- Each episode of the series tells the story of an immigrant to the US, looking at how they adapt and the values they bring with them
- The creators and producers talk about how they had to get involved, and what the series means to them
There is a scene in the first episode of the new Apple+ anthology series, Little America, where a young boy, Kabir, plays cricket with his parents in the car park of the motel they own and run. They are not in their home country of India but in Utah, their adopted home of America. Ultimately, theirs is a story of a family torn apart by arbitrary immigration laws, and heartbreaking scenes soon follow.
But it is that moment of the family together, playing cricket, that best reveals the quietly humane, generous, and ultimately hopeful spirit of the show.
While their sport of choice might be that most un-American of games, playing it together while managing their own business Kabir's family embodies values to which America claims to aspire: kindness, the importance of family, fairness, and hard work. These are the wholesome values where "big" America might falter, but where Little America excels.
Little America is an anthology of immigrant stories, each half-hour introducing us to a new immigrant or immigrant family, trying to make a life in America uniquely their own.
There is the Nigerian student embracing Oklahoma's cowboy culture, the undocumented high schooler who finds a place to belong on the squash court, the Ugandan baker winning over the hearts of her neighbours with her cookies, and the queer Syrian escaping the violence of his family at home for the acceptance of his adopted family in America.
It is these kinds of stories that first pricked the interest of the series' executive producers Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani, the married couple behind another project about immigrants and the pitfalls of culture clash: hit film The Big Sick.
"We really from the get-go believed in this and thought it was such an amazing idea," says Gordon. "We got offers to produce a lot of shows after The Big Sick came out and this is the only one we said yes to."
"It was one of those moments where you leave the pitch and go 'Whoa! This is such a great idea,'" Nanjiani agrees. "It was very exciting to be part of something that hasn't been done before and that is so valuable in this political climate."
While Gordon and Nanjiani brought much-needed attention and their own expertise to the project, the series was originally the brainchild of writer and producer Lee Eisenberg and journalist Joshuah Bearman.
"I was thinking about what I wanted to do next in TV and I remembered seeing an episode of Master of None (on Netflix) about parents and the immigrant experience", says Eisenberg. "Everyone was talking about that episode and I thought why can't we have a show where every episode was like that?"
"The first call I made was to Josh."
At the time, Bearman had been toying with the idea of a series of photo essays for Epic Magazine, but was still casting about for a good topic. When Eisenberg called, Bearman says he knew he found the perfect subject.
"I loved his idea and it seemed like a very valuable use of storytelling in this time," Bearman recalls.
Donald Trump was America's new president and anti-immigrant sentiment was becoming disturbingly common around the country. "It was right around the inauguration actually and the reality was setting in here," says Bearman.
We didn't want to make a polemic about American policy. We thought instead we will just tell stories about American immigrants and let people connect to thatJoshuah Bearman, co-creator Little America
Since Master of None was such an inspiration for Little America, it only made sense for Alan Yang, that show's co-creator, to come on board.
"I got a call from Lee Eisenberg. He'd worked on The Office when I'd worked on Parks and Recreation so he was a buddy of mine," says Yang. "He said he had an idea for an series where every show was a different immigrant story. And, it really struck me how simple and beautiful that idea was. It had this clarity to it."
The series' unique anthology format " in which each episode is its own stand-alone story " was a powerful draw for each of the show's producers. As was hiring non-traditional TV writers and directors including playwrights, independent filmmakers, and as in the case of Bearman, journalists.
"It is challenging but it is also very gratifying," says Yang. "There's something very satisfying about working in the anthology format, watching them all in a row there's this feeling of seeing this mosaic come together."
Still, the format brought its own brand of headaches. Says Yang: "As any television writer who has ever written a pilot can tell you, it's a nightmare. In 30 minutes you're introducing a world, you're introducing characters, you're conveying the journey they're going on, and you're hopefully wrapping up the story in a satisfying way. That's a lot to get across. It's the hardest kind of writing and we essentially set ourselves up to make eight pilots."
The biggest surprise for anyone watching Little America, and arguably the series' biggest strength is in that realistic tone of what the characters were experiencing.
In the current fractious political climate, it's reasonable to expect that a TV show about immigrants would be a withering indictment of Trump-era cruelty, or a simplistic paean to embracing our differences. Little America is much more complex and much more true: snapshots of people at their best and worst, in all their messy human relatability.
"I think you can read the news to get the news," says Gordon. "We've had a lot of conversations about the tone and we were adamant that if you start focusing on the policies and the people in charge, then you're taking from the stories of these immigrants' lives."
"It's so easy to let this debate happen in the abstract: the numbers, but every single one of those numbers is a real person. And I think to a lot of people, it doesn't feel real," says Nanjiani. "If you're depicting an optimistic version of people moving to America, then contrasting that with the conversation as it is now, in a way, I think that is much more heartbreaking and devastating."
"We didn't want to make a polemic about American policy. We thought instead we will just tell stories about American immigrants and let people connect to that. Hopefully they see something universal, and relate that to their own lives even if they may be sceptical about immigration," says Bearman.
In fact, Bearman says that over the course of making this show he has starting thinking about TV differently. He has a new name for his television set. He calls it "an empathy machine."
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