With Coronavirus anti-Asian racism incidents on the rise, such is this virus-inspired robbery in New York City, a website has been launched to document such incidents. The Stop API Hate website will be used to record incidents for pushing for stronger protections, develop education material, and provide resources for victims.
“We are currently providing support to a child who had to go to the emergency room after he was assaulted and accused by bullies of having the coronavirus, and so that tells us we may need to work with schools to address shunning and school bullying but we need to know how widespread it is,” said Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council (A3PICON), which along with Chinese for Affirmative Action, and the Asian American studies department of San Francisco state, set up the web site.
The reporting page can be found here, and contains links to forms for reporting incidents in English and a number of different Asian languages.
Movement is sharply curtailed by the Khmer Rouge. Children are encouraged to spy and report on “wrongdoing.” Every word could be turned against its speaker. People are sent to their death for being “class traitors.” Small details are devastating. At times it can be difficult to keep reading, the fear and dread so palpable it jumps off the page and you can feel your heart clench in anguish over what might happen next.
In episode 15, Eddie finally confesses to his mother that he scored 1500 on his SAT. The Huangs are visited by a Harvard alum for an interview (Andy Richter, who’s not a Harvard grad, filling in for Conan O’Brien, who is). Evan, writing his memoirs in anticipation of his running for HOA vice-president, steals stories from Emery and from Honey and Marvin.
Dope: There is something very sweet about seeing our main characters in the combinations they work best: the three sons and the two parents. The entire penultimate episode is full of nostalgia, as the boys openly discuss Eddie’s numbered days with the family, and Jessica and Louis relive memories of the van they purchased on their wedding night. The final episode is a little more of the same, with Jessica remembering how hard she worked to turn Eddie into the successful young man he’s become.
Wack: I hate to say this, but of the principal actors, only Randall Park seems to be fully engaged. Acting by the three young men is flat and listless, and the storytelling is lazy. In these final moments with the Huangs, do we really need a revisit by White and Richter? Richter’s character serves only to drive Jessica to the realization that her being a helicopter parent may have had its benefits, but it simply cannot continue.
I don’t get why the writers introduced a silly guest character to do the job when it could have been so much more special for Jessica to understand it on her own, in the context of her own family. It’s also unnecessary for the old white-man institution to tell the Huangs that their brand of parenting is a bad fit for Harvard. For Fresh Off the Boat‘s parting middle finger, I wanted to see the Huangs reject the white patriarchy. Or something!
For these last episodes, it would have been special to see the Huangs involved in something together, and while the writers try, framing episode 14 in a family visit to Disney World and episode 15 in a future commencement ceremony, both episodes are really separate plots held together weakly by these framing conceits.
Final grade, this episode: I am not one of those people who hates a final episode of a beloved TV show because it’s not what I expected or wanted. I liked the finales of Cheers, Seinfeld, and Friends. There’s a lot here I just don’t like, but it isn’t enough to outweigh the stuff I have always liked about this show. I’ll always remember Eddie, Jessica, Louis, Emery, Evan, Grandma, and Honey with overwhelming fondness for everything — good, bad, and really bad — they brought to a television landscape that needed them decades before they ever got the chance. Whether or not they’ve altered the landscape in a lasting way isn’t clear, but they were so important for this country and for my heart while they were here. A.
It feels like I’m losing a loved one, although because I haven’t watched the show since 
So here we are, about to lose a series whose importance really cannot be overstated. Perhaps the novelty of an Asian American family at the center of a network sitcom wasn’t as fascinating midway through the fifth season as midway through the first, and maybe that’s a good sign.
I’m sad. There’s 
