Students and Faculty to Attend “Fresh Off the Boat” Forum

In order to address racial inequality both on and off campus, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Bicultural Asians and Pacific Islanders (BAPI) will host a forum Friday, Apr. 10. from 7-8 p.m.

The forum, which will use the television show “Fresh Off the Boat” as a platform, will begin with a viewing of the first episode. It will then open the floor to discussion, guided by a panel consisting of five faculty members and four students.

“Our hope is that the forum will ultimately underline the importance for us, regardless of background, to recognize and stand in solidarity against issues of systemic racism.”

“Fresh Off the Boat” is a sitcom that premiered this year on Feb 4. It is based on chef Eddie Huang’s 2013 memoir and focuses on Huang’s experience as he assimilates to American culture. It is also the first sitcom to feature an Asian-American family since Margaret Cho’s “All-American Girl” in 1994.

Upper and panel member Cesar Zamudio, a first-generation immigrant and student, described the goals of the forum. “We want the forum to be diverse—different voices and different backgrounds—to offer a new perspective into the discussion of race that happens here at Exeter and in America,” he said.

Together, ASEAN and BAPI were able to avoid major setbacks during the planning process, which started during the spring term. However, upper Melody Nguyen expressed concern for a possible lack of attendance due to the forum’s date; the two groups were unable to find an ideal “slot” because of the number of upcoming Saturday classes and events like Relay for Life.

The idea for a general forum first blossomed after an ASEAN club dinner. Upper and co-head Teffanie Goh recalled that a member at the meeting had felt uncomfortable sharing her opinion during discussion surrounding the Ferguson case. “When asked why, she responded that a classmate had told her Ferguson was irrelevant to her because of her race,” Goh said.

“This was shocking—after all, even though the experience of Asians/Asian-Americans differs greatly from that of blacks, Asians have been and continue to be subjected to discrimination. Thus, ASEAN decided it was imperative for the pre-existing conversations regarding racial prejudice to be extended to include all races.”

When “Fresh Off the Boat” premiered in February, ASEAN invited all of its club members to watch. There, co-head Nguyen formulated a more specific plan for the forum regarding racial inequality; she decided to use the sitcom as a platform after she noticed many of the club members discussing the show.

ASEAN, however, is a southeast Asian culture group. It invited BAPI, led by upper co-heads Hannah Kim and Julie Chung, to help plan the content of the forum. “We don’t have any concrete understanding of Asian American history,” Nguyen said. Together, the two clubs represent a large majority of the Asian community at the Academy.

As the two groups planned the event, they assured that the panel would be racially diverse. Kim said that the forum was not for “Asians to share their frustrations,” but rather to “talk about the experience of Asian Americans and how it is impacted by different perspectives.”

Goh elaborated on Kim’s point. “While the ‘model minority’ myth exalts Asians and Asian-Americans as intelligent and successful people, this depiction may avert us from recognizing the history of marginalization of Asians,” she said.

BAPI club adviser and history instructor Hijoo Son looks forward to the forum and hopes it will help nurture discussion “within the prism and the scale of multiple identities in a multicultural society” and give Asian Americans a clearer voice in today’s society.

“Oftentimes Asian Americans are silenced in a larger popular culture precisely because race and the discussions around race center on the history of black and white, whereas yellow or brown southeast Indian people are muted and are often mythologized as your model minority,” Son said.

Zamudio added onto the same train of thought. “When most people talk about Ferguson or systematic racism, they assume that it only pertains to [African-American and Latinos], but Asian-Americans are under this umbrella of ‘people of color,’” Zamudio said. “We want people of all races to come together in solidarity and target the issues of systematic racism as it pertains to all people of color.”

Through the forum, Ngyuen, the main organizer for the event, personally hopes to revive racial discussion on campus. “A lot of times, there are things like micro-aggressions, but then they fade,” she said. “And then there was the whole ‘Black Lives Matter’ and that continues to be an issue, but we don’t continue to talk about it.”

To tie all the planners’ opinions together, Goh offered a concluding statement. “Our hope is that the forum will ultimately underline the importance for us, regardless of background, to recognize and stand in solidarity against issues of systemic racism,” Goh said.

“‘Fresh Off the Boat’ challenges Asian stereotypes and introduces the complexities of life as an immigrant family in America,” Goh said. “It truly is unprecedented, and for that reason I look forward to seeing how Exonians will respond.”