Jewish’ shows, they were great shows with original voices and individual characters we hadn’t heard that ended up changing the American consciousness.”
You can read more about Huang’s thoughts on the show in the China Daily,
