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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 only Indian immigrant that comes to mind, and this highlights how the Indian-

American culture is often disregarded 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.

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 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 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 indicates how immigrants struggle to adapt to American culture in

communities that lack diversity. 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. 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 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.

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Growing up in the almost entirely caucasian 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 fulfill the expectations of immigrant parents weighed

heavy on second-generation immigrant’s shoulders throughout his adolescence, and in the

special, 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
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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

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.
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Works Cited

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

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