American Born Chinese - Reflections

· I recognize all of the toys that the boys are playing with on page 26. This tells me two things; the artist has a special attention to detail in this text, and I know too much about Transformers. I even know the names of the figures.

· Why are teachers so often portrayed as bumbling idiots in many of the texts that we’re reading?

My initial impression of this text was not entirely enthusiastic. The plot lines did not engage me right from the start. However, I soon found myself caring about what was happening with two of the characters in his journey of self-discovery. Throughout the middle, I really enjoyed the story of the Monkey King and Jin Wang; I found their struggles to be interesting, and their stories to be deep. Danny and Chin-Kee’s story seemed uncharacteristically superficial, however. While all three stories revolve around humiliation and self-shame, the first two cover this a bit more subversively. Danny and Chin-Kee spell this theme out explicitly, and seems to be working on a completely different wavelength from the rest of the text. The end result of this is a text that has a bit of an identity crisis; while there are some parallels from story to story, there are just as many miss-hits from one text to the other. The third story just does not seem to have the same intended audience as the first two. Since I am unfamiliar with this author and his other work, I don’t know whether this “identiy crisis” in terms of structure is meant to reflect the identity crisis of the characters within, or if it is just rough construction. I hope for the former.

I found the culmination of the stories fitting together to be a bit clumsy as well. The progression of Danny’s character is not authentic, but none of that plot-line is very authentic. Jin’s transformation into Danny is sad and believable, but his interaction with the Monkey King seems a stretch. The Monkey King’s transfer into Western culture and the Nativity is a very interesting kink in the plot, but his return to Monkey world and his conversation with his son as an emissary just seems to serve the purpose of connecting dots.

All in all, I did end up enjoying this text even in spite of the pieces that I don’t like about its triple narrative structure. I grew up reading comic books, and am very familiar with this genre of literature. For this reason, it was refreshing to read this text, and to see that this form of literature is finally being viewed as legitimate literature. What struck me as being most memorable about this text is the overarching feelings of self-shame that many of the characters share. It will be interesting to pay attention to other pieces of multicultural literature to see if this theme is present… I have read plenty of pieces from a wide variety of cultural experiences, and have not noticed this theme and feeling so pervasive in other texts – though Amy Tan’s Fish Cheeks does sing this same tune. That short story almost brings me to tears every time I read it. It is heartbreaking to think of a young person like Jin Wang being so ashamed of his own person, heritage, and culture. If nothing else, this text has made me more attentive to this theme as it is presented in literature, and will no doubt help sharpen my skills in reading literature through a multicultural lens.