American Born Chinese

Text: American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

I really enjoyed this book. I don't read a lot of graphic novels so this was really different and fun to read for me! I loved the illustrations and color choices and thought it added so much to the story and made it even more enjoyable to read.

Here was my initial review on Goodreads: A really creative graphic novel on what it means to be an Asian-American and the challenges that can come with battling stereotypes and accepting one’s culture. I loved the interconnectedness of three stories. I thought this text was well crafted and a great reminder to remember our roots. It was also a very quick and fun read!

My initial thought while reading the book was that I really did not like the sections of the book that were about Cousin Chin-Kee. They made me really uncomfortable and I just kept thinking to myself "oh my gosh this so blatantly stereotyping it is really hard to read," but I think that was entirely the point. It was supposed to make the reader uncomfortable, and to show the reader how outlandish some of the stereotypes against Asian cultures are.

Once the three different stories became connected towards the end of the book I had a huge epiphane...The sections about Chin-Kee were meant to show the stereotypes that Jin carried with him and was trying to escape as an Asian-American. Him turning into Danny was his way of trying to adopt a new identity so he could escape the harsh stereotyping that has been done to him since being in school.

I would absolutely like to teach this book because I think it is a great way to examine the impact of stereotypes on different cultures, and especially the impact of negative stereotypes. I also think this book provides a different type of text that students would be attracted to because of the graphics and short text.