he plays 11-year-old eddie huang in "fresh off the boat". >> that's me, your boy eddie huang, check ithave imagined that it would be my offspring, the next generation, who would be at the very center of a moment that i've kind of looked forward to f-- for all of my adult life. >> reporter: in case you missed it, the debut of "fresh off the boat" on abc marked the first time in 20 years you could turn on your tv and watch a network show centered around an asian american family. >> if you try to suspend our son because of this we will sue everyone in this school. >> so fast it will make your head spin. hey, it's the american way right? >> reporter: the show is based on the memoir of eddie huang a celebrity chef, restaurateur, and host of the web series "huang's world" on vice.com. the sitcom focuses on eddie's rough childhood and his parent's struggles as immigrants trying to achieve the american dream by starting a western themed restaurant. even seeing one asian american on tv used to be a rare occurrence, until the arrival of actors like george takei in star trek and bruce lee in the

it is based on the memoir of eddie huang.producer and narrater on the show, has mixed feelings. a lot of his memoir's complexity was tossed aside to appeal to a whiter audience. cultural culturally, we're in an ice age. we don't have fire. we don't have a wheel. if this can be the first wheel maybe there can be three more. >> eddie, it is great to see you. >> thanks for having me. it is always fun. >> i want to talk about this idea of asians being in a culture ice age. why do you think that is? >> i feel we have been robbed of representation in america. we don't have it. we are basically invisible people going all the way back to bruce lee. you had to wear a mask. all the people going yellow faced in hollywood we have just been erased from pop culture. >> do you think there's unity in asian-american communities around certain issues? i'm asian-american. i feel like there is not enough of a dialogue intraasian, dialogue about issues that matter. >> the issue is no one would say we're european americans. french english, irish,

i play the writer of the memoir, his name's eddie huang, celebrity chef, personality, great writer.ldhood in the '90s. with his family making the move from washington, d.c. to the predominantly white suburbs of orlando. it's about kind of the family's adjustment to this new world. >> jimmy: yeah, yeah. it's -- it's like the small world ride in a way, i guess. and did you meet the guy? have you studied him? >> yeah, yeah. before we went into production for the series we actually flew out to orlando and we met the family. >> jimmy: they're still in orlando? >> they're still in orlando. i got to meet the dad lewis. and -- great guy. in the show my character has a restaurant called cattleman's ranch and he's trying to get it off the ground. that's the reason they moved to orlando in the first place. the actual lewis huang in orlando took us to the actual cattleman's ranch which was really cool. it's a hooters now, though. >> jimmy: it is? [ laughter ] that is very orlando. how does lewis feel about the fact that you played kim jong-un and him? [ laughter ] >> i don't know, he didn't rea