On Monday, The Simpsons was put on blast by viewers for its apology—or, lack thereof—for its stereotypical depiction of Apu, the Indian Kwik-E-Mart owner. While fans continue to argue about whether Apu’s stereotypical characterization is politically incorrect or inoffensive, one Twitter user detailed what it’s actually like to grow up with a dad like Apu.
The Simpsons originally came under fire when comedian Hari Kondabolu released his documentary The Problem With Apu, in which he details the legacy of Apu and how South Asian actors longed for better representation. On Sunday, the TV show seemingly responded to the controversy by brushing it off as “politically incorrect” and insinuated there were no plans to acknowledge or apologize for its misrepresentation of Indians.
In the days following the original airing of the episode, fans online haven’t let up on sharing and discussing their own perceptions of Apu, launching the topic into one of the most widespread conversations about cultural appropriation and representation of minorities in media. While some folks argue that the point of the show is to make digs at cultural stereotypes in the United States, others say it’s not unreasonable to ask the show to update its rhetoric with the times.
But one man—Amar Shah—wants viewers to understand that this issue goes beyond the vague discussions about the theories of political correctness or stereotypes—this is an issue that affects real life people. Shah published a long thread on Twitter detailing what it was like to grow up with an Indian dad who owned and worked in a gas station.
Everybody has an opinion about Apu, but did they ever talk to someone who owned a convenience store or gas station or work in one or grow up in one? You know, like my dad and I? #simpsons #apu
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
As someone who spent many weekday afternoons after school in the freezing cooler of my dad’s Texaco reading or finishing homework while eating Jamaican beef patties and sipping fountain drinks, I have a few stories to tell of how hard my dad and mom worked to make a better life.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
Shah begins by giving the history of his father, who immigrated to the U.S. when he was 17 and tells how his father worked hard to climb the ladder of success.
This story starts in 1968, when my dad came here at age 17, the youngest of four brothers who would all emigrate from Nadiad a small town in Gujarat, India. Of course, he barely spoke English. But guess what, he pumped gas during the cold nights in Forest Hills, New York.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
while he got his electrical engineering degree at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He did learn English by listening to Marv Albert broadcast Knicks game during those great Red Holzman teams of Frazier, Bradley and Reed.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
Then he got married in 1975 to my mom who was 19. He was 25. My dad worked for different engineering firms, including Merck. But something was chewing at him. He wanted to be his own man.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
So in the early 80’s, while still working he bought his first store called Famous in Scotch Plains, NJ. He learned to make pizza from scratch and operate a cash register. Need I mention I was an infant, toddler during this time.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
Later he bought a pizzeria called “Pizza Land” the same name as the famous Sopranos landmark. I remember listening to Starships’s Built This City playing while I learned to master pinball. My mom was pregnant in her third trimester. with my brother and delivering pizzas.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
They had enough of the cold and the snow and decided Florida with its palm trees and sunshine was a better fit. In 1986, in our green station wagon we moved to Deland, Florida where my dad bought a Phillips 66. We lived a mile away on a rural dirt road.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
And then Shah described—in stunning detail—the day-to-day life of growing up. He shares his experiences of doing his homework in the cooler, getting bullied by his classmates who made the “inevitable Apu joke,” and watching his dad ignore racist remarks because he was “after something bigger.”
I remember spending many hours at the store. A sweet old man named Earl lived on the property in his RV. After school, my mom would pick me up from Catholic school and take me there to this surreal place that smelled of gasoline, cigarette smoke and bubble yum.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
My dad and mom worked both shifts. To this day I think we still have cctv tapes of those endless hours of customers drifting in. Truck drivers, bikers, immigrants.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
And oh the food. The pigs feet, the pickeled eggs in the Mason Jars. The moldy hot dogs that tasted so good with relish and ketchup. My dad secretly eating them even as pure vegetarian Vaishnav Hindu.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
I loved the fountain drink dispensers because I could mix all the flavors into a sugary concoction that would have me buzzing for hours while I covertly would open a pack of 88 Topps from a wax box hoping for a Dwight Gooden card.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
We left Deland or Kneeland as I loved to call it and moved to Orlando where my dad bought a Texaco, actually they called it Brett’s Texaco. Never found out who Brett was. The gas station was located right off the Kaley Avenue off I-4 next to the old Merita Bread factory
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
with its giant red neon sign. You could smell the fresh yeast from the highway.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
I spent many hours in the cooler. I don’t know what it was about it, but I loved sitting on a 12 pack of Busch beer, while wondering what malt liquor or Bartles and James tasted like while I swigged orange slice.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
Oh, I remember incidents. Drunk customers or those that were drugged up asking for cigarettes or more liquor. Occasionally, I’d hear a fucking A-RAB or camel jockey epithet tossed my dad’s way. He turned the cheek. Not because he was scared or indifferent. He was after something
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
Something bigger than some dumb ignoramous with a confederate flag chewing skoal could never understand. And I admit I didn’t love all those hours in the gas station store doing inventory with the label gun or restocking the shelves of Pepsi.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
I had friends whose parents were doctors or lawyers and peers at school would crack the inevitable Apu joke. Part of me embraced it knowing I had access to things they didn’t. I also knew that running a store was hard and blue collar. My mom and dad mopping the floors
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
with that dumbledore beard of a mop. God, that ugly linoleum. Nothing would make a Househunters couple squirm like a gas station floor. There was no task too small they wouldn’t do. You know why? Because my brother and I wouldn’t have to.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
Gas station life introduced me to America. People I wouldn’t see or interact with every day. These were the people who worked for my dad and with him. Mary, the first lesbian woman I ever met, whose partner passed away in a car accident, Don, the wise manager
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
who always offered my dad great advice and succumbed to cancer, or John, the DJ or Herb who became my dad’s best friend, a 6’7 former cop who rode a Harley and looked like Samuel Jackson.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
There was also the fear of working behind the counter, the fear of someone stealing candy or cigarettes and running out the door or worse the fear of being stuck up at gun point for a few dollars in the register.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
The saddest day was when one of my dad’s closest friends and co-owners was shot in the head by a drugged up, disgruntled customer and my dad had to go to the morgue and identify the body.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
After describing his life, he drives home the point of his tweet thread: the issue of Apu is more than just about a stereotype, it’s about the real people who experience this way of life who often get forgotten in the midst of a mainstream debate.
This wasn’t a stereotypical depiction of Chester Turley. This was a hard life. I could have followed in my dad’s footsteps. He set up everything for my brother and I, but honestly, I was too chickenshit to follow through. I wasn’t made of the same mettle that he and my mom are.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
So yeah, I agree with some of your points @harikondabolu, but this is much more than some stereotype. For some of us, we lived this life. It was our story. It’s my story.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
The engineer, the pizza man, the gas station owner. Each is a wonderful story that inspires me everyday. pic.twitter.com/L5MI6DRP41
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 9, 2018
Need I mention I will never be as cool as my parents. pic.twitter.com/F7ytLHuBLT
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 10, 2018
Even though George Bluth said there was always money in the banana stand, for my dad making money wasn’t in the running the convenience store business. It was in building, developing and flipping them. He went from gas attendant, to owner to builder and contractor.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 10, 2018
My dad’s 67 now. He still wakes up at 5 in the morning, still loves WWE, still has that Harrison Ford flintiness which hides charm and kindness I know in no other person. He still goes to work with this same energy he did in his 30s.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 10, 2018
My dad’s 67 now. He still wakes up at 5 in the morning, still loves WWE, still has that Harrison Ford flintiness which hides charm and kindness I know in no other person. He still goes to work with this same energy he did in his 30s.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 10, 2018
And tomorrow he’ll do the same thing.
— Amar Shah 🏀 – order THE HOOP CON (@amarshahism) April 10, 2018
Dozens of people have responded to Shah’s thread—including Kondabalu—and thanked him for sharing his story.
Brother, thank you for sharing. We interviewed Desi small business owners & it was left on the cutting room floor due to time. This still haunts me. There’s nothing wrong with working in a gas station or store. These stories should be told with the honesty & care you just showed. https://t.co/tWRpeNUV6X
— Hari Kondabolu (@harikondabolu) April 9, 2018
https://twitter.com/zuhrsss/status/983607569401839616
No doubt I met your dad – I used to get gas at the Philips in Deland back in the day. Like most folks, I barely noticed him, but your parents both sound like good people, in search of the American dream..
— Alan Bedford also @AlanBedford elsewhere (@AlanBedford2) April 10, 2018
Thank you for this. Please turn it into an essay and sell it to The Atlantic or some other venue like that. These are the stories we need to hear imo
— Kate Elliott writing yet another book, go figure (@KateElliottSFF) April 10, 2018
https://twitter.com/Skullcat/status/983580459316625408
Shah’s story is an important reminder to people to talk to other people from different walks of life. Stereotypes and misrepresentation become perpetuated when viewers stay inside their own bubbles, rather than actually communicating with people from diverse backgrounds. Perhaps The Simpsons could learn a thing or two about the nuances of character development by sitting down with people like Shah.
