American Born Chinese Analysis

It is inevitable that people will be prejudice towards those who are a minority, especially when they are a person of color standing out. This is especially apparent in children because going to school at a young age, children do not have a filter in between what is right and what is wrong. Being born in a different country and then coming to America with different everyday traditions really demonstrates this in a first-person point of view. As these children grow up you see two different sides of the spectrum; the kids who judge, and the kids who get judged. Being on the side where people are getting made fun of constantly makes them want to change their values and be ashamed of their heritage. In the Graphic Novel, American Born Chinese,

Yang uses transformation in three of his story arcs to show how conforming hinders the characters from being their true selves and embracing their culture to persuade students to overcome racial adversity. In the graphic novel’s first story arc, the monkey king’s story shows readers the ignorance of the Monkey King and how this relates to students’ insecurities. Overall, the author ties the Monkey King's story in with the other two stories to make everything at the end of the book relevant. The Monkey King tries to fit in at dinner parties and with other deities, when he realizes they all judge him and think less of him because he is a monkey. They bring up judgments about how he does not wear shoes and then becomes very insecure about that specific comment, which becomes a main symbol of the story (Page 24, Panel 2). This symbol represents an insecurity for the children that have grown up in different cultures but are surrounded by American

This is the first of multiple transformations that we see figuratively and literally. Jin goes to a new elementary school and not only do all students think he is a FOB (fresh off the boat), the teacher does as well. White students make fun of his name, food, assume he eats dogs and cats, assumes the other Asian girl is his relative or an arranged marriage (Page 40, Panel 4). This shows the constant stereotyping that is in America and helps teachers or students realize what it can do to American born immigrants in the long run. Jin is young and as he grows, he will want to become of what is around him. This can be the beginning of a so called “transformation” because of the people in his school judging him for having different values although he is mostly already what Americans call normal for themselves. As he keeps growing older and not being let into the groups of friends that he wants he finally befriends the only other Asian kid in his school which feeds more into his stereotype. Day by day, year by year, Jin doesn’t want to be the Asian person he has always been. When he asks Amelia, a white classmate to hangout, a white boy asks Jin to stay away from her because he doesn’t want Amelia to hang out with the wrong people since Asians are viewed as abnormal. In an attempt to transform himself, because being Asian is not cool, he wishes very much to become a