Through three entwined plots, American Born Chinese explores relationship and identity development. The first storyline is a retelling of the Monkey King; the second is about a friendship between an American born Chinese (Jin) and a Taiwan-born Chinese (Wei-Chen); and the third is about a teenage boy (Danny) and his stereotypical Chinese cousin Chin-Kee).
Through Jin's friendship with Wei-Chen and his developing romantic interest in Amelia, American Born Chinese demonstrates developing stable and productive peer relationships (Havighurst) and appeals to the needs of the social self (Hughes-Hassell and Agosto).
After being thrown out of a dinner party, the Monkey King becomes ashamed of his bare feet and demands that all his monkey subjects wear shoes. It takes being trapped under a mountain of rock for five hundred years for him to realize that he is a monkey and monkeys do not need to wear shoes. Similarly, Jin is so embarrassed by his heritage that he rejects it completely and turns into Danny. Both the Monkey King and Jin's experiences appeal to a YA's development of a personal sense of identity and their need for information on forming self-image.
Chink-Kee is the embodiment of negative Chinese stereotypes: his outfit and hairstyle are reminiscent of the political cartoons of the 1880s, during the Chinese Exclusion Act, he knows the answer to every question the teacher asks, he eats "clispy flied cat gizzards wiff noodles" and his singing would probably embarrass William Hung. By including a character like Chin-Kee, Yang allows his readers to challenge their stereotypes and develop their personal value system.
Finally, the graphic novel hints at the disconnect between American-born Chinese and foreign-born Chinese. When Jin justifies kissing Suzy, he says to Wei-Chen, "Maybe I think she can do better than a FOB like you." By making readers aware of these tensions among Chinese Americans, Yang helps the reader develop cultural competency and cultural identity.
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2 comments:
I don't normally enjoy graphic novels, but this one was funny and held my interest with great, subtle illustrations. I expected the story to be solely about Jin's awkwardness growing up as a Chinese-American student, but instead American Born Chinese was far more about his friendship with Wei-Chen, plus the other two intertwining stories Diana mentioned. I liked all the characters, but thought Chink-Kee was a little too outrageous. I'm not in to political correctness at all, and I understood what the author ws trying to do with his personality, but he just seemed too over the top and negatively stereotypical for my tastes. Aside from that complaint, the stor(ies) are well told and memorable, and they have a very important message about friendship to share.
I really hate that I was sick for this discussion. It's a good graphic novel, and I really enjoyed re-reading it. I also met Gene Yang a couple years ago at Comic Con. Interestingly, he didn't use the monster multi-volume novel "The Journey to the West" as his source for the Monkey King's adventures. He knows of the novel, but used a YA version of the Monkey King stories as his primary source.
This is an unusually complex narrative, and can be confusing at times. It all comes together in the end, but I think it's a hard starting point for most readers that are new to comics. That having been said, though, it's a really entertaining book. I'll admit, I sometimes feel like I'm much more of Yang's target audience than most white Americans-- I read comics, and I practice Chinese martial arts. I'm also a big fan of Sun Wu-Kung, the Handsome Monkey King.
I agree that Chin-Kee is a much more outrageous character than I'm comfortable with as a reader. I don't think it's overstating to say he's grotesque. However, I think Yang wants to take the reader outside of his comfort zone in ABC, and Chin-Kee accomplishes this. I don't just wince when I see that character, I kinda writhe.
I really like the point that Diana made, that Chin-Kee looks a lot like something out of a 19th century cartoon. In the U.S. today, we like to see racism as something that exists in the past. Over and over again, though, it reaches up and smacks us in the present, and we feel stupid and primitive all over again.
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