When I first heard that ABC had picked up a show called Fresh Off the Boat, I was nervous...and I wasn't alone. Would this be a white person's interpretation of the Asian-American experience? Would its characters all be depicted as stereotypical immigrants with thick accents, speaking broken English? Would it share the same fate as its predecessor, All-American Girl, which was canceled after just one season? The Margaret Cho series began and ended when I was 4 years old, so I had never seen a family resembling my own on television, nor could I imagine that reality. That's why it was such a relief and delight to see how much the people behind this show and in front of it got it — especially Constance Wu, who plays Jessica, the Huang family matriarch.

At first glance, Jessica seemed like a tiger mom, snappy and unsmiling. But as the series progressed, viewers were able to see her for her brilliance and badassery: She jumps to Eddie's (Hudson Yang) defense after he gets in a fight with a boy who calls him a chink; she eventually aces her realtor's exam after a bit of setback; and, in Season 2, she starts flipping houses to make money. Jessica's proven herself to be much more than just a tiger mom — she's a hustler, which is a pretty accurate representation of many Asian immigrant mothers, if you ask me.