On the Coffee Table: Gene Luen Yang

Title: American Born Chinese
Writer and Artist: Gene Luen Yang

via Goodreads

Gene Luen Yang's highly acclaimed graphic novel American Born Chinese begins as three separate stories.  The first is based on the Chinese folk tale of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.  Sun Wukong strives to be accepted at the dinner parties of the other immortals.  In the second, Jin, a Chinese-American boy strives to be accepted at his California school.  The third is the strangest. Danny, an average, seemingly Caucasian kid, is embarrassed by his cousin Chin-Kee who embodies every cringe-inducing Chinese stereotype imaginable.  I'll admit that I didn't understand how the three threads interrelated until they were expertly woven together by the end.  That trick alone makes the book worth reading.

American Born Chinese reminded me quite a lot of Approved for Adoption, a movie we saw at the Green Mountain Film Festival in March (review here, fourth movie down).  The situations are different, of course.  Jin's background is Chinese, born to immigrant parents in the US.  Approved for Adoption's Jung was born in Korea, then adopted into a Belgian family.  There are similar themes, nonetheless.  Both Jin and Jung deliberately avoided friendships with other Asian kids, for instance.  American Born Chinese is a much lighter tale than Approved for Adoption and probably more accessible to children as a result.

Yang's book is a powerful reminder that we still have a lot of work to do to achieve the pluralistic society we claim as an American ideal.