American Born Chinese Character Analysis

Gene Luen Yang’s writing style in his graphic novel, American Born Chinese, demonstrate great technique of suspense and foreshadowing. Yang grew up with two parents who were an electrical engineer from Taiwan and a programmer who grew up in Hong Kong and Taiwan, both of whom emigrated to the United States. His experiences follow this book’s plot and his writing style follows exactly how he may have felt during that part of his life. His parents helped give him a strong work ethic and reinforced their Asian culture to make sure he was never ashamed of where he came from.

Jin Wang was born in America but is also Chinese. He faces some difficulties with racism and stereotypes as he grows up. He just moved to a new school from San Francisco. The teacher introduces him to the class and says,” Class, I'd like us all to give a warm Mayflower Elementary welcome to your new friend and Classmate Jin Wang...He and his family recently moved to our neighborhood all the way from China!”(30). Jin has this look on his face of annoyance. Like, did she actually say this. She is too ignorant to ask so she just assumed that since he is Chinese, that he must be from China. He was born in America. This just shows how ignorant people are about other cultures. It makes it even harder to fit in if people don't even care where you're from and just make assumptions. Jin now experiences this first hand. He tries so hard to fit in and be normal. He goes as far as changing his hair to match the guys hair that Amelia likes. When he isn't noticed as much he wants to become someone else, someone who will fit in. He wakes up in the morning a new person, as he has transformed into someone he is not, he thinks to himself,”A new face deserved a new name. I decided to call myself...Danny”(198). He changed his race he didn't like his heritage and cultures so much

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

Many new arrivals still struggle to survive and often Chinese Americans still encounter suspicion and hostility. Chinese Americans have achieved great success and now, like so many others, they are stitching together a new American identity. As Michelle Ling, a young Chinese American, tells Bill Moyers in Program 3, “I get to compose my life one piece at a time, however I feel like it. Not to say that it’s not difficult and that there isn’t challenge all the time, but more than material wealth, you get to choose what you are, who you are.” (www.pbs.org)

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.

‘The Chinese in All of Us’ is an essay written by Richard Rodriguez. Rodriguez is a first generation American, who’s a son of a working class Mexican immigrant. Author of a thin book called Hunger of Memory, that summarized the memories of how he became Americanized, Rodriguez shares how he believes we all are blending and being fluid with individualism but unifying as Americans.

THESIS - When evaluating Arnold “Junior” Spirit from Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Jin Wang from Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, similarities radiate in both characters as their disparity in race deem the two of them as outcasts in the entirety of society. In addition to their lack of social interactions, their uniformity in their impulsive decisions cost them each a dear friend. Although Junior and Jin are quite similar, they share differences in the way Junior tries bettering himself by fitting into both his Indian and Reardan culture whereas Jin changes himself in every possible way to become Americanized.

     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,

Throughout many of the reading this semester, we have encounter serious racism. In some cases the individual being a target of racism in turn exhibits acts of racism themselves. The anger that these character feels can cause them to label all individuals in a group as racist, which isn't fair at all. Some of the characters lose themselves due to racism. They try to fit to the ways of another culture that is more excepted than theirs.

Racism in this country has been prevalent over centuries now, and still a huge hindrance in the United States of America. Racism has a huge history with scholars documenting the long illustrious reasons and root causes as to why this has become such a major topic of issue in the United States and its psychological and social obliterations in the society.

Throughout the existence of humans, racism have been apparent and has not gone away. It has been a behavioral trait that guardians may unknowingly pass down to their children. In my HWOC class I have read two American classics, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and A Raisin In The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Both these novels exhibit the “American Dilemma” also known as racism. Some other types of text I have read is the visual text American Denial and “The Death of Emmett Till” by Bob Dylan.

As a chinese man, Hsi-tseng Tsiang faced many problems with racism, he was even imprisoned for immigration charges. In Hsi-tseng Tsiang’s poem, “Chinaman, Laundryman”, he portrays the aspect of racism through a laundry man, who suffers from internalized racism from his boss. As of today, many still suffer from racism. Hsi-Tseng Tsiang has raised awareness, but no matter how many people work to raise awareness of racism, it seems to never have an

Is an individual's identity shaped by their experience? In the graphic novel American Born Chinese written by Gene Luen Yang, readers are introduced to many different characters who are involved in a conflict between who they really are and who they want to be. Throughout the novel Readers get to follow along three main characters and their journey as they begin to discover who they really are. The characters also discover the real meaning of true identity and how they can only change it by accepting it.

Discrimination plays a big role in our society, as it affects the mindset of people to make racial taunts to other cultural communities. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang shows how there is ethical discrimination among American teens who face stereotypical adversities. Jin Wang the main character in this novel faces a loss in self-confidence because of the discrimination and conflict against him being Chinese. Second, there is an introduction of Danny who is Jin’s alter ego, and who Jin wants to be like. Danny is an, all American, good at basketball and well known around girls.

“7 Chinese Brothers”, whose title suggests a gangster Asian movie or a martial arts adventure, is an insubstantial American indie comedy, containing a few good, if immature, ideas that drive us into a dead end. Jason Schwartzman, habitual presence in Wes Anderson’s comedies and the star in the astute comedy-drama ‘Listen Up Philip’ by Alex Ross Perry, who also appears briefly here as an actor, bestows odd movements, imbecilic facial expressions, and a reckless posture, in a performance that attempts to give shape to his character: Larry, the slacker. Fired from his job for stealing money from the tips’ jar, Larry, who often embarks in French monologues and nonreversible chats with his equally lazy dog, finds another job in the Quick-Lube garage