A brilliant and challenging comic on the Asian American experience

"American Born Chinese"
By Gene Luen Yang
Recommended Grades: 9-12* (See review)

Lin moves to a new school for third grade. As one of only three Asian-American students, he struggles to fit in. Not only do the white classmates relentlessly bully him, but the teachers alienate him through their stumbling lack of familiarity with his culture. He tries to fit in more by rejecting anything that his classmates see as too Asian, including, at times, a classmate from Taiwan, Wei-Chen.

At the same time, the traditional Chinese story of the Monkey King is told. The Monkey King is a divine ruler of monkeys who’s rejected by the other divine beings for not being human-like enough. He struggles with trying to become more human-like in order to fit in.

At the same time, Jin watches a 1980’s style sitcom along the lines of Family Matters, about a white high school main character having to put up with an embarrassing comic relief cousin. The cousin is a full Chinese stereotype, straight out of racist 1800’s cartoons and minstrel shows.

OOPH.
A reminder that the contents of these comic pages do not
reflect my personal beliefs or taste.

This is a complex graphic novel to fully grasp. I first read it as a fan of graphic novels marketed towards adults, and it has a large adult audience. It’s appreciated for its unique overlapping storytelling, its use of metaphor and symbolism, and for its potent expression of the experience of growing up as an Asian American. I didn’t even think about it as a book to recommend to young readers until recently.

So: What age is this book right for?

Despite the story starting in third grade, I suggest this book to high schoolers and up. There are a few moments of bloody violence in it, and a few passing sexual references told as sitcom jokes, but those aren’t why I suggest caution here.

The Asian stereotype character is so potently offensive that any students who have not learned about the history and use of Asian stereotypes in the USA probably shouldn’t read this book and take him at face value. These parts of the book may even fuel racist bullying in classrooms that are too emotionally or intellectually immature to understand him.  

A high school literature class would need to spend time learning about stereotypes to give students the context needed to understand this character.

This character is such a problem that the Disney Plus television TV-14 adaptation of this book toned  him down substantially. They replaced his offensive name, removed his lecherousness, and instead portrayed him as a clumsy version of a 1980’s style Asian stereotype, along the lines of Sixteen Candles Long Duk Dong, rather than as the fully 1800’s-era portrayal found in the graphic novel.

Overall, this is still a brilliant book. I fully suggest having it available in a high school library’s comics collection for students’ solitary reading, and for requests. I would also suggest it as a text for use in a high school classroom to study stereotypes and the Asian American experience.

Word count: 478 words

Content Warnings (contains spoilers): 

One action sequence with violent blood and death, many action sequences with violence, offensive stereotypes of Asian people, offensive language against Asian people, brief mention of sex, brief misogyny, bullying.