American Born Chinese in ABC by Gene Yang Essay

Hung conveys a lack of identity through her sad expression and highlights the conflict between individualism and tradition through the contrast in color. Growing up in an Asian family myself, I personally understand how one’s culture can be restricting. Asian culture in general can be quite strict and this portrait expresses an idea that I believe many young Asian-Americans can relate to. In most cases, Asian parents adhere to older traditions and enforce them on their children, ultimately limiting the extent of their individuality. For example, Asian culture promotes perfectionism in which we need to be the best in everything from academics to athletics. However perfectionism leaves no room for uniqueness and ultimately leaves an individual bland. Hung’s portrait captures this idea perfectly as her black and white profile resembles someone who was brought up to be “perfect” and thus lacks any kind of characteristics that would make her unique. As a result, she looks on to the possibilities of creativity and imagination, anything that would make her stand out. Consequently, she could have created this self-portrait to highlight her struggle against strict Chinese culture. Hung intended to show how she was held back from creative expression and thus conveys how she had no sense of identity. Essentially, creative expression is a crucial way in which someone can

Could you take a guess and tell from what culture a person is from by just listening to their voice? Could you also tell by looking to their appearance; The way they dress, the color of their skin, facial features? What about the way they carry their selves? Just like “The Chinese in All of Us” by Richard Rodriguez where he explains that he feels connected to all the cultures around America, with its “culture, a sound, an accent, a walk.” (Rodriguez 730). It does not mean and require that you must look a certain way to belong to a certain culture.

Through the personal stories of his hair, love life, and behavior, Liu is able to show the effects of his assimilation. The second section deals with Liu’s struggles to conform to white stereotypes as an Asian American. With his personal anecdotes, he establishes himself as a more credible source to speak on the subject of assimilation. The second section uses narration to provide evidence about Liu’s definition of assimilation.

Liu, like any other kid wanted to be cool. He shares that one major part of being cool, was to have the cool hairstyle. For most of his childhood, Liu sported a bowl cut. The new style in his school however was hair parted down the middle and tapered on the ends. With Liu’s Asian genes it was nearly impossible to accomplish this style. After a couple years of trying various different hair styles that did not suffice as cool, he finally became content with having a crew-cut. Liu also thought that because he was Asian, he had less of a chance to get girls. Liu insists that it was the “sole obstacle” to his “advancement” (Liu 20). His response to this was to do more school activities such as write for the school newspaper and join the school newspaper. Although he wanted to disconcert stereotypes, Liu states that this made him seem like a typical “Asian overachiever” (Liu 21). Another concern Liu had from his Chinese heritage was that he had never been taught American manners. When he went to a friend’s house to sleep over, he never said “thank you” for it. When he had dinner at a friend’s house he ate differently than the others. As he began to change the way he acted and talked at friend’s houses he began to realize that he was getting further and further away from his Asian heritage.

Stories and stereotypes make many people want to change themselves negatively and assimilate just to fit in with society. As time passes, society’s stereotypes for how people of each race should be, which race is more dominant than others, and which race you should be, all play a role in impacting someone’s self-esteem and their insecurities. This is portrayed through Jin Wang, a main character in Gene Luen Yang’s “American Born Chinese” when Jin Wang thinks his crush, Amelia, he instantly becomes happy. But then he thinks about Greg and Amelia together and gets mad. He finally zooms into Greg’s blond hair. The next day he goes to school with the same hairstyle. The hair symbolizes Greg’s all American identity because the stereotypical American is portrayed with blond hair and blue eyes. To Jin Wang, this hair symbolizes what he wants to be, so he changed his hair to an “American” hairstyle to get Amelia to like him. Due to stereotypes about how Americans are suppose to look like, Jin Wang feels insecure about himself and wants to change his identity and himself as well to assimilate into American culture and stereotypes. These stereotypes and the Anti-Asian stereotypes impact Jin Wang greatly and make him hate himself as well as his background and where he came from because he believes that in order to be AMerica, you have to be white. Another way that this is portrayed is from a personal experience I had as a kid. Growing up as an Asian kid in America, I didn’t really know

The Chinese Experience records the history of the Chinese in the United States. The three-part documentary shows how the first arrivals from China, their descendants, and recent immigrants have “become American.” It is a story about identity and belonging that is relative to all Americans. The documentary is divided into three programs, each with a focus on a particular time in history. Program 1 describes the first arrivals from China, beginning in the early 1800’s and ending in 1882, the year Congress passed the first Chinese exclusion act. Program 2, which details the years of exclusion and the way they shaped and distorted Chinese American

The tale “American Born Chinese” by Gene Luch Wang depicts the story of three characters, Monkey, Jin, and Danny. They all have the problem of fitting into their new environments. Jin Wang has to deal with Asian stereotypes. Danny has to deal with embarrassment of his cousin. Lastly, Monkey has to deal with the fact that there is no position for him in the heavenly ranks. However, over time, these characters have to come together to fit in. Yet the question remains: what exactly about fitting in is the problem? Although Jin Wang takes the form of Danny to reject his Chinese roots, the embarrassment of Chin-Knee shows he cannot hide behind a false American identity, thereby delineating that race is the source of his problem.

Fae Myenne Ng is a contemporary Chinese-American author who is known for her first written novel, Bone. Her debut novel was published in 1993 and the story is told through the eyes of the main character, Leila Leong. Leila tells the story of her family’s history and the events that unfold following the suicide of her sister. As Leila’s story progresses, themes of identity and family life are revealed. Leila and her two sisters border the line between American and Chinese, two distinct cultures that belong to very different worlds. The sisters deal with the struggles of assimilation as they grow up in the seclusive community of Chinatown only to live in an American world. The family life of the Leong

A world once filled with Asian friends and neighbors crashes harshly as Jin is left stranded in a white dominated school. Stereotypes and teasing are quickly placed on him from his racial background. Still new to the area, Jin presumes, “The only other Asian in my class was Suzy Nakamura. When the class finally figured out that we weren’t related, rumors began to circulate that Suzy and I were arranged to be married on her thirteenth birthday. We avoided each other as much as possible” (Yang 31). Embarrassment clouds Jin as he realizes that he’s not like the other kids in his class. With distinct features and his native tongue, Jin felt like a reject surrounded by his Caucasian classmates. He was entirely alone amongst his peers, and he didn’t like that one single bit. In this way, it’s clear how both Junior and Jin felt like outcasts in these two oceans of white students and teachers.

After the first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States in the early 1840s during the California Gold Rush, many Chinese people continued to travel across the Pacific, escaping poor conditions in China with hopes and ambitions for a better life in America. Many more Chinese immigrants began arriving into the 1860s on the Pacific coast for work in other areas such as the railroad industry. The immigrants noticed an increasing demand for their labor because of their readiness to work for low wages. Many of those who arrived did not plan to stay long, and therefore there was no push for their naturalization. The immigrants left a country with thousands of years of a “decaying feudal system,” corruption, a growing

Jack’s predicament with finding himself being stuck between his original lifestyle and new desire to fit in was cleverly established in the story, drawing my sympathy, as I have also personally experienced this struggle. In the middle of the story when Jack began to realize that his Chinese life was different from others’, he narrated, “Mom learned to cook American style. I played video games and studied French” (4). These succinct sentences stood out, as the surrounding

All women are too sensitive! All Mexicans are illegal immigrants! If you’re from the South, then you are ignorant! Most people have heard at least one of these stereotypes pertaining to a certain group. Some people believe them whilst others do not. American Born Chinese illustrates three stories depicting the custom of stereotypes surrounding society: “The Monkey King”, the story of Monkey King’s thirst for infinite power, and his quest for atonement; “Jin Wang”, the story an awkward boy who tries to “fit in” the community around from but constantly fails; and “Danny”, the story about a high schooler who feels uncomfortable by his stereotypically negative Chinese cousin Chin-Kee. In this day-and-age, stereotypes are what bring people

     The focus of our group project is on Chinese Americans. We studied various aspects of their lives and the preservation of their culture in America. The Chinese American population is continually growing. In fact, in 1990, they were the largest group of Asians in the United States (Min 58). But living in America and adjusting to a new way of life is not easy. Many Chinese Americans have faced and continue to face much conflict between their Chinese and American identities. But many times, as they adapt to this new life, they are also able to preserve their Chinese culture and identity through various ways. We studied these things through the viewing of a movie called Joy Luck Club,

The book I chose for my reading group is American Born Chinese. It is a graphic novel based on several characters that all have differences and face adversity. These characters cannot fix their problems by themselves, but they can help each other and need to find out how. The author of this book is Gene Luen Yang. Gene is known for his talent at writing graphic novels. Some of his previous works include; Avatar the Last Airbender, Level Up, The Shadow Hero, and Boxers and Saints which was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award. Boxers and Saints was also the winner of the 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in YA literature. Along with Gene’s interest in writing graphic novels, he also teaches computer science to students at a Catholic high

In the process, Jack ignores his cultural identity in the pursuit of social acceptance, resulting in hostile behavior toward his mother and a loss of his individualism. Prompted by societal pressures, Jack’s assimilation to the prevalent American culture around him deteriorates his relationship with his own culture, as Liu uses Jack’s detachment with the origami to emphasize the loss of his Chinese identity.