Hasan Minhaj, an American comic of Indian extraction, hosted the White House

Correspondents’ Dinner this year, an event that was famously boycotted by President
Donald Trump. Minhaj, who has worked as a correspondent on Jon Stewart’s show,
is a vocal critic of Trump’s policies, especially of the ban on Muslims from some West
5Asian countries from entering the US.

In his new Netflix standup special Homecoming King, Minhaj gives us an endearing

peek into his life, which is classic immigrant territory. In the 1980s, his parents moved
to the US from Aligarh and settled in Davis, California. (The special was recorded in
the city on Minhaj’s request.) Through carefully constructed vignettes, Minhaj takes
10us through his childhood and adolescence, offering us a ringside view of his
developing politics.
Minhaj explores race in his trademark style – a mix of cool and wide-eyed surprise.
As a young comic, he is au courant with the latest pop culture references, and the
sketch is peppered with mentions of icons as diverse as Drake and Mr Miyagi. His
15material too is broad-based, from lighthearted comedy about immigrant parents
buying even milk as though it were the realisation of the American dream to darker
episodes such as the time his family was threatened after 9/11.
But it is from successes and failures in love that Minhaj’s most affecting stories
emerge. He recounts his high school crush on a white girl, which was reciprocated
20for a while until race came into the picture and the romance was nipped. He speaks
about his marriage to a Hindu woman and the troubles he faced convincing his father
of the alliance.
Minhaj presents his story as a mix of the comic and the tragic – news of his
headlining a comedy club, for example, was accompanied by his father’s heart attack
25– making for an engaging patchwork that is like life itself. Politically, though, he is on
less steady ground. His comedy, while deeply political, does not encompass the
varying shades of the argument he is making. He harangues, rightly, against Muslim
immigrants having to justify themselves after every terrorist attack. But his criticism of
Trump fails to offer a better, more reasonable way to tackle this nebulous threat.
30Likewise, his episodes on race throw around the word “bigotry” ceaselessly. Indeed,
his personal experience in high school is classic racism, but by suggesting that
vintage bigotry is the sole reason for the populist backlash now roiling the West, he,
like many other intellectuals, oversimplifies the issue. Nobody in his right mind will
dispute that two people of different skin colours deserve to be together. But a fear of
35the immigrant has broader economic and cultural roots, which cannot be wished
away with a platter of Forsterian “only connect” didacticism.
Politics apart, Homecoming King is a wonderfully realised portrait of the immigrant
experience. Desis abroad will find in its material much they can relate to. We live in
fraught times, and comedy is one way we can bridge our differences. The hope is
40Minhaj will incorporate into his material broader shades of opinion while retaining his
childlike glee and enthusiasm about coming into his own as an American.
Vikram Johri, “‘Homecoming King’ review: Hasan Minhaj’s journey from Aligarh to America is
hilariously familiar”, Scroll.in, May 25, 2017

I – COMPREHENSION (10 points)

A. Read the text, what is it about and who is presented in it?

B. What is the person’s recurring tropes in his sketches? (Write full sentences)
C. Explain what you understood from line 12 to line 22.

II. Expression (10 points)

You’ve got a blog on which you’re going to tell your followers who the person at the core of
the text is and what he does.Give your opinion on what the artist talks about in his sketches,
how he does it. You need to explain if you think it’s good or not. (150-200 words)