Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese. New York: Square Fish, 2006.
Genre: Graphic Novel
Intended Audience: 14 and up
Personal reaction to the book
American Born Chinese was an interesting graphic novel, one that I think I’m going to need some time to digest. It narrates three interlocking stories. The first is the tale of an ancient monkey warrior-god in Chinese mythology (or some imagined Chinese mythology). The second and ultimately the main story is about a young Chinese-American teen boy, Jin Wang, and his struggles to fit in with American culture. The final thread is about an American boy, Danny, and his Chinese cousin, Chin-Kee.
It’s not immediately clear how these three stories fit together which made it all the more satisfying when they intersected into one story.
At its heart, American Born Chinese is about the struggle for identity, both physical and cultural. I thought it was really cool the way that Yang was able to tie together all three storylines. At times the graphic novel is hard to read, especially the Chin-Kee and Danny storyline. Chin-Kee is an extreme depiction of all the cultural, racist stereotypes that people have of the Chinese. To me, an American whose ancestors haven’t emigrated to America in hundreds of years, I felt deeply the weight of these stereotypes and how my country has stereotyped Chinese and other Asians. I think this would be an important book to have in a library collection, and the ALA agrees seeing as it was a Printz winner.
Also, fun fact. My brother is a middle school English teacher, and he teaches this novel as part of his unit on graphic novels.
Author Facts
- Yang remembers, “I don’t remember who it was [but I heard] one of the big publishers predict that comics in America would go the way of poetry” sometime in the 90s. Clearly not!
- Yang teaches at Hamline University’s MFA program and always recommends his students tackle the project that scares them a little bit.
- Of YA literature, Yang states: “…I think my graphic novels fit pretty well in the YA category. Author Marsha Qualey says that an equation lies at the heart of all YA: Power + Belonging = Identity. That describes my stories, including Boxers & Saints. My characters long for power and belonging because they’re figuring out their place in the world, their identities.”
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