Code-Switched is the thoughtfully curated care package only your fellow South Asian friend from high school can make. The one who’s been to your house for chana chaat and also smoked weed in your parent’s garage while they went to prayer. And then snacked on said chaat in a satisfied frenzy. It’s nuanced, surprising yet familiar at the same time, and delivers the type of unexpected pairings that always hit the spot.
After holding focus groups with South Asian millennials with experiences outside his own, Karan Sunil, the show’s writer and director, was both eager to showcase the range of stories from the continent, but also keenly aware that one show can’t capture it all.
“There’s so much belief in hope when you come here. You start a family and you start a legacy,” Sunil says. “In a lot of South Asian homes, at least I can speak to mine and friends of mine, it’s the pressure to find yourself, find your identity, find out who you are as an individual while carrying the weight of that legacy.”
“It’s not so outlandish that it can’t happen to an American family or can’t happen to a Chinese family,” says Pandya, who plays Yeezys enthusiast and med school avoidant Krish. “It makes these stories kind of relatable to everybody. But they’re still told with the lens of a South Asian, which gives you that additional context and clarity.”
And that’s exactly what can happen when South Asians create their own work.
