Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka is known for finding humor in the dysfunction of her immigrant family. Born in Taiwan to Japanese and Taiwanese parents, she traveled from Japan to Los Angeles with her grandmother and mother when she was 8 for what she thought was a short vacation. In fact, they were moving.
It would be years before Okatsuka saw her father again. She later described being "kidnapped" by her grandmother on a 2023 episode of This American Life.
"My grandma and I hadn't really talked about it in depth until [then]," she says. "And it helped that I got to do with Ira [Glass, host of This American Life] and the thousands and thousands of thousands of listeners at the same time, then I'm really not alone."
Okatsuka grew up undocumented in the U.S., living in her uncle's garage and being raised by her grandmother as they both dealt with the instability of watching her mother suffer from schizophrenia. She turned to comedy as a way to cope.
"Obviously, there's a kind of aura of sadness around me," she says. "All my life my mom has suffered and I think about that all the time as I get to do things like tour and travel, see the world ... go out drinking with friends. My mom can't do any of those things. She's suffering so much."
In 2022, Okatsuka became the second Asian American woman (after Margaret Cho) to release an hour-long comedy special on HBO with The Intruder. And she became a social media darling a few years ago, thanks to her viral videos and dance challenges, including one where she walked around L.A. with her grandmother, dancing to Beyoncé's "Partition."
In her new Hulu special, Father, Okatsuka reflects on her relationship with her dad, who lives in Japan and was largely a distant figure in her life after she moved to the States. She says telling her story on stage has been a healing process.
"What I found about trauma is, while you're going through it, you're not going, 'This is trauma,'" Okatsuka says. "Now … [that] I'm able to joke about it, I'm realizing I've sort of started to heal without even realizing it."
Interview highlights
On trying to pray her mom's illness away when she was younger
I became super Christian on my own. I think I needed something to believe in, or something. It was community, all these things. And I was still confused about why we didn't go back to Japan and my mom's condition and in that garage. I took it very seriously to the point [that] I even signed up for Jesus Camp on my own. … I remember at the camp, there were these prayer groups and prayer meetings we would break it off into, and one night it was like me and, like, 30 people in a prayer group and I asked for them to pray for my mom. Pray for my Mom to get better, to be freed from the voices in her head and all these things, from the suffering, from severe depression, from the seizures, from feeling so isolated and down all the time. ... I truly thought that it was gonna work. I was in middle school, I remember believing, "Oh my gosh, this is really different. I've prayed for this before. When I go home, she's going to be healed."
When I came home, I was super disappointed that she had not changed. And feeling really down and hopeless. ... Because till this day, she still hears voices.
On her husband Ryan's own mother having schizophrenia, and how she noticed they had something in common
On one of our earlier dates, we were having drinks outside. It was a bar with a patio outside, and there was an unhoused man who was talking to himself and kind of scaring the people at the bar. And I knew what was going on with him, and my husband … he knew how to deal with it, too. ... So people were kind of scared of this man kind of stumbling and is he going to walk into this establishment, whatever. My husband knew to look at him calmly and sort of talk him out of being in that area, but very kindly, because we know that's schizophrenia that's going on.
On leaning into wild fashion — and her signature bowl haircut
I used to even wear my grandma's clothes as a kid, whatever she got her hands on. When someone 50 years older than you is dressing you, sometimes it was like plaid on plaid on plaid. What is going on? Or her idea of what a kid would wear. So sometimes it like Hello Kitty top, Hello Kitty pants, bright red shoes, polka-dotted shoelaces, right? And I think the randomness of that kind of pushed me to be out there looking wild. So I think when I finally started trying to tailor my look, maybe 10 years ago, I was able to be more bold because it's like, hey, I used to wear grandma's slacks to school.
When I was a kid, I had this bowl cut, too. And a lot of Asian kids have it when they're a kid. And I do love fashion and I love the arts. And so I love looking like an art gallery owner, a little bit. But also, a lot of Asians say, "Hey, I had the haircut as a kid it was a nightmare, everyone made fun of me. I think it's so ugly." And I like challenging that a little bit to be like, "Well, the things that made me feel like a freak, I'm gonna own." … and people show up wearing wigs of my bowl cut to my shows now. I've started a movement.
On discovering stand-up comedy when someone gave her a Margaret Cho DVD
My mom and grandma didn't listen to music. And when we were growing up in the garage, it was just silence. My grandma will cook to silence. My grandma would live in silence. My mom, too. It was just me trying out things on TV, just whatever I found, that's what I would be influenced by, or my classmates, I would hear them talk about, like, Spice Girls or something. So, in the household, there wasn't a lot of pop culture going on. So there was no way I thought it could be me. When I watched Margaret Cho on the DVD, I was like, "This is neat. I didn't know this was a job. That's so cool. I love that she does this. This is good for her." … But I never thought that's gonna be me one day. I didn't have the self-confidence. I didn't dare to dream big. Why would it be me?
On being a caretaker to her mother and grandmother
I am going through it and thinking about my grandma's mortality, for example, because she is 91 and she's getting physically sick a lot more. I gave her a bath for the first time recently. I'm learning these new things. And so it is something I'm thinking about. And more and more, I think you could see that, like on my social media, we're not able to do those videos as much anymore. They're more tired. And it was a fun family time, it used to be for us, where my grandma looked forward to it, dancing and stuff, but she doesn't have the energy as much anymore. So yeah, I'm in that phase … when maybe there's trauma happening, you don't know it yet. So in a year, it'll be funny or I'll be able to talk about it, right? But right now, it's like I got my therapist and then we're figuring out more medical stuff with my mom and medical stuff with grandma, too.
On the intensity of touring and processing her family life
When I'm touring, I'm away from the family. It feels like the opposite of what I was trying to do, but because I tour, I can make money. Medical bills are not cheap. I've got two elders, they're in diapers. And so I've cried more than before, in the past. I don't cry a lot. If you ask my husband to describe me or ask him how often I cry, he'll say like, "Oh gosh, maybe like twice a year, right? But that's already a lot for me. And I've surpassed that this year, I would say. While I'm writing this new show, some of it being about caretaking, I'm definitely going through the cries right now.
Ann Marie Baldonado and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and TK adapted it for the web.
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