Asian Americans in Comedy: The Career Path Your Parents Never Saw Coming
Submitted by Grace Zhang
When parents ask,“What do you want to do when you grow up?” it’s probably very unlikely to have a kid who answers the question with: “I want to be a comedian!”. It’s probably even more unlikely to find kids of Asian immigrants even considering this particular career path. Safe to say, the precarious combination of extremely high stakes and very low reward is probably an Asian parent’s worst nightmare. And that’s not even mentioning the awful stage fright and heckling crowds…Personally, just imagining the crickets in the audience when my joke inevitably falls flat is enough to just steer me very, very far from comedy. Lucky for us, there are always the trendsetters who are willing to pave the way for others: the brave ones who will endure the dreaded parental disapproval to pursue their true passions.
When I watched Hasan Minhaj’s Netflix comedy special, Homecoming King, I was immediately struck by an odd sense of camaraderie. A lot of his stories were stories that I could relate to, especially considering he had a similar life path to me: born in America to immigrant parents, attended a predominantly white high school for most of his life, not to mention the nerve wracking experience of bringing home your new friends for the first time to your ethnic household 🙂 It’s comforting to see someone on stage who can joke about the trials and tribulations of the awkward teenager experience as a person of color: at least I know that I wasn’t alone during those long hours at the kitchen table while my dad yelled at me over some math problems…
As I watch comedians like Hasan Minhaj, Ali Wong, Aditi Mittal, Ken Jeong, and many more after them slowly make their big break in the world of comedy, I can only imagine two things: 1) the inspiration for younger asian kids to finally pursue their lifelong dream of making fun of their parents on stage and 2) the increasing need for Asian parents to immediately persuade them what a bad idea this is. I hope these kids continue to pursue idea number 1, despite parental disapproval and the inevitable obstacles in the industry. Let’s be real: we all could have used a good laugh while slugging through our endless rounds of SAT prep 🙂
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