COLUMBUS, Ohio: Whether it’s stand-up comedy specials or a dramedy series, when Muslim American Mo Amer sets out to create, he writes what he knows.
The comedian, writer and actor of Palestinian descent has received critical acclaim for it, too. The second season of Amer’s “Mo” documents Mo Najjar and his family’s tumultuous journey reaching asylum in the United States as Palestinian refugees.
Amer’s show is part of an ongoing wave of television from Arab American and Muslim American creators who are telling nuanced, complicated stories about identity without falling into stereotypes that Western media has historically portrayed.
“Whenever you want to make a grounded show that feels very real and authentic to the story and their cultural background, you write to that,” Amer told The Associated Press. “And once you do that, it just feels very natural, and when you accomplish that, other people can see themselves very easily.”
At the start of its second season, viewers find Najjar running a falafel taco stand in Mexico after he was locked in a van transporting stolen olive trees across the US-Mexico border. Najjar was trying to retrieve the olive trees and return them to the farm where he, his mother and brother are attempting to build an olive oil business.
