Module 5 – American Born Chinese

image from www.amazon.com

Yang, G.L. (2006) American Born Chinese. New York, NY: First Second Books.

Summary –

American Born Chinese, a graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang, and winner of the Printz Award and Eisner Award, interweaves three major story arc into one.  First of all, it tells the story of the Monkey King, a character of Chinese folk tales, who is determined to prove to all the other deities that he is The Great Sage, and Equal of Heaven. His hubris attracts the attention of Tze-You-Tzuh, “He who is”, the master of all and creator of the universe.  Imprisoned under a mountain of rocks for 500 years, the Monkey King eventual learns to accept his nature and be happy to live as a monkey. After he accepts his role in life, he becomes the disciple of an itinerant monk named Wong Lai-Tsao. Secondly, it tells the story of Jin Wang, a second generation Chinese immigrant trying to fit in at a middle school in the suburbs, where the only other Asian kid in his class is Suzy Nakamura. Eventually, another boy from Taiwan, Wie-Chen Sun, joins his class and the two slowly become best friends. The third story is that of Danny and Cousin Chin-Kee. Danny is a blond haired, blue eyed American teen, and his cousin Chin-Kee is portrayed using every possible horrible racist stereotype of a Chinese immigrant.  Chin-Kee’s crazy antics embarrass Danny so much that he’s had to move from school to school to avoid all the taunts from his fellow classmates. The three stories finally intersect at the end in an interesting plot twist (which I hate to reveal for those who have not read the book). But in all, the story is a great lesson in learning to accept yourself for what you are, regardless of what others may think of you.

Lucien’s thoughts –

Ever since this book won an Eisner Award, it’s been on my to-do list.  I’m glad this class gave me the opportunity to read it, since it is a lovely book.  The three parallel story lines (each a slightly different genre: folk-tale, realistic fiction, and satire) are all told in simple language and beautifully illustrated.  The writing is clear and engaging, and the main story of Jin Wang’s struggles fitting in at school are universal: he has to deal with bullies, his feelings for a girl in his class, and his desire to fit in.  While the novel is particularly interesting for immigrant readers for its intriguing exploration into the challenges of cultural assimilation, it’s a story that all can enjoy and learn from.  The story of the Monkey King is told mostly as a parable for learning to accept yourself, although I found the message to be a bit didactic. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book quite a bit and think this graphic novel belongs in every library that services an ESL population.  Yang’s novel of self-acceptance and the power of friendship is well worth a read.

Librarian’s use –

This is a graphic novel that talks about the value of friendship.  One activity that comes to mind is asking help from a school’s art teacher to have the audience make a comic book illustrating how they met their best friend. Two things that can be highlighted are the conventions of using square boxes to provide narrator’s voice and word balloons to give the characters' speech. They can then tell a story in their own words and pictures about their best friend, focusing on what text belongs in a narrator’s box and what text belongs as characters' speech.

Other reviews –

Blasingame, J. (2007). American born Chinese. English journal , 97 (1), 99.

Yang's book is a seamless blend of three genres: a Chinese fable, a realistic/problem novel, and a parody/satire. That a graphic novel can successfully envelop three distinct genres proves the point Kristin Fletcher-Spear, Merideth Jenson-Benjamin, and Teresa Copeland make in their ALAN Review article "The Truth about Graphic Novels: A Format, Not a Genre" (32.2: 37-44). By using facial expressions and body gestures, and by varying the angle of perspective, Yang provides information that goes beyond what the print text can offer. The format allows for visual clues such as hairstyles: When Jin Wang's social ostracism becomes nearly unbearable, he adopts the hairstyle of his school's alpha male, Greg. Danny has the same hairstyle, which is a subtle suggestion of his true identity, revealed at the novel's end.

American Born Chinese is both comical and heart-wrenching. Yang successfully pokes fun at ignorant teachers who cannot get Asian students' names right, who assume that Chinese social customs entail all kinds of bizarre practices, and who think anyone with an Asian name must be a newly arrived immigrant. Much of the story illustrates the hurt and harm done to kids who are from minority ethnic backgrounds and cultural heritages. Jin's classmates are forever making racial jokes and figuratively and literally slipping in ethnic slurs.

The pacing has the quickness afforded by a graphic format, facilitating and adding to the reading. Yang is not only a brilliant storyteller but also a gifted cartoonist, and the synergy of these two talents makes American Born Chinese more than it could have been as just a print-text book.

Fu, B. (2007). American born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang. MELUS, 32 (3), 274-276.

Nominated for the 2006 National Book Award in the Young People's Literature category, American Born Chinese is mature in artistic design and visually engaging. Yet what makes it especially appealing to both young and mature readers is its narrative depth. Juxtaposing three seemingly unrelated story lines, the novel opens with a retelling of the story of the Monkey King, the renowned mythic hero in Chinese folklore. The second tale, a Bildungsroman, illustrates how Jin Wang... struggles to survive exclusion and racist bullying in his search for an identity in a predominantly white suburban school. In the third narrative thread, Chin-Kee, a deluxe combo of the worst racial stereotypes involving Asian Americans, pays an annual visit to his cousin Danny in America, turning the latter's school life into a nightmare. By the end of the novel, however, the three separate tales are cleverly woven together in a dramatic climax, highlighting the work's focus on ethnic self-acceptance and empowerment...

If the Monkey King serves as a source of cultural empowerment in Jin Wang's personal development, Chin-Kee's character appears to be the monkey's evil double. He is provocatively repulsive and hilariously funny at the same time. An intruder into the American classroom, he sings "She Bang, She Bang" (a la the well-known American Idol contestant William Hung) while dancing grotesquely in a traditional Chinese dress on a desk. His spittle which is rumored to have spread SARS around the school-and his home-made "Clispy Flied Cat Gizzards wiff Noodle" (114) make him an ultimate spectacle of racial degradation. Yet he is also wickedly smart and subversive, reminding the reader of the Monkey King himself. The blatant racial stereotype that Chin-Kee stands for has long denied Asians a place in American culture. Yet, in Yang's novel, when Chin-Kee finally reveals his true identity, he emerges as the epitome of transformation and subversion.

Song, M. H. (2010). “How good it is to be a monkey”: Comics, racial formation, and American Born Chinese. Mosaic: A journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature, 43 (1), 73-92.

Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese demonstrates the difficulty of following the development of Asian American racial formations. It does so through the skillful use of its medium, comics, prompting readers to consider how much the meaning of race has changed, in what ways, and where this change might lead.

More than any other racial minority in the United States, Asian Americans have found their status as a racial minority complicated by claims of their many apparent economic successes. At the same time, they remain battered by perceptions that they are somehow alien to the nation… Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese stands out as particularly focused on this problem. In this work, past and present ways of thinking about Asian Americans collapse into each other. As a result, readers are encouraged to ponder how much race thinking has changed, in what ways, and where this change might be leading. American Born Chinese prompts such a response by employing the unique qualities of its medium, comics, to reflect back to the reader the difficulty of following the development of Asian American racial formations... Yang stands out for his willingness to bend the conventions of genre storytelling to contribute to his realist aspirations. Yang's work is thus situated between the twin poles of realism and genre fiction that currently seem to divide creative work in this medium in the United States, resulting in narratives that appeal to, and are suitable for, both mature and young adult readers. At the same time, because his works are longer, they have more room to tell fairly involved stories and to develop a theme at length

Module 3 – Grandfather’s Journey

image from www.amazon.com

Say, A. (1993). Grandfather’s journey. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Summary –

The author recounts the story of his grandfather’s travels as a young man, when he left Japan in a steamship to visit North America.  His grandfather traveled all across America in a variety of transportation modes: train, boat, and by foot.  He loved seeing new places and longed to travel even more; he met people of all different backgrounds.  He finally returned to Japan to marry a wife, and the two of them moved to San Francisco, where they raised a daughter (the author’s mother). Once she was nearly grown, they returned to Japan, where she married and had a little boy (the author as a child). The author remembers his grandfather fondly recounting the beauty of California, land that he loved. Although his grandfather planned to cross the Pacific once more, war came, and scattered their lives like leaves in the wind.  Grandfather’s house in the city was destroyed, and he returned to the village where he grew up.  Although the grandfather never got a chance to return to his beloved California, the author honored his grandfather’s memory and visited California once he was a young man.  He stayed there and raised a daughter of his own, occasionally returning to the rivers and mountains of his youth.  He explains how he now understands his grandfather’s longings, always glad to be in one country but homesick for the other country.This is a lovely story about the feelings of an immigrant, in love with both countries he  calls home.

Lucien’s thoughts – 

This was my favorite book from this week’s readings.  I thought the language of the story was very simple and easy to enjoy, and it left plenty of room for the illustrations to show the beauty of the lands where the grandfather traveled.  The economy of words is well balance by the gorgeous paintings.  The beautiful landscapes and realistic portraits add so much richness to the little story of loving more than one country; I often felt as if the pages came out of his grandfather’s photo albums of the people and places he encountered.  The story is also very tender in the way the author remembers little details in his grandfather’s life. For example, he remembers that his grandfather surrounded himself with songbirds, but after the war, he no longer did.  The story is very delicate in how it touches on a grandfather’s love for his grandson, and how much the author misses his grandfather, now that he is gone. In general, I found it to be a touching story, without being overtly sugary. It felt simple and real.

Librarian’s use – 

One of the themes that is so strong is this book is the bonds of family.  The librarian can illustrate a family tree using his or her family, and include photographs, names and birthplaces of their family, then invite the audience to make their own family trees.  Children can share where their parents and grandparents were born, or places they have lived in.  The book can easily be a springboard into the topic of genealogy. 

Another possible avenue of exploration is to ask for volunteers in the community who are of Japanese decent to come and give a brief talk about their culture. Invite the audience to view kimonos, tea kettles, and other artifacts of traditional Japanese life. Invite the children to talk about how their grandparents may have had a different culture growing up than the one they are in (this could include the difference between countries, or perhaps the difference between small town life and city life, among others). 

Other reviews – 

Buchoff, R. (1995). Family stories. The reading teacher, 49 (3), 230.

In Grandfather's Journey (Say, 1993), a grandson reminisces about his grandfather's love for two different countries. These beautifully illustrated books help children discover that the memory of a deceased family member can often be kept alive through the creation of a story.

Leonard Lamme, L., Fu, D., McKoy Lowery, R. (2004). Immigrants as portrayed in children’s picture books: a journal for readers, students, and teachers of history. The social studies, 95 (3), 123-129.
 
Feeling lost and homesick is a common experience for many immigrants, whether old or young. Usually it is much harder for school-age children to leave what is familiar or to understand why they have to give up so much and start a new life in a new country. They may wonder, Why did we have to leave our home? ... In the Caldecott-winning book Grandfather's Journey, Allan Say (1993) chronicles the movement of three generations of his family to and from America and Japan. He writes, "The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other" (31).
 
Desai, C. (2004) Weaving words and pictures: Allen Say and the art of illustration. The lion and the unicorn, 28 (3), 408-428.

Alien Say was raised in Japan and immigrated to the US as a young man-thus retracing his grandfather's steps, as he describes in his Caldecott Award winning picture book, Grandfather's Journey (1993). As he encounters the wonder and discovery of the immigrant experience, the story's narrator appreciates his grandfather's complicated cultural identity and his sense of displacement in both worlds… His works show mastery of the cartoonist's command of line, action, and comedy; the Japanese artistic sense of harmony, simplicity, and suggestion; and the Western artist's sense of expansiveness, realism, and color. Say uses these talents to create moods and extend the meaning of the texts in ways appropriate to each work.