American Born Chinese

While I did not particularly like American Born Chinese as a book, I thought it was a very unique way to address prominent racial stereotypes present in our American society. Although most people do not like to admit that they stereotype certain factions of people, we all have judgments, either conscious or unconscious, that we apply to certain populations. This graphic novel confronts a number of stereotypes that are often associated with Asian Americans.

I did not like this book because I was unable to engage in the novel. Although all the stories merged at the end to provide a (somewhat) logical explanation, I found the narrative order of the book to be slightly confusing and the plot a bit dull. I did enjoy the portion that dealt with Jin and Amelia and how cultural assimilation wove itself into their relationship, but the section pertaining to the history of the monkey and Jin’s transition into Danny was just not very interesting to me. 

Another reason I did not like this book was because it made me uncomfortable. I did not like reading about a character that depicted behavior completely saturated by cultural stereotypes. Not only was he named Chin-kee, which is offensive in itself, but he is also incredibly educated and loves school, dressed in traditional Chinese clothing, ate ‘ethnic’ food that Americans find disgusting, spoke in a very strong Chinese accent that was heavily accentuated in the text, and he actually emulated the racist children’s rhyme “Me Chinese”. I understand that this feeling of discomfort was the intent of the author. I think he wanted to juxtapose Chin-kee with Jin to demonstrate to readers how unfounded our country’s stereotypes of Asian Americans really are. I can recognize his intention as an author and I think he did an excellent job illustrating this in his book, but overall I did not enjoy reading this text.

Critically, I think this story contained symbolism that supplemented the points Yang was stressing. In particular, his incorporation of the toy transformer was especially significant. I saw the transformer toy, which was owned by both Jin and Wei-Chen at the beginning of the story, to represent an ideology held by many immigrants, be it Chinese, Taiwanese, or other ethnicities. The boys identify with the transformer because it illustrates what they must do in American culture, which is assimilate and transform from who they are (which is the robot – symbolic in itself as robots suggest technology and technology is often associated with Asian culture) into an American, which takes its form as a truck. As the boys attempt to assimilate into American culture, you see them shed many cultural traits that they once identified with. As Jin begins at Mayflower elementary, he uses chopsticks to eat his dumplings during lunch. As he progresses through school, he changes his lunch to a sandwich. This subtle symbolism was a stylistic element that supplemented Yang’s portrayal of Asian Americans.

            

Another element of fiction that is essential to this story is the character development of Jin. We see him transform from Jin, a Chinese boy struggling to find his place in American culture, into Danny, a blond haired Caucasian American who shows no external signs of his Chinese heritage. This physical development represents Jin’s desire to assimilate and be just like his classmates, but does not accurately demonstrate who he is on the inside. This transformation, much like the transformer toy, shows the identity struggles many immigrants face when they enter American society.

             

Although this story stirred up feelings of discomfort for me as a reader, I recognize its effectiveness at addressing a number of racial stereotypes present in our American culture. Yang did an excellent job using symbolism and physical transformations to get his point across, and I thought this story successfully picked apart uncomfortable stereotypes and illustrated their absurdity in this graphic novel.