As a child, Nahnatchka Khan often felt like an outsider.
A first-generation American — her parents had emigrated from Iran — Khan wanted to fit in but felt misunderstood.
So it's not surprising that she created ABC's Fresh Off the Boat, a comedy loosely based on the memoir of chef Eddie Huang; the son of Taiwanese immigrants, the renowned restaurateur was shaped by his experiences as a boy in 1990s Orlando, Florida, where his dad managed steak and seafood restaurants.
"I completely related. The experiences were so visceral," says Khan, who serves as the show's executive producer and showrunner. "Every kid who is first-generation is the bridge between where you come from and where you're going."
Born in Las Vegas, Khan moved with her family when she was nine to a quiet community east of Honolulu. She wrote plays in high school but got the first real reaction to her work when she wrote a funny editorial about the prom for the school paper.
She graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts but says her real education came during her first job, at Disney Television Animation.
"Working at Disney was like graduate school," she says. "It taught me the whole process of creating characters of longevity, plus casting, postproduction, sound and mixing."
After stints as a writer on Fox's Malcolm in the Middle, NBC's Good Morning, Miami, and Nickelodeon's Unfabulous — and being nominated for two Primetime Emmys as part of the producing team on Fox/TBS's American Dad — Khan achieved every TV writer's dream: her own show. That was Don't Trust the B ——in Apartment 25, a sitcom that ran for two seasons on ABC, ending in 2015.
In Fresh Off the Boat, which recently wrapped its freshman season, Khan says some of her favorite elements revolve around the food.
"So much culture is based around food. It's an iconic family element." She still loves her mother's home cooking, but in a pinch the Persian restaurants along Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles will do just fine.
