The essay was brilliant; it also was nearly 4,000 words long (or, as Huang calculated it, 15 pages). Many readers took the time to follow it all the way down Huang’s intended rabbit hole, to the last few pages when he comes to terms with the fact that the show, even in this family-friendly version, is not only a staggering achievement—hell, just getting an entire family of Asian Americans on network primetime is an achievement that hasn’t happened in 20 freaking years—but actually historic.

Because while the show may not be very faithful to Huang’s individual life, it is nevertheless an authentic Asian American expression of a more universal experience, and one that’s rawer and realer than anyone has ever seen that story presented. The last three minutes of the pilot, three minutes in which Huang’s onscreen family hilariously deals with the repercussions of Little Eddie being hit with the worst of anti-Chinese slurs, were what convinced him, he says: “After 18 months of back and forth, I had crossed a threshold and become the audience. I wasn’t the auteur, the writer, the actor or the source material. I was the viewer and I finally understood it.”

Or, as Huang later tweeted, “this is for the kids.” All the Asian American kids who never saw themselves onscreen, never had their trials and tribulations validated, never had a place to stand in America’s complicated, turbulent debate about race, culture, and ethnicity. But it’s their parents—and all the non-Asian kids and their parents—who will be getting a hilarious 13-episode booster shot that vaccinates against social dismissal of and casual prejudice toward Asian immigrants far too common in America. Not open heart surgery, like it might have been if it were a drama. Not a sneakered-foot enema, like the original book. But something new, something needed.

The painful degree to which it’s required was on full display at Fresh Off the Boat’s Television Critics Association panel last week, featuring the cast—parents Randall Park and Constance Wu, and Hudson and his screen brothers Forrest Wheeler and Ian Chen—and the producers, Nahnatchka Khan, Jake Kasdan, Melvin Mar and Eddie Huang himself.

Almost before the panel was seated, hands had sprung up. And the first question put to them was a doozy: “I love the Asian culture. And I was just talking about the chopsticks, and I just love all that. Will I get to see that, or will it be more Americanized?”

It was hard to tell who was more shocked and confused—TCA members, muttering with embarrassment at their unknown colleague, or Fresh Off the Boat’s cast and producers, who had prepared themselves to talk about the show and its various controversies … not eating utensils.

Wu was the first to react. “Yeah, we got some chopsticks,” she responded—followed quickly by Huang—“We got a lot of chopsticks”—and Khan—“Wait till Episode 5. It’s all about chopsticks.”