Response to American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Jennifer Sherman

Graphic Novels

Response to American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

American Born Chinese is an easy read. It is a graphic novel that is set up like a comic book. The pictures are quite simplistic, with very little going on except for the illustrations of the characters and the bubbles that show what they are saying. There is not much to be gained from the pictures in the book. Most of the plot development is done through the characters’ dialogue. A reader can easily ignore the pictures and move through the book very quickly without getting lost or confused about the development of the storyline. The dialogue is also quite simple. The word choice is very basic and the plot is easy to follow. There is nothing about this book that makes it challenging to read or inaccessible. It is a book that is very nonthreatening.

With that being said, I believe that it is the perfect book for readers who are disengaged.  It is easy to follow and comprehend. There are very little words to a page. The plot is interesting and the narrative is very humorous. While some jokes may take a bit more time to understand and may require the readers to pay closer attention to the pictures and their interpretations, once a reader notices these jokes, they become more apt to look closer as they read. I will admit that I was skimming through the book quite quickly until I missed the picture where Chin-Kee was peeing in the coke can. When I realized that I missed this, I forced myself to start over and to begin reading the book again. I had cast the pictures off as superfluous. However, the pictures were often what added to the humorous tone of the piece. While they may not have been needed to understand the plot, they were an important part of the overall experience of the narrative.

However, a book is not great for disengaged readers simply because it is easy and fun to read. What makes this book so great is its ability to be so accessible and still hold literary merit. For while the book is simplistic and not very challenging to read, it introduces themes that are incredibly important and difficult to grapple with. While the book may be easy to page through, its content is not as simplistic. The book brings up ideas and situations that are important and often difficult to address. Yet, by putting these ideas in such a simplistic form, it puts these complicated and often uncomfortable ideas into focus. It makes profound themes and questions more accessible and easy to understand and to actively think about.

The book has a clear theme that is focused on identity. There were several storylines that were at first unconnected; however, all of them dealt with the idea of accepting yourself. The first story of the Monkey King was about the monkey’s inability to accept his monkey form. He became upset when the rest of the Gods mocked him because he was not wearing shoes and he was not as cultivated as the rest of them. This forced him to be ashamed of his own form. He went back to his island and forced all the monkeys to wear shoes. He was no longer the great ruler that his monkey followers had loved and accepted. He dedicated his days to becoming the strongest form possible so that he could overthrow the rest of the Gods.  However, he eventually turned back into his monkey form so that he was small enough to escape a giant boulder that the Creator had buried him under. He learned that there were advantages to his monkey form. He learned who he was and what he was meant to be.

The main story of Jin/Danny was also focused on not accepting your differences and forcing the opinions of others to be infiltrated into your own thoughts and idea of identity.  Jin enters into school as the only Asian student, besides one another girl who is assumed to be his betrothed. He feels isolated from the rest of the students because he is different. When one student tells him to stay away from a girl he has been seeing, he assumes that it is because he is Asian, and he decides to transform himself into a white boy named Danny. He does transform; however his “asianness” still haunts him in the form of Chin-kee, his mysterious estranged cousin.

  I loved the character of Chin-Kee. I think that he was representative of the book as a whole as he was able to encapsulate this idea of taking on a difficult topic though a humorous or accessible venue. Chin-Kee acts as the culmination of Danny’s fears. He is the prototype of all Asian stereotypes. He is an excellent student, he is uncivilized, he sees woman as being property to be married and owned, he eats cats, obeys authority, etc. Chin-Kee is embarrassing. He is everything that Danny is trying to escape. In essence, he is the identity that Danny/Jin is attempting to be leaving behind. For while Chin-Kee is clearly not representative of Asian identity, for Jin, he is the manifestation of everything that he has become to believe is being Asian. Yet, he cannot shake him. He can separate himself from Chin-Kee. Chin-Kee haunts Jin/Danny and makes him think that the other students are not accepting of him. Danny/Jin leaves school because he thinks that people no longer like him because of Chin-Kee.

Chin-Kee is funny. He dances to songs by Ricky Martin and pees in cups. However, he is also a very complicated and thought-provoking character. He brings up questions about stereotypes and how they affect both the people who believe in them and the people they are placed upon. We are able to see how Danny/Jin has started to view being Asian. As Chin-Kee becomes the Asian identity that he is trying to displace, we see how Jin’s idea of what it means to be Asian has been transformed and altered by the views and opinions of others. He has begun to believe in these stereotypes. I loved how the book left it up for interpretation whether or not Danny/Jin’s friends were truly against him because of his differences or if this was just in Danny/Jin’s head. Did his friend not want him to date the girl because he was Asian? Did the people at the schools really not like Danny because of his cousin Chin-Kee? In the end, I do not think it really matters. The point is that the existence of these stereotypes and these surroundings have forced Jin/Danny to view the world this way. They have forced him to not accept himself and to want to adapt to his surroundings.

There were also many subplots within the stories that added to this theme. One of my favorites was the parable that Jin’s mother told him about the boy whose mother moved him around to different places, a marketplace, a cemetery, and a university. At the marketplace and the cemetery, the boy was engaging in fruitless behavior where he was mimicking his surroundings, selling sticks, burning incense, etc. The mother then moved him by a university where he started throwing himself into books. This story introduced the idea of the effect of context and power of one’s environment and surroundings. The son began to learn his way of life through his surroundings. He began to create an identity or a life that was based on the situations that he saw and was exposed to everyday. The mother believed that it was important to go to school and to get an education, so she moved her son near a school so that he would do that. I think that this sets up a question of why immigrants move here and the priorities that Jin’s mother puts on him. If a person is supposed to adapt to their surroundings, is Jin supposed to turn himself into the “whiteness” that he desires?  Does Jin have the power to not conform or is the environment simply too strong to resist? Is it possible to retain one’s authentic identity or are we always transforming ourselves to fit with our surroundings, just like the transformer toys that Jin loves so much?

This story opens up questions about assimilation and conformity. However, it also introduces ideas about societal and familial pressure. I think that it becomes clear that Jin is not the only one that is putting pressure on him to find an identity. His parents clearly have expectations for him.  His environment also has expectations for him as well, as they ask him and the other “different” people to conform. It is no longer acceptable to eat strange, exotic food or to have black hair that does not spike up like a crown. Jin is being affected by his surroundings just as if he was living in a cemetery or a marketplace. It becomes a question of how much of his frustrations with identity are from his own insecurities or from other societal pressures. And is there really a difference? How much of ourselves is innate to us and how much is built through the environment we expose ourselves to?

In conclusion, I loved this book. I thought that was it was fun to read. I laughed aloud on the bus as I turned the pages. But I was also moved by its content. I think that this book can be read in so many different ways. Even now, I have reread it numerous times, and I find something different each time that I read. The book is short and a quick read. However, it is very dense. There is so much that one can grab onto and I think that it is impossible to not be filled with questions and a new look at the world and one’s own identity when reading this book. I was touched as a reader as I read this book on so many different levels and I believe that this is one book that truly does not have a target audience. It is meant for all.