But the show departs from expected sitcom tropes in one crucial aspect, groundbreaking because it hasn’t happened for two decades: Fresh Off the Boat is a sitcom about Asian-Americans. In early February, entertainment critics and the Asian-American community alike eagerly anticipated the pilot episode, holding their collective breathe to see how this show would depict a minority that remains largely unrepresented by the media. 

From New York Knicks basketball star Jeremy Lin to Priscilla Chan, wife of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the mainstream media usually portray Asian-Americans as wealthy, well-educated and foreign. The dominant cultural narrative routinely ignores working- and middle-class Asian-Americans, people of various nationalities who struggle with the same socioeconomic conditions as do other Americans.