The inaugural Belly Laughs Festival transformed L.A. Live into a multigenerational, multicultural comedy hub on July 12 and 13. With over thirty Asian American comedians and more than twenty food vendors across two packed days, the event became the first of its kind to pair stand-up comedy and curated Asian American cuisine at this scale. From headliners to newcomers, every performer brought something distinct to the stage, offering a rare and unified celebration of shared experience and identity.

Presented by CAPE, Nederlander Concerts, L.A. Live, Gold House, and MAMA’s Night Market, the festival was billed as a tribute to Third Culture, a term that reflects how immigrant communities blend heritage and modern influence to create something singular. MAMA’s Night Market curated over twenty food and beverage vendors alongside the stacked comedy lineup, making the festival a full-spectrum celebration of Asian American culture.

While the food vendors drew crowds and kept them moving, the real draw was on stage.

Margaret Cho, who has been breaking ground in comedy since the early 1990s, headlined the festival with a performance that felt both pointed and generous. She reflected backstage on how much had changed since she first started out. “There was an expectation that Asian Americans would just be quiet,” Cho said. “That silence was supposed to be part of our identity as immigrants. But that didn’t work anymore. We needed to speak. Sometimes with irreverence, sometimes with reverence. Either way, we needed to talk about it.”

Cho’s presence felt symbolic to many of the younger performers in the lineup. For her, the festival represented a long-awaited milestone. “It took me twenty years to see something like Baby Cobra and feel like somebody truly got what I had been doing. That was the first time I felt seen in that way.”

She added, “I was never Korean enough in Korea. When I visited, I didn’t feel like I belonged there. But I’ve always felt like an American kid. That was the one part of my identity I didn’t question.”

The lineup read like a who’s who of Asian American comedy: Margaret Cho, Hasan Minhaj, Kumail Nanjiani, Bobby Lee, Joel Kim Booster, Zarna Garg, Asif Ali, Nimesh Patel, Jonnie Park, D’Lo, Kiran Deol, Helen Hong, Hari Kondabolu and Nimesh Patel. Throughout the weekend, other comics dropped in unannounced, including Atsuko Okatsuka, who took a break from her current tour, and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who surprised fans with a brief stand-up set in front of the large crowd.

Performers tackled personal topics like family, assimilation, and queerness, while also addressing broader social issues. ICE, immigration policy, and identity politics surfaced across both days, often with a sharp comedic edge.

Kiran Deol, who opened Saturday’s show, spoke with United by Rice ahead of the event. “We’re negotiating our parents’ trauma and trying to make it funny,” she said. “For a lot of us who are children of immigrants, comedy is the only way to tell the truth. It’s how we’ve learned to carry that weight.”

Deol acknowledged the pushback she sometimes gets for her approach. “Some of the comics I came up with will say, ‘Kiran, you gotta keep it real.’ But this is my version of real. I’m still the person with parents who wanted me to be a lawyer. That’s my truth.”

Yudhi Sharma, a local comedian who grew up in Los Angeles after emigrating from India at age seven, said the festival felt deeply personal. “I was delighted to be part of it,” Sharma said. “Performing in my hometown, in front of friends, alongside some of the comics I’ve looked up to—it meant everything.”

He added, “Seeing my name on flyers around the Crypto Arena and the Peacock Theater was unreal. That doesn’t happen often for comics like me.”

Asif Ali, currently starring in Hulu’s Deli Boys, brought both humor and reflection. “There were so many Asians here it was a little triggering,” he joked. “But seriously, I didn’t grow up around any Asians outside of my cousins. It wasn’t until I got to college in Chicago that I was around Asian people I wasn’t related to. That changed a lot for me.”

Ali spoke to the value of representation. “I didn’t care how successful someone was. Just seeing people who looked like us out there doing it—that was enough. That gave me something to believe in.”

One of the newer comics in the lineup, Vickie Wang, brought international perspective and gratitude to the moment. “I was born and raised in Taiwan and I only moved to New York last May,” she said. “To be able to participate in something like this is just—so many Asian Americans have paved the way for me to be part of something this grand.”

Wang described looking around backstage at her heroes. “At one point I was like, that’s Hasan, that’s Atsuko… I couldn’t process it. These are people I’ve looked up to for years.”

She also reflected on her path into stand-up, which began in China, where censorship limited what she could say. “In Shanghai, we were not allowed to talk about Tiananmen, Tibet, or Taiwan. We couldn’t mention anything political or LGBTQ. Over time, I just stopped writing those kinds of jokes. My writing muscles atrophied. Now that I’m in America, I’m trying to build them back up.”

Veteran performer D’Lo put the weekend into perspective. “This isn’t new. We’ve been doing this for decades. The only thing that’s new is the spotlight. It’s the first time a festival like this has truly centered our work and treated it with the care and visibility it deserves.”

This wasn’t just a celebration of comedy. It was a reminder that Asian American stories matter and that they’re best told through laughter, community, and the comfort of familiar food.