In a statement issued after the cancellation of the planned comedy show Mail Order Family, NBC expressed regrets that “sadly human trafficking is a concept that is very difficult to make funny.” NBC had intended for the show, which would have focused on the shenanigans of a father who orders a mail-order bride from the Philippines to help raise his daughters, to be a family comedy as they believed that “the seriousness of the topic would have allowed for some great situational irony.”

After hearing that no one at NBC had considered the possibility that this might be a bad idea, community organizer Irma Salvatierra Bajar started a successful

Change.org petition to have the show cancelled. Bajar stated that “this wasn’t what we meant when we asked for more Asian-American representation on TV.”

Beth Colleton, Senior Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility at NBC, stated that she was surprised at the backlash the show received.

“I didn’t expect Asian-American women to be this vocal,” she said. “I thought they were more submissive than this.”