americanbornchinesebookreview

Maddy Ecker English 8-4 October 24, 2008

American Born Chinese: a Cry Against Racism

If you have ever felt like a minority than you know what it feels like to be Jin. Jin Wang is one of the main characters in Gene Yang’s award winning graphic novel American Born Chinese. In this book the perspectives change every chapter, from three different people, or in one case a monkey. All three protagonists face the same problems throughout the book and struggle to overcome them. The Gods do not respect the Monkey King, the ruler of Flower Fruit Mountain, just because he is a monkey. They all look down on him in a condescending way. He must find a way to stop worrying about what the Gods think of him and remember how much he loved being a monkey. Throughout the book you see Jin, a Chinese-American, struggling through grade school and junior high. He and his best friend Wei-Chen from Taiwan, have to deal with many racist comments from other students including “Chink” and other racial slurs. The last story we looked into deals with the life of an American high school student named Danny. Every year his cousin Chin-Kee comes to visit him from Asia. Chin-Kee is an overly exaggerated racial stereotype. When he comes to visit he brings his clothes in Chinese takeout boxes and he always gets his L’s and R’s mixed up. Danny must let Chin-Kee come to school with him until his visit is over and he is a huge embarrassment to Danny. American Born Chinese makes you stop and think about who you are. It made me appreciate what I have and I realized that if you love who you are you can save yourself from loads of trouble and insecurity. Gene Yang has also made this world a better place to live in. He has confronted racism, which is the first step to overcoming it. The book illustrates how many people are affected by this problem in our society. It isn’t just the person who is discriminated against that is hurt but the attacker and the onlooker too. I loved the book because I learned so much from it. Gene Yang’s pictures made the book a joy to read. When you read the book you really had to think about it and try to consider what the author meant by a certain phrase. What emotion was he trying to provoke? What point was he trying to make? I never thought that a graphic novel could be so meaningful and thought provoking. Seventh to tenth graders of any gender would enjoy this book immensely. I would also recommend this book to any comic lovers. No matter who you are it never hurts to have more tolerance for different ethnic groups and nationalities and to celebrate those differences in each of us.