Part I: Bibliographic information
Type: Graphic novel
Title: American Born Chinese
Writer: Gene Luen Yang
Copyright Date: 2006
Publisher: First Second
ISBN: 9781596432086
Genre/subgenre: Graphic novel/race relations, second generation immigrants life
Interest Age: 12+
Reading Level: Upper Grades (UG 9-12)
Pages: 233
Awards: Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, 2007.
Part I: Reader’s Annotation, Plot Summary, Critical Evaluation
Reader’s Annotation -- An offbeat graphic novel about the coming-of-age of a Chinese American teen who wishes he was less different and more like the rest of the kids in school. He explores his angst about his Chinese heritage through the telling of his everyday life as a modern teen blended with imaginative tales of Gods, demons and a monkey King.
Plot Summary -- The first chapter begins with an elaborate tale of a ultrasmart monkey who studies spiritual principles to advance his position and attain divine status. He becomes a king among his nation but his poor behavior when he meets the gods leads to trouble. A second story begins that tells about a Chinese American boy named Jin Wing whose family moves to a mostly white suburban neighborhood where he has few friends and is made fun of for being Asian. He meets a friend -- the other Asian boy in school who is named Wei-Chen Sun. Jin Wing is very shy and does all he can to simply blend in even to the point of avoiding the more Asian-acting Wei, whom he calls a “F.O.B.” He soon gets a bad crush on a white girl but is afraid to take any action until his friend Wei gets a girlfriend first. This encourages him to muster the courage to ask the girl out -- and she agrees. It goes pretty well but the girls other friends tell her not to be with him and his heart is broken when she complies. A third storyline begins in which a good-looking teenager named Danny has an odd cousin come to visit -- this teen is white but the cousin is a stereotypical Asian who embarasses him all the time. As it turns out, this white personae is a figment of his imagination and is really himself as he fantasizes about being. Jin’s struggle to come to terms with his heritage is forced to the surface as the visiting cousin turns out to be someone unexpected as well -- and they are faced with accepting their differences or losing their friendship.
Critical Evaluation -- This graphic novel blends a contemporary reality with an alternative universe full of superhuman characters and feats. The Chinese American boy struggles to be comfortable in his Chinese-ness and with the suburban American high school where he’s made fun of sometimes for his background. The memorable thing about the work is that it takes a hard look at how race comes into play in the lives of young adults today. Subtle and not-so-subtle insults are not uncommon. The boy struggles to embrace his heritage with pride and also wants desperately to fit in as do most teens. Yang finds a way to weave together these three seemingly unrelated stories within the story in the end, and a moral is revealed relating to being a good person that is true to his principles and loyal to his friends. He uses stereotype to demonstrate how we react to race and heritage -- even our own -- and then finds a path to a cathartic resolution as he accepts (and makes some fun of) himself and finds some comfort in his own person, who is a pretty cute, likable guy after all. One last thing is relative to Yang’s artistic style -- it’s clean and fresh. He bring forth a lot of the emotion in his drawing as well. This makes it easy to read and rather entertaining -- a perfect combination for the young adult reader.
Part III: Author Info
Here’s an excerpt about Yang from his website, “I began publishing comic books under the name Humble Comics in 1996. In 1997, I got the Xeric Grant for Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks. (If you’re interested in creating comics yourself, check out the Xeric Foundation. They’re a great organization!) Since then I’ve written and drawn a number of stories in comics. American Born Chinese, released by First Second Books in 2006, became the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award and the first to win the American Library Association’s Printz Award. It also won an Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album – New. The Eternal Smile, a collaborative project I did with Derek Kirk Kim in 2009, won an Eisner as well.” Yang is from the San Francisco Bay Area and now teaches creative writing at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Part IV: Curriculum Ties, Diversity, Booktalk Ideas, Challenge Issues
Curriculum Ties, if any -- This work has the potential to discuss the issues of bullying. American Born Chinese touches directly on the effect that racial slurs and stereotyping has on a young person.
Diversity of Cultures -- The Chinese American culture is one that some of us have little exposure to. Yang is a great ambassador to his Chinese heritage as he expresses a certain pride while using humor and humanity to encourage acceptance of our individual difference and even to acknowledge our own shortcomings that may relate to our backgrounds.
Booktalking Ideas -- This work is a good starting point for a discussion of racism. A booktalk could explore how we tend to think of racism in past tense yet most of us agree that it is still manifest in our daily lives. What are some examples? What can be done to change these attitudes?
Challenge Issues -- This work has a pretty clean-cut pretext. A potential challenge might be the use of stereotype to tell his story. The cousin is heavily stereotypes with buck teeth, thick glasses and a strong accent -- as well as not very likable behavior. If taken in context to the story as a whole, however, the racial profiling is Yang’s way of exploring the meaning of cultural traits and how we react to them. His work has been widely read and carries the message of acceptance and cultural pride. So that’s how I might approach a defense to a challenge of racial stereotyping.
Part V: Reasons chosen
I’ve been reading alternative comics since my late teens. I found the Hernandez Brothers’ work in the 1980s to be window to other cultures and experiences that I wasn’t finding in “literature” that I was reading otherwise. I also enjoy comic artistry. This work blends a bit of those two elements that attract me to comics and graphic novels in particular. They are usually colorful, humorous and memorable -- American Born Chinese is all of those and more. For young adults, Yang offers a voice that is too often not heard in the media -- and Chinese American one, that is. His storytelling is engaging on the teen level as well since he’s very matter-of-fact in sharing about his fears and hopes but also funny and zany, too.
Part VI: Citations
Yang, Gene Luen. (2013). About [webpage]. Retrieved from http://geneyang.com/about
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