PASADENA, CALIF.—Fresh Off The Boat or Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Which show is the most progressively Asian?

In the debate over diversity in Hollywood, it’s improbable that a superhero series would be held up as a bastion of the multi-racial universe. But Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. demonstrates that real change comes from the top: an Asian woman is the co-creator and executive producer while two of its leads are Asian women. It is the most Asian show on television that you’ve never heard of.

This is as close to a post-racial universe as you will get on television. And while many shows such have made great strides in getting visible minorities in front of the cameras, it’s also a lesson that true change starts in the executive suite.

“Being a woman of colour working in this business — diversity has always been something that’s very important to me and seeing proper representation in my work,” says Maurissa Tancharoen, the co-creator and show-runner of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in an interview with the Star. The series, now in its fourth season, can be seen on Tuesdays on CTV.

Tancharoen stands on the cavernous studio set that houses the S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division) mobile command headquarters, a loading bay revealing an armoured car and enough tactical gear to save the earth twice over. With the backing of ABC-owned Disney, the show is undeniably big-budget broadcast television — and you can tell by the sets.

“For us, a way of empowering diversity is not highlighting it at all. You don’t have to say this person is an Asian, or Latino or Black. They are who they are. We haven’t had any moments where we point out specifically about race or background. People are just people,” says Tancharoen.

Tancharoen, 41, is of Thai descent. When she set out to create the show along with husband Jed Whedon (brother of Avengers director Joss Whedon) she was insistent that at least one of the leads should be Asian.

“It was a goal that I put out there and it wasn’t a secret,” says Tancharoen.

That led her to Ming-Na Wen, who was one of the first Asian superheroes as Chun-Li in the 1994 movie Streetfighter, and who before that played a leading role in The Joy Luck Club. At 53, Wen is still playing an action star as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most feared enforcer, Melinda May.

“I had been following Ming-Na’s work for years, so I had a bit of a fan girl moment when she finally came into the room and we met,” says Tancharoen.

But she didn’t stop there. Tancharoen hired bi-racial actress Chloe Bennet (whose real surname is Wang) as Skye, a secret agent with the power to create earthquakes.

Related: Chloe Bennet says changing her name changed her luck

“I feel like there should be some recognition because we have more women, not just Asian but Asian females, and I don’t think that there’s many other shows like that out there,” says Wang in an interview. “This is especially when the creator and show-runner and the two female leads are all Asian women and I’m so proud about it. In the show you don’t really think about race because it’s completely invisible in many ways. Which, in some ways, that’s the way it should be.”

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Marvel doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to depicting Asians. Casting a white woman (Tilda Swinton) as the Ancient One in Doctor Strange was widely condemned as whitewashing. Madame Gao, the gnarly Chinese mob boss in Netflix’s Daredevil, speaks in Confucian parables and embodies all the traits of the hysterical Yellow Peril propaganda of the Second World War.

Tancharoen has had a varied career, from actress to musician to writer and now executive. But she says her early years of facing sexism and racism in Hollywood helped to shape her outlook when it came to being a manager.

“As a young Asian woman trying to make my way in this business, I’ve had my fair (share of) run-ins with misogynists, with racists,” says Tancharoen.

“But I’ve always tried to keep my chin up. I never tried to forget my unique voice and reminded myself that one day we could all be heard.”