‘The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh’ turns the model minority myth on its head

“The beauty of this country is that I'm allowed to make my own mistakes,” declares Bhanu Pradeep (Sahana Srinivasan). She’s the rebellious teen daughter in the pilot episode of Amazon Prime's new comedy series, The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh, which was released on Oct. 17. Her mother Sudha (Sindhu Vee) is unimpressed by this rhetoric. At the end of the day, Sudha will have to clean up Bhanu's mess. Even in the United States, that's what Indian parents do.

The series opens with the Pradeep family being interrogated by two immigration officers. Alongside Bhanu and Sudha, there's dad Mahesh (Naveen Andrews) and sons Kamal (Arjun Sriram), the oldest and most neurotic of the siblings, and the youngest Vinod (Ashwin Sakthivel), an endearing wise guy who's just starting junior high. It soon becomes clear that the Pradeeps are suspected of setting fire to their white neighbor's house. If immigration finds them guilty, they'll be deported.

Like most economic migrants, the Pradeeps came to the United States with high hopes. Two years earlier, Mahesh won a SpaceX contract to build rockets—a job that's not explained in great detail, but serves as an impetus for the family to leave their comfortable home in Ahmedabad, India. Sudha, an accomplished surgeon with a sociopathic streak, had hoped to become accredited in the States, but is dashed when her credentials are denied. While Kamal's fragile nerves are frayed by the move, Bhanu embraces the opportunity to be a carefree American teenager, immediately taking up with the neighbor boy Stu Mills (Nicholas Hamilton).

Sahana Srinivasan and Nicholas Hamilton as Bhanu Pradeep and Stu Mills in "The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh."

Ian Watson

It's this relationship that sparks Sudha's outrage. When the family’s doorstep is vandalized with five dead rabbits—one for each of them, as she points out—Sudha is convinced that Stu is the culprit. Thus begins the feud between the Pradeeps and the Mills that eventually leads to the former facing the threat of deportation.

This past year, Homeland Security deported more than 1,100 Indians. It’s a drop in the bucket, as Indians constitute the third-largest population of unauthorized immigrants in the United States, and the largest Asian-origin population—about 725,000 people who are outside the bounds of immigration law. While the Pradeep family doesn't fall into this category, as they are shown entering the country through legal channels, the fate that hangs over them mirrors the anxieties of a growing number of undocumented Indian migrants.

The Pradeeps uphold a lot of the stereotypes that typify the Indian immigrant experience. Both Sudha and Mahesh are highly educated with coveted professional skills; Sudha decries the withholding of her medical license by pointing to the number of unhealthy Americans around her as proof that doctors are sorely needed. Indians hold nearly 75 percent of H-1B visas in this country, which are awarded for specialty occupations such as engineering, tech, and medicine. The Pradeep children are also expected to live up to the high-achieving stereotype as a matter of course, even by their own classmates. When Vinod is fascinated by the prospect of being a sanitation worker and riding in a garbage truck, his family reacts with horror.

The Pradeeps arrive in the United States embodying the role of the model minority. A narrative that developed during the Civil Rights Movement, the model minority myth refers primarily to Asians, who are still perceived as being more hardworking, educated, and financially secure, compared to other minority groups. Indeed, Indian Americans are by far the highest-earning demographic in the country, according to median household income, and Asian Americans as a whole are well above average.

Yet deeming certain immigrants as the model minority isn't really about acknowledging Asian success stories. At its core, it's a racist and anti-Black concept that pits Asians against other people of color, while also ignoring the many Asian communities and families that aren't well-off or highly educated. Being the model minority is no guarantee against racism either, as the Pradeeps are quick to discover.