‘#1 Happy Family USA’ (Season 1) Review: Laughter During Painful Times
Ramy Youssef is well-known for his self-titled comedy series, Ramy, which explored culture and religious issues with humour. The episodes were nuanced, fun and focused on his family members’ conflicts with an approach that has never truly been explored, especially from an Egyptian-American perspective. After 9/11, there wasn’t much Arab representation on screen. At one time, other ethnicities and races played Arabs, such as Naveen William Sidney Andrews, who played Sayid Jarrah in Lost.
Times have changed! Arabs are finally creating their own shows, centred around their identity and upbringing in America. This year, Youssef released #1 Happy Family USA, which centres around an Egyptian Arab family living in the US. The story begins a day before 9/11 and the subsequent targeting and racism towards Arab people.
While the series focuses on this event, it is also a coming-of-age story of Rumi Hussein (voiced by Youssef), figuring out his place in this world. He lives with his parents, Hussein (also voiced by Youssef), who owns a halal food cart in front of the FOX News building and his wife, Sharia (voiced by Salma Hindy), who works as a receptionist at the dentist’s office. Rumi’s sister, Mona (voiced by Alia Shawkat), is a high-school student dealing with her identity and sexuality. Sharia’s Egyptian-born parents (voiced by Randa Jarrar as Grandma and Azhar Usman as Grandpa), equally awkward and funny as the Husseins, have issues with how their daughter has raised their grandchildren in America.
Rumi is in love with his teacher, Mrs. Malcolm (voiced by Mandy Moore). He’s eager to present his class project about his home country, Egypt, which he knows his teacher will enjoy. Mona and her girlfriend, Gina (voiced by Megan Stalter), are trying to find the right time to come out to Sharia and Hussein. Rumi and Mona face their situations head-on and choose a date: 9th September 2001. Yup, that date. What comes next is a series of hilarious but terrifying situations where the Husseins find themselves vindicated by their neighbour, friends and the media because of their ethnicity.
#1 Happy Family USA is not just Rumi’s coming-of-age story, trying to fit in with everyone. It’s also about the assimilation into American society post 9/11 and code-switching by changing appearance and speech based on social situations. It’s a way to fit in without being suspicious — not that there was anything to be suspicious about — but Arab and Brown people were racially targeted during that time. The show’s explanation of code-switching is brilliant.
Inside the Husseins’ house, Mona, Sharia, and Hussein present themselves very differently compared to when they step outside. Mona covers up her religion, her hair is straightened, and she is an expert at hiding her true self. At home, her hair is curly. Sharia doesn’t wear her hijab at home. She isn’t an observant Muslim, but after her father’s death and his ghost haunting her, she turns to religion and asks for forgiveness. Hussein, on the other hand, desperately wants to fit into American society.
After the 9/11 attacks, FOX News hired him as a pundit to show the American audience that there are good Muslims who condemn it. But the American journalists already had a nefarious agenda in mind. Hussein has other places. He sees his appearance as an opportunity to promote his business. He tries to explain to the public that he has a halal food cart in front of the building. But it leads to more hilarious situations.
There’s a lot of nostalgia from the early 2000s era. A subplot involves Rumi downloading songs on Limewire and Napster, which leads him to find an unexpected friend and an FBI Special Agent moving into the house in front of the Husseins’.
Since Rumi is the main character of this series, it explores the world through his perspective. He asks many questions and learns the truth about growing up in America, especially being racially targeted. It’s shown through a youthful innocence, but he figures out what he wants and identifies the issues within his family and society. Even if the series explores these subplots and nostalgic elements, a lot of the subject matter is relevant to today’s immigration crisis and Trump’s racist policies that target American-Arab people.
#1 Happy Family USA is a heartfelt and comedic series that explores Rumi and his family’s many predicaments in a post 9/11 world. At a time when the Trump administration is targeting minorities, this series is a good example of how the media and society, in general, have not changed their thoughts on immigrants. There’s a lot of laughter during a painful time, and Youssef’s #1 Happy Family USA does a great job portraying these moments through comedy.
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