‘Fresh Off The Boat’ sitcom draws backlash after tweet

If anything, the ad reinforced tired imagery: One Asian figure wore a pointy bamboo hat; another Latino figure wore a sombrero with a curly mustache.

Story creator Eddie Huang, whose memoirs the sitcom is based on, was furious.

“This is plain offensive and ridiculous,” he tweeted. “Someone please reverse this… at least they didn’t do the Native American with chicken pox blankie lol”

“Point isn’t whether we in fact wear kufis and rice hats but it’s reductive,” he added.

Perhaps, some argue, these thorny issues only get harder to untangle when they’re thrust into the mainstream.

As Oh explains, “I sort of feel like ‘fob’ is a family issue, you know — like internal to Asian Americans? We need to reclaim it or something first before we put it out there in front of other people.”

But the show is stepping into the spotlight next week. And even its strongest supporters are nervous.

“We’re all hoping that this works,” says Yang. “Because 20 years of wandering in the wilderness is damn well enough.”

CNN