Thankfully he appeared later to present an award and had the chance to actually thank his parents, which was appropriate given the Emmy-winning episode from Master of None was the “Parents” episode featuring his parents Shoukath and Fatima Ansari playing his character’s parents.
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He pointed out that there are 17 million Asian Americans in the USA, as well as 17 million Italian Americans.
Yang used his acceptance speech to say Asian representation still had “a long way to go” in the US. “We got Long Duk Dong”, he joked, “so we’ve got a long way to go!” I believe in us.
“Master of None” co-creator Alan Yang took to the Emmy’s stage Sunday night to accept the Netflix series’ first Emmy Award, while also providing some lighthearted encouragement on how to increase diversity on screen.
Then he pointed out how many more projects are about the latter than the former, making a plea for Asian American parents to buy their kids cameras instead of violins.
“There’s an authenticity to the performances by Aziz’s parents and the actor who played my father that no network has been courageous enough to put on screen”, Yu said.
“This would be so much easier if we were at the Oscars”, he said. “I just wanted to thank my parents, who are here”.
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Ansari has publicly spoken out against Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric in the past, including his personal interactions with prejudice in a New York Times piece. Ansari captioned the touching photo of his parents. Fatima and Shoukath played Dev’s (Ansari) parents Nisha and Ramesh, respectively. In his interview with Mallika Rao for Vulture, the elder Ansari reveals that he wasn’t immediately cast and beat 18 other people to play himself.
