Fresh Off The Boat Summary

The Huang family: What it means to be American In Herman Grey’s, The Politics of Representation in Network Television he examines the history and portrayal of African Americans in television. Grey concludes there are three identifies in which African Americans are represented in television, multiculturalist pluralist and assimilationist. In his writing he mostly reflects on television shows from the mid 1920’s to the 1990’s. However many of these ideas still hold relative to modern day shows featuring minorities. ABC’s Fresh off the Boat is a comedy which centered around an Taiwanese American family trying to chase the American. The show follows the family as they try to adapt from living in a predominantly Chinese community to moving to all white community in Orlando Florida. The

Multiculturalism represents shows that are told from the view point of African Americans, including the struggle they face within the community. Fresh off the Boat’s main characters are all minorities however the format matches those of white family shows just as the early African American shows. “In style and form, the show operated from the normative space of largely, black, often multicultural world that paralleled the of white.”(Grey 89 ) The core values and context are that which appeal to audiences as universal truths and experiences about domesticity. Another factor and appeal of the show multiculturalism is the diversity within the cast in terms of character personality. Huang family members all adjust to their new surroundings differently. They struggle to become more American while also holding on to their Taiwanese traditions. As these stories are told from the vantage point of a Taiwanese family they are more truth to the immigrant experience. These are all which align with “black Americans as the authors and participants in there own notion of America and what it means in America.”(Grey