I go to the next gig and it’s Stockton, California, which is this meth shithole in the middle of nowhere. I go there and the same guy who’s doing his whole act in Spanish the night before and doing so well, he’s just destroyed. I go, “Hey, Reuben. What’s wrong? How was your set?” He’s crying a little bit. He says, “They threatened my life.”
I got to go up there and I can’t be this character that I’m not. I’m going to be myself. And that’s a bad idea. Never be yourself, try to be something better. Short story is I ended up hopping a fence while the black security guards laughed at me. That’s how that gig ended.
It was because I did this “paquito” thing. Want to know how you spot a half-Mexican? Overuse the word “paquito.” This guy stands up and screams, “He doesn’t speak Spanish!!!!!!!!” Like Mexican Braveheart. I really tried to keep it together, but he was violently flipping me off and leading people in boos against me. Then I finally said, “Look, you guys, this isn’t exactly a dream gig for me either. I’m stuck in Stockton, of all godforsaken places. The best part about it is I get to leave and you people are stuck here for the rest of your miserable fucking lives. I’m taking the money I’m being paid handsomely and I’m going to go blow it at outlet malls on the outskirts of a very shitty city like yours, so fuck off.”
That’s why I had to hop the fence.
MARGARET CHO—COMEDIAN, WRITER, ACTOR
I always do my mom in my act. It’s just Asianness, and the voice of whatever is ancient in me, that’s sort of questioning all the stuff that I do and what I’m doing. I’m really close to my parents, so something that’s always in my head are things that they say. It’s a celebration of the awkwardness of being an immigrant. I think that’s always going to be part of what I do and who I am.
ALI WONG—COMEDIAN, WRITER
My husband’s dad is Japanese. My dad’s Chinese. His mom’s Filipino. My mom’s Vietnamese. So we gave birth to Asia. All of it.
I speak conversational Vietnamese, but that’s because I went and did this program in college and after college to learn Vietnamese. It’s like the proficiency of maybe a second grader.
Marc
Which is probably kind of cute to some people.
Ali
Not to Vietnamese people. They’re like, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Just speak English.” I thought my mom would be excited. She’s like, “This is so exhausting trying to hear your long-ass, slow, boring sentences about what time is it, basic shit. Let’s talk about real shit in English, please.”
KUMAIL NANJIANI
My wife is from North Carolina. She is very southern. Way southern family. They’ve been around forever.
I told my mom that I was dating this girl. My mom obviously freaked out. There was a lot of crying and stuff. Then to her credit, my mom was very accepting of her when she realized that I really love this woman. It’s against my mom’s religion, and culturally everything is against it, and our family, I’m sure people were talking about it behind her back and to her face. It was really nice that ultimately my happiness is what was most important to her.
Marc
How did your wife’s family react to you?
Kumail
They were great. They called me Borat at first. I found out because we were going to a family reunion, and her uncle was like, “She said we can’t call you Borat.” I was like, “You guys were calling me Borat?” Emily had a serious talk with them and was like, “Don’t say this, don’t say this.” I actually think that was their way of trying to relate to me. Borat, which I think is even the wrong continent, right? Former U.S.S.R. I think they were trying to relate to me, and Borat was the closest they could get. I’ll take Borat over Bin Laden, I guess.
Marc
I think so. I think it’s a little more a term of endearment, but it is ignorant still. I don’t mean to be crass or insult your family, but to call you Borat, it’s cute, but it simplifies things.
Kumail
It does simplify things. I think that for them that was the only way that they could relate to me, by simplifying things. They hadn’t met me yet, they had seen pictures of me.
Marc
Now they know you. Can they pronounce your name?
Kumail
Yeah. I was like, “It’s Kumail like e-mail but with a Ku, like Kumail.” Then they called me E-mail for a little while. It was funny.
When I first had Thanksgiving with them, Emily had prepped them or whatever. I was sitting around with the family, and it was fine. Then I made some crack. We were talking about the airport. I made some hack joke, you know, whenever you’re with the family you make a hack joke, some hack joke about getting stopped at security or something because of being brown. They laughed so hard, like way harder than I expected. They were like, “Finally, he’s admitting it!”
W. KAMAU BELL—COMEDIAN, WRITER, TELEVISION HOST
I’m married, my wife is white, but I realize from being with her that her ethnic identity is Italian Catholic. Even though a very small portion of herself is Italian, but her grandfather is 100 percent Sicilian, she grew up in an Italian family, all the food, all the talking. I realized, oh, her ethnicity is Italian Catholic.
A question I get a lot from her family is, “What’s your experience here?” First of all, the dynamic of somebody dating your daughter is always going to be a screwed-up thing, no matter how alike you are on the surface. Let’s just start with that. I think her family was way more alerted to the fact that I was a comedian, an unsuccessful comedian in their eyes, and my eyes, than that I was black.
Certainly, there’s other aspects of the family, where I would look around and be like, “I’m the only black person here at these big family gatherings,” and I can’t help but think about that. There were times where things would happen and I would be like, “Is this because I’m black or is this because I’m me?” I think that’s a burden that the Other carries a lot, not being able to figure out what’s happening.
At the time, I had really long dreadlocks, and I think that had a lot to do with it. If I had been a black lawyer, I think it would have been different, but I was a black comedian with long dreadlocks who was older than their daughter, and it was like, “What is this dude? This is not the dude we ordered.” Black was maybe on the list somewhere, but it was not the top of the list.
Now, on the other hand, I couldn’t sit down with her family and be like, “Let’s talk about my blackness.” I don’t think they would have had any time for that.
I think the fact that Barack Obama is actually of a white parent and a black parent is why he’s able to be president the way he has. He very much is always reaching out to white people because he had to reach out to his relatives.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA