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Ethnic heritage is important to Gene Luen Yang, the author of our next Graphic novel, American Born Chinese. As Yang compiled his notes to write his semi-autobiographical story of childhood, he decided to focus on three distinct story lines. He was confident his readers would weave the three story lines together, for in Yang’s words, “Comic book readers are some of the smartest people I know."
The first story line was on the age-old Chinese fable of the Monkey King: Journey to the West. Monkey is different from all the other deities. He is rejected because he is not human. Disturbed that he does not fit in, he masters the twelve levels of Kung-fu so he will look more human. Suddenly, Monkey King finds himself buried under a pile of rocks for five hundred years. Once Monkey King realizes he is comfortable as a monkey, as himself, he becomes small enough to escape from under the burden of rocks. As we can imagine, this story teaches acceptance of identity and working with what one has. This theme will be important in Yang’s novel as he, too, reflects on his own experience as Asian -American. Monkey King’s quest is a deep yet fun book to explore.
The second story line involves a character, Jin Wang, whose name, supposedly, is an American corruption of the pronunciation of Gene Yang. Symbolically, Yang shows his readers how misunderstood and stereotyped people can be.
The third story line involves a drawing Yang saved from elementary school of a bucktooth Chinese. To point to racism, Yang uses Cousin Chin-Kee to demonstrate derogatory names Chinese are sometimes called.
American Born Chinese is a graphic novel and a coming-of-age story, a bildungsroman. Just as most novels for teens stress the theme of Coming of Age, going from innocence to maturity, so does Yang’s novel.
At the end of this lesson, students will:
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