Tonight, Chris surprised me by taking me to Forest Hills Stadium to see Russell Peters for his Deported World Tour comedy show. The greatest thing about going to see Russell Peters, or really, any comedian or any act of color, is that it’s guaranteed that the audience will be very diverse, as well. What has always frustrated me seeing theater in New York, whether it’s mainstream Broadway, off-broadway, or even smaller theaters like 59E59 Theater, is that the audience is almost always the same: a bunch of much older white people, with a small sprinkling of younger white people. Chris and I are usually the ones creating the element of “diversity” in the audience at those shows. And with an act who is of Indian descent like Russell Peters, it ends up being like multiple family reunions in the crowd, as families will use this as an excuse to get together. We saw so many big Indian or South Asian families meeting up in the food areas to hug and catch up. It was so adorable.

When I was a teen, I never imagined living to see the day when I could see Asian people like Russell Peters, Aziz Ansari, and Hasan Minhaj accepted as entertainers, and movies like Crazy Rich Asians reaching mainstream theater (though, Asian Americans in movies… this movie is JUST the beginning, really). Maybe I am actually gaining some faith in the world.