{"id":10176,"date":"2026-01-26T18:24:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T18:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/?p=10176"},"modified":"2026-02-26T20:27:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T20:27:28","slug":"fresh-off-the-boat-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/2026\/01\/26\/fresh-off-the-boat-draft\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresh Off The Boat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Is This Story<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The show <em>Fresh Off The Boat<\/em> is show that aired from 2015 to 2020 depicting the lives to immigrants in America. This show focuses not only on the lives of immigrants, but the children of immigrants. Utilizing humor, strong messages about culture, racism, and conformity are depicted throughout the show. Based in the 1990&#8217;s, Eddie Huang, an eleven year old child of immigrants is followed throughout the show. His life shows the good of his family and culture, but the bad that comes with keeping his immigrant culture in a suburban area that appreciates societal norms. Looking into the show more for this assignment I actually discovered that this show is based on chef Eddie Huang&#8217;s memoir that was also called <em>Fresh Off The Boat<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">My Experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>What I remember most about this show was how many funny moments there was to laugh about. Even with the deep messages that relate back to the Asian culture, racism and societal norms the writers still managed to put some comedic relief in. I feel that comedy brings together people, and adding messages to a funny story helps listeners to retain it more. Rewatching this show I had a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/wonder-cat.org\/user-experience\/ready-to-grow-in-becoming\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/wonder-cat.org\/user-experience\/ready-to-grow-in-becoming\/\">ready to grow<\/a> <\/strong>moment where I realized just how many things that may be normal for some, aren&#8217;t for others. I believe that the comedy of this show is what made this message stick out so much for me. One scene in this show that stuck out to me is when Eddie brings chinese food to school and gets bullied for it. Right as he makes a connection with these boys, they turn on him and start calling him offensive names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Eddies FIRST DAY and LUNCH at the new school #freshofftheboat\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fGbK0Lz2ZBg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The food that Eddie brought was normal for him, but in Suburban Orlando it was not what was considered normal. Later in this episode Eddie refers to this food of lunchables and PB&amp;J as &#8220;white people lunch&#8221; because it is what was considered normal in this new neighborhood he moved into. A neighborhood where the people looked and acted differently than him. It did upset me a bit to see that he would give up homemade food that he enjoyed for what he called &#8220;white people lunch&#8221; just because he wanted to be liked. This moment very early on hit me hard as I can understand how some people feel the need to change to fit into societal norms. I felt <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/wonder-cat.org\/user-experience\/empathy-in-anne-of-green-gables\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/wonder-cat.org\/user-experience\/empathy-in-anne-of-green-gables\/\">empathy<\/a><\/strong> for Eddie in this moment because he felt that he had to bring himself to change so much to the point where he starts to lose who he was, especially his culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Classifying My Experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>From one scene alone I felt as if I had a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/wonder-cat.org\/user-experience\/empathy-in-anne-of-green-gables\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/wonder-cat.org\/user-experience\/empathy-in-anne-of-green-gables\/\">ready to grow<\/a> <\/strong>moment along with some <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/wonder-cat.org\/user-experience\/empathy-in-anne-of-green-gables\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/wonder-cat.org\/user-experience\/empathy-in-anne-of-green-gables\/\">empathy<\/a><\/strong>. The feelings I felt from this one scene is why I believe that this story is so powerful about the lives of the children of immigrants. The glossary of experiences shared with this class defines ready to grow as &#8220;Realizing that there are things you could do to improve as a person&#8221; and I feel that this was fitting for how I felt watching this scene. This scene just showed me how some people think about things that are not familiar to what I think, and I believe I may need to be a little less ignorant about that. Although this case was something small over a lunch food, there is many cases today where this happens with topics much bigger than what someone brought for lunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not only did I feel I had a ready to grow moment, but I felt a sense of empathy for Eddie. In the glossary of experiences shared with our class, empathy is defined as &#8220;The feeling of understanding another person\u2019s actions. You may not condone the actions or identify with the person, but you accept that their actions weren\u2019t wrong&#8221; and again I feel that this fit how I felt watching these scene. Although I may not completely agree with changing yourself for others, I understand why Eddie wanted to change his lunch and move towards societal norms. In this scenario he felt that it would make his life easier if he just acted like everyone else. So that is what he did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Determining the Narrative Technology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>With the way that I felt watching this show, and the emotions it made me feel I would consider this show to have used the technology of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/wonder-cat.org\/technology\/parable\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/wonder-cat.org\/technology\/parable\/\">parable<\/a><\/strong>. In the shared document with the class, parable is described as &#8220;A simple story illustrating a moral or religious lesson&#8221; and I feel that the lessons on the lives of immigrants could also be seen in a similar way. A lot of lessons on discrimination and culture are taught throughout the show. These lessons being about the Asian-American experience and the many myths and stereotypes that can have an effect on someone&#8217;s moral standings. The situation was seen to have the many character types with the everyday man being Eddie, the villain being the boys bullying Eddie, and the symbolic character being the first boy Eddie talks too. So in the end these lessons weren&#8217;t direct moral dilemmas, but they ended in the listener rethinking their morals and having that ready to grow moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not just does parable play a role in the emotions felt in this scene, but consistent themes of stereotypes are used as well. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/us\/dictionary\/english\/stereotype\">Stereotype<\/a> <\/strong>is defined by the cambridge dictionary as &#8220;a set\u00a0idea that\u00a0people have about what someone or something is like,\u00a0especially an\u00a0idea that is wrong&#8221; and this was shown with some of the quips Walter Stone, the first boy Eddie sits with, makes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Extra \ud83d\ude42<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Later in the show there is a scene where Eddie decides that he does not want to go to a traditional school, but instead he wants to go to culinary school. One thing that he mentioned was that he always remembers having a good time cooking, and then old scenes of him cooking are shown. In these scenes which I embedded to this post, Eddie is shown cooking all sorts of meals including chinese dishes. Seeing Eddie find a happy medium between his own identity and societal norms game me a sense of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/us\/dictionary\/english\/contentment\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/us\/dictionary\/english\/contentment\">contentment<\/a><\/strong>. Contentment being defined in Cambridge Dictionary as &#8221;&nbsp;happiness and satisfaction, often because you have everything you need&#8221;. Eddie may have veered away from his culture due to societal norms, but in the end he still kept some of his traditions that he got from his immigrant parents. He realized that he didn&#8217;t need to change himself, he just needed to be himself. I think how this show ended was an example of a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/wonder-cat.org\/technology\/lucky-twist\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/wonder-cat.org\/technology\/lucky-twist\/\">lucky twist<\/a><\/strong>. Eddie was a good character that was just trying to find his way and in the end he did just fine and never forget who he truly was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Eddie Tells Louis He Wants to Go to Culinary School - Fresh Off the Boat\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8Ov8cMUuGWc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>With everything being said have that lunchable, but don&#8217;t forget the food you grew up eating. This isn&#8217;t just about food it&#8217;s about not losing who you truly are for the opinions of other people.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"225\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/files\/2026\/01\/lunchable.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10251\" style=\"width:308px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/files\/2026\/01\/lunchable.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/files\/2026\/01\/lunchable-150x150.jpeg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Is This Story The show Fresh Off The Boat is show that aired from 2015 to 2020 depicting the lives to immigrants in America. This show focuses not only on the lives of immigrants, but the children of immigrants. Utilizing humor, strong messages about culture, racism, and conformity are depicted throughout the show. Based [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":910,"featured_media":10247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-post-1","has-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/910"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10176"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10887,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10176\/revisions\/10887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}