Some of you already know, I co-produce a variety show called ESL Comedy, where immigrant and immigrant’s kids bring stories and laughs to the stage. But it’s more than just a lineup of performers—it’s a mash-up of stand-up, storytelling, live interviews, trivia, and random-but-fascinating cultural discoveries. Think of it as “Comedy Central meets National Geographic,” only with more awkward stories and fewer camera crews chasing penguins.
Before every show, my co-producer and I research the countries connected to our performers. That means, in addition to learning how to pronounce “Kyrgyzstan” without spraining a tongue, we end up stumbling across a mix of the good, the bad, and the very-ugly history tied to each place—including Japan, my home country.
For example: back in May, we had a Filipino performer on the lineup. While brushing up on trivia, I learned that the Philippines has over 180 languages—and that Japan invaded the Philippines during WWII. (Yes, I’m Japanese. Yes, I was embarrassed. Yes, I must have slept through that history lesson.) When I brought it up during the interview, the Filipino performer immediately cracked a joke, flipping an awkward fact into a moment of hilarity. That’s the beauty of the show: it turns heavy history into shared laughter, without pretending it never happened. We tell it. We twist it. We laugh at it together.
If you read my last blog post, “From ‘Get Rid of Immigrants’ to ‘Tell Me More,’” you’ll know this is something I think about a lot. Comedy is a sly teacher. Storytelling, too. Both sneak in the questions we’d rather avoid—about immigration, war, family, belonging—and suddenly you’re laughing at the very thing that once felt too heavy to touch. You realize you’re not just being entertained; you’re connecting dots between cultures, histories, and your own life.
Our August show fell on August 15, the day WWII officially ended. Instead of letting that date sit silently in the calendar, we leaned into it: the lineup featured performers from Russia, Iran, Vietnam, and South Korea—countries whose histories, like mine, are tangled in wars. The night wasn’t a solemn history lecture; it was full of biting punchlines, sharp observations, and those moments where you laugh and then realize, “Wait… that’s actually true.”
That’s what ESL Comedy is about: turning the good, the bad, and the ugly into the human. Story by story, joke by joke, we unravel the things that divide us and find ourselves laughing together instead. Because borders can stop people, but stories and jokes? They slip right through.