The Influence Of Asian Americans On TV

“Asian American Actors have experienced a series of constraints driven by what Wong (1978) describes as institutionalized racism within the movie industry. Within those constraints is the relationship between profit making priorities (therefore the need to draw mass audiences) and concepts of White American social ideals as epitomized by the big stars of Hollywood. It is not so much individual racism, as Wong (1978) suggests, as it is the institutional barriers which bar Asian actors from major roles, relegating them for the most part to extras…”

This theory aligns perfectly with Dev’s experiences in the episode Indians on TV. This article goes on to talk about the impact that this representation has on Asian Americans, and non-Asian Americans.
The stereotypical roles of Indians in film and television almost exclusively require actors to speak with heavy, Indian accents. Taking that a step further, it is reasonable to assume that these characters grew up or at least spent some time in India or neighboring countries before migrating to the US, and therefore a good percentage of these characters are immigrants. This means that the number of non-immigrant Indian Americans being represented in television is very small. This erases the identities of such Indian Americans as Aziz Ansari, further setting back the cultural perception of Indian Americans and of immigrant assimilation. And with so few Asian American actors being cast to begin with, this is more harmful than