Chappelle 1

Dave Chappelle

Professor P

ENGL 101

26 September 2018

The New Brown America

When most people think of famous Indian immigrants in American culture, Apu, owner

of the Kwik-E-Mart in the cartoon The Simpsons is the first image many Americans think of. For

some, Apu is the sole Indian immigrant in pop culture that comes to mind is the only Indian

immigrant that comes to mind, and this highlights how the Indian-American culture is often

disregarded only a minor footnote in American society. South Asian entertainers in the United

States have finally begun to receive the recognition they deserve, as significant Indian celebrities

such as Mindy Kaling and Aziz Ansari have recently become more and more relevant in

American pop culture. While there are increasingly more brown faces in American media, there

has never been a genuine voice of the Indian immigrant community. Hasan Minhaj is making an

attempt to provide this Indian perspective that is often overlooked by Americans become the

voice of Indian immigrants around the globe. Minhaj is a unique comedian with experience in

Broadway, The Daily Show, and in 2017, he released his debut a revolutionary Netflix special

based on his life and upbringing as a second-generation Indian in America. In Hasan Minhaj’s

Homecoming King, the duality of Minhaj adapting to American culture while still embracing his

Indian culture creates a lifelong search for his sense of identity and belonging. Through his

precise use of tone, body language, and cinematography, Minhaj is able to relive his real life

experiences on stage to reveal the trials and tribulations that second-generation Indian Americans

face in their personal search for the American Dream.

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Hasan Minhaj is an American-born Indian with two immigrant parents, and growing up

in America versus India provides two very different forms of upbringing and perspectives on the

world. Throughout Minhaj’s childhood, his immersion in the predominantly white culture of his

hometown Davis, California led to him growing accustomed to his American surroundings and

lifestyle. As he describes his hometown and his American peers, Minhaj illustrates the lack of

diversity in his home town by describing his classmates impersonates his classmates and

characterizes them as a bunch of privileged and close minded “Ryan Lochte’s”, people “who

don’t understand other cultures” (00:14:20-00:14:58). With his exaggerated body language

accompanied with an and his hilarious “California Surfer” accent, Minhaj is able to emphasize

how isolated he felt from his peers. This isolation created constant frustration Hasan felt due to

his peers intolerance, and this reveals indicates how immigrants struggle to adapt to American

culture in communities that lack diversity.Hasan’s lack of belonging was detrimental to him and

his relationship with his family. Throughout his early childhood, Minhaj was not fully

comfortable with his brown skin in relation to his white peers, and this led to insecurity at a very

young age. He reflects on his earliest experience with racism in the first grade on the playground,

as Minhaj approached a girl he was attracted to only for her to call him “the color of poop”

(00:30:25 - 00:31:02). Receiving this harsh discrimination at such a young age indicates how

immigrants of color lack a sense of belonging in a predominantly white society, and Minhaj’s

choice to illustrate this in such a childlike manner emphasizes how racist ideals often begin at

childhood. With his exaggerated body language and flamboyant tone, Minhaj is able to create

humor from this discrimination and portray how he was perceived as an outcast because he was

different. Experiencing this harsh discrimination at such an early age created a lifelong insecurity

about Minhaj’s brown skin tone. In an assignment in the third grade, he claims that he “wants to
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be white”, and this reveals how he was not comfortable with his Indian identity (. Due to many

second-generation Indian immigrants lacking immersion in Indian culture throughout their

childhood in America, there is often a lack of pride in their Indian ethnicity and Minhaj

expresses this confusion through his own personal anecdotes. The lack of diversity along with

his close minded peers led to Minhaj seeking for approval, and he believed that being white

would be the only way to get this sense of approval.

Growing up in the almost entirely cCaucasian town of Davis, California in the 1990s,

both Minhaj and his father felt alienated due to their skin color, and this inadvertently created a

unique relationship between the two. Minhaj struggled to fully understand who his father was at

a young age, similar to many children of immigrant fathers, as there was a lack of genuine

communication between father and son in his childhood. When Hasan discusses first coming into

the United States with his father, there was a sole focus for him to study hard and get into a good

school. He jokes that when he asks his father personal questions about him, his father will only

say, “Get into Stanford! Why do you wanna know more about me? Get into Stanford!”

(00:03:20-00:03:38). Many Indian immigrate to America in order to provide a better future for

their children, and Minhaj reveals how these high expectations create stress for these second-

generation Indian immigrants. His father’s sole focus on Minhaj’s academics along with the

stress his father carried being a first-generation immigrant prevented any sort of deep emotional

connections between father and son. Through Minhaj’s assertive tone and aggressive body

language in the impersonation of his father, he conveys the emotional barrier between his young

self and his father and this emphasizes how growing up with a distant father led to a difficult

childhood for Minhaj. This pressure to perform and fulfill thehis father’s expectations of

immigrant parents weighed heavy on second-generation immigrant’s shoulders throughout his

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adolescence, and in the special, he Minhaj uses a clip from a spelling bee to humorously

exaggerate the overzealous expectations on Indian children set by parents (00:07:51-00:08:33).

In the clip, a 12-year-old Indian boy and his family remain completely emotionless after he wins

$30,000 in a national spelling bee, and Minhaj utilizes the clip to generate some of the loudest

laughter in the entire special. His use of a bewildered and shocked tone along with the strategic

use of visually showing the emotionless boy comically conveys how it would be considered a

disappointment for the boy to do anything besides win the national spelling bee, and Minhaj

choses to show this video in order to convey the high standards and expectations faced by

second-generation Indian immigrants in order to satisfy demanding parents he received from his

father. This focus on academic success prevented Hasan to become emotionally connected with

his father, and after he begins his career in comedy, only a life-threatening heart surgery leads

Minhaj to realize that he never achieved the personal father-son connection that he always

desired. As he recounts the haunting memory of his father, Minhaj regretfully claims that, “If this

is the last time I see my dad, I’m saying goodbye to someone I barely even knew” (00:52:20-

00:52:30). This reveals how as an immigrant family, Minhaj and his father were so focused on

finding success and prosperity in America that they never were able to become emotionally

close. Minhaj frequently refers to the disadvantages that immigrants face compared to caucasian

Americans, and the constant struggle immigrant's face to establish themselves places a strain on

relationships both mentally and emotionally. Through the immediate darkness cast upon stage

along with the fearful and sorrow tone of Minhaj, there is a somber mood in this section of the

special as Hasan not truly learning who his father is serves as one of his greatest regrets.

Minhaj’s adaptation to American culture while staying connected to his Indian roots

develops a unique search for a cultural balance. He uses tone, body language, and
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cinematography to convey the trials and tribulations of an immigrant to a mostly white audience.

In Homecoming King, Hasan Minhaj establishes his unique and talented abilities as a stand-up

comedian and provides an insight on the strenuous lifestyle as a second-generation Indian

American.

Works Cited

Homecoming King. Directed by Greg Waloch, performances by Hasan Minhaj, directed by Lisa

Nishimura, 2017. Netflix, http://www.netflix.com/watch/798356483?