Monday, July 28, 2014

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. 

15 comments:

  1. Looks good. I'll have to see if it's available on the Comixology app.

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    1. Comixology... Hadn't been over there for a while but I just checked. They don't seem to have it. Amazon's got it for Kindle.

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    1. The challenges of Asian Americans have never really been explored, so this is an important book. Good find A.S.
      ***typo***

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    2. You're right. I think a lot of people look at Asian Americans as a success story as many have been quite successful in the upper-echelons of economic and academic society. They are over-represented at Ivy League colleges, for instance. But there's a lot more to the story: Japanese internment camps, deliberate efforts in Western cities to drive Asian populations out, insufficient credit for building the railroads, etc.

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  3. I think I've seen an excerpt from it. Would certainly be an interesting read.

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    1. Definitely high quality. A good intro to the medium for school age kids, too.

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  4. Looks awesome and I love the theme. Very important topic.

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  5. I bookmarked it on Amazon to buy later.

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    1. Excellent! If you read it, please let me know what you think.

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  6. "...strives to be accepted at the dinner parties of the other immortals."

    If I had a nickel for every time I felt that way. :-)

    On the legendary read list, right now, Squid Foo Young.

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    1. Well, it's summer. I seem to have hit a run of quick reads in my TBR stack, too. Regardless, I won't be pounding them out at this rate come September.

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