American Born Chinese

A fantastic graphic novel about identity and the desire to belong.

Yang weaves three separate story lines together in surprising ways with an interesting intersection at the end. Jin Wang is a schoolboy who wants nothing more than to fit in with his classmates. He's willing to go to great lengths to have a bestfriend and a girlfriend. The Monkey King is snubbed at a gathering of the gods and denies his true self in an attempt to be accepted. His rebellion, punishment, and redemption are taken from the 16th-century Chinese novel, Journey to the West. Chin-kee is the embodiment of negative stereotype Americans have about the Chinese. Together these three stories explore what it means to be different.

In his afterword the author writes about show more the overwhelming response he has had from people.

"What I've found is that the outsider's experience is nearly universal. Almost all of us have a story about not fitting in. It's so common that, ironically, it can be a way for us to understand and connect with one another. The outsider's experience can be our common ground." show less

In American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang alternates between a fictionalized account of his youth, the story of the Monkey King from Wu Cheng’en’s Journey to the West, and a satirical account of Chin-Kee, who represents the unkind way that Anglo-Americans view Chinese and Asian immigrants as well as personifying the identity that Chinese-Americans seek to repudiate in order to be seen as more than their ethnicity. His use of humor and dynamic character designs will help this story reach all audiences and give them a greater understanding of the immigrant and first-generation experience, though filtered through Yang’s unique perspective. Disney+ recently adapted this series, but they left out Chin-Kee. Even though the character show more fulfills a valuable narrative purpose, such an overtly racist caricature would not work well for a corporate streaming service’s production. show less

21. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (2006, 233 page paperback, Read Mar 18)

Yang mixes his experiences being raised in the United States by Chinese-born and culturally Chinese parents with stories from Chinese mythology. Not knowing anything about Chinese mythology, I thought the combined effect was terrific. He includes a brutal picture of how American culture portrays Chinese in America.

It's funny how things work, but while reading I really enjoyed the Chinese mythology aspect, but in hindsight I mainly remember the racist aspect. Yang creates a virtual sitcom where a "normal" American adolescent boy in a perfect little world is visited and horrified by his Chinese cousin who fits every Chinese racial extreme - smiling, talking show more funny, eating disgusting food and knowing everything, all marked by canned laughter. This sitcom story is just randomly mixed in between the stories of a monkey god kicked out of heaven and of something that probably closely resembles Yang's actual adolescence. Then at the end Yang puts together how both the "normal" boy and the Chinese boy are both aspects of his self image - of what he wants to be and what he fears. And his inability to deal with or understand who he is.

I don't think I actually expected to like this. Instead I found it a terrific graphic novel that I expect I will remember.

2015
https://www.librarything.com/topic/185746#5112787 show less

this book is my reward for not giving up on the graphic format. it is so well done and poignant, and the drawings are simple (mostly; well, i just mean not super intricate) but convey a lot. the three separate stories overlap thematically in a way that adds depth to each of them. i didn't expect them to come together the way they did - or at all, really, since i thought it was more of a parallel theme kind of thing. but bringing it all together that way wrapped it up nicely, and showed the way folktale and dreams can integrate into real life in a nice way.

this is a powerful and impressive story about fitting in, about not being in the dominant culture, about what you might give up to be accepted by that culture. also about adolescence show more in general and how much friendship can mean.

this is really, really good. show less

This is a perfect example of how graphic novels are, in fact, real fiction. …I’m actually not sure anyone says that anymore, but if they did, this could be your counterargument!

Content warnings:
- racism, racist caricatures & racist imagery (these last two are BIG -- proceed with caution)
- antisemitism

Representation:
- the main character, his family, and his best friend are Chinese
- the best friend’s girlfriend is Japanese

American Born Chinese is about three seemingly separate stories that come together in the end:
1). Jin Wang is the only Chinese American kid at his school, and all he wants to do is fit in and get the “All-American girl” of his dreams to notice him. Unfortunately what he gets is the attention of bullies, the show more racist ignorance of his peers and teachers, and an ever-growing feeling of shame.
2). The monkey king is a character from one of the oldest of all Chinese stories: The Journey to the West. He’s a shapeshifter who has mastered all of the disciplines needed to achieve immortality, but he still isn’t satisfied: as the other immortals point out, he’s still a monkey. This won’t do.
3). Danny is a popular white boy whose life is “ruined” by his cousin’s annual visits. His cousin, whose name is “Chin-Kee”, and who is an outright racist caricature of a Chinese person. Every year Danny feels so embarrassed after Chin-Kee’s visits that he needs to change schools.

This graphic novel was one of the more satisfying reads of this year -- and of last year too. I’m white, so it’s hard for me to comment much on the appearance of the literal racist caricature or how he made me feel. Or how he should make anyone else feel. I’m not an immigrant either, so much of the book’s themes weren’t speaking to me as the audience, even though I could relate it to elements of my life.

Even so, I found the book powerful, especially to be talking about a part of the non-white immigrant experience that isn’t talked about much these days in YA literature (the shame, the embarrassment, and the later acceptance rather than JUST the overwhelming pride). (This isn’t me knocking on one of them; both are important)

From an actual novel standpoint, the story is beautifully crafted. While it starts of fairly slow (and a bit confusing: what does this monkey king have to do with Jin Wang in the US?), by the time things pick up and there’s a feeling that these stories aren’t as separate as you previously thought it’s time to give up going to bed. You’re reading till the end. There’s so much to reflect upon after reading too -- little details you didn’t catch about each story but now see after they came together were purposefully added.

This is a hard book to rate/review, but I’ll have to rate it as I enjoyed it and how I felt after the experience. show less

Aaaaah! Surprise! Delight! The Monkey King, a little Chinese-American boy, and Chin-kee the Bionic Racial Stereotype star in three separate affecting/hilarious stories that come together toward the end in a neat and surprising way. In a weird kind of way, I feel like my spiritual home is in a nonspecific Asia. Or maybe that's not so weird, coming from the west coast. Maybe the nonspecific Asia in question is Vancouver's Chinatown, or the Island of the Blue Dolphins.

Entertaining and illuminating. Yang's interwoven tales, backed by wonderful illustrations, present the issues of assimilation and identity in ways that are funny, touching and refreshingly original. (Even the story of the Monkey King, which I've seen and heard before, gets an unique twist that dovetails perfectly with Yang's themes.) I almost skipped one of the three narrative strands because of a character's very stereotyped depiction (being an American-born Chinese myself, I found that content rather painful to read), but stick with it -- there's a good reason he's that way.