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It's so easy to make an Asian person the doctor, the lawyer, the smart kid in school. What's harder is challenging the norm and hiring Asian actors to play your Average Joe.

All Asian parents are into your children having a respectable, decent stable job. Acting was unimaginable to my parents.

If Asian America exists, it is because of systemic racism.

I'm so sick of people misunderstanding Asians in America and what we're about.

When I was little, my parents really only wanted me to be a scientist or a doctor; they had never even heard of law school. I think even these days if you were to tell your mother you want to be a fashion designer, or an artist or a writer, a lot of Asian parents would be alarmed because they don't think that's a secure career.

People lament that there's no roles being written for South Asian or Muslim characters. But their parents don't want their children to go into the entertainment field. You don't get it both ways.

Living in the West, you see how there's only two versions of how Asian men are supposed to be. Either they're very nice, yuppie husbands with children in ads, or they're IT geeks.

A lot of my students are Asian-American, and it has been thrilling to watch them break through the stereotypes into something alive and surprising.

More Asians need to be on television as a positive role model.

You gotta understand, there are two different kinds of Asians - the kind who are good at school, obey their parents, go to college - that kind of stuff. And then you have my family - me, my brother, all of my cousins - we're just wretched people.