Chef, author, and general rabble-rouser Eddie Huang is the son of Taiwanese immigrants who came to America in the 1980s, and he’s turned his experiences growing up as a first-generation American into a memoir, Fresh Off the Boat (which later became a TV series by the same name).
Last month Huang was the keynote speaker at the annual National Immigration Integration Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, giving a speech he titled “No Coupons.” In the introduction, Huang explains how his restaurant-owning parents felt obligated to serve food at a steep discount at the Orlando steakhouse they opened in the 90s, telling him as a child that “immigrants can't sell anything full price in America.” As Huang explains to the audience, he now owns two Baohaus restaurants in New York and LA where he charges “full fucking price” — and they shouldn’t sell themselves short, either.
Huang also speaks candidly on the rising anti-immigration sentiment in America, proclaiming, “I hope that one day America will acknowledge my identity and accept that I am a yellow-blooded, whole American, entitled to equal rights, because nowhere in our creation story is whiteness tied to the definition of an American.”
• Eddie Huang on Why Immigrants Need to Charge ‘Full Fucking Price’ [Vice]
• Eddie Huang and Stephen Colbert Talk Cultural Identity [E]
• More Video Interludes [E]
