American Born Chinese Research Articles

“How good it is to be a monkey”: Conversion and spiritual formation in Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese

For me, the most complex and nuanced intersection of theology and spiritual formation written in literature for young people is contained in the work of Gene Luen Yang. The scope of this article is to explore the Christian belief of Yang’s major work to date, American Born Chinese, with the hope that more scholar-teachers will include Yang’s work in their curriculum, and more scholar-parents will include more of Yang’s work on their bookshelves. More specifically, this article argues that a theological approach to the graphic novel reveals spiritual formation to be as much a part of the narrative’s focus on teenage identity as its already recognized and emphasized racial formation.

Theology and Identity in Gene Luen Yang’sAmerican Born Chinese

While Gene Yang’s acclaimed and widely-read graphic novel, American Born Chinese , has been the subject of scholarship focused on its representation of the formation of its young protagonist’s bicultural identity, critics have largely ignored its intensive and profound engagement with theological concepts. Christian allusions and visual imagery are prominently present at significant points in the book, interwoven with the Chinese legend of the Monkey King and the Bildungsroman narrative of the main character, Jin Wang. This article argues that theological discourses, verbal and visual, are constitutive elements in the characters’ experiences, understandings, and discovery of identity in American Born Chinese .

A Visual Asian American Diaspora: Belle Yang’s Hannah is My Name (2004) and Guene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese (2006)

<p>The current study aims at theorizing the question of identity within the framework of postcolonial studies in two visual narratives: Belle Yang’s <em>Hannah is My Name</em> (2004) and Guene Luen Yang’s <em>American Born Chinese</em> (2006). Asian American studies have recently interrogated identity marking a shift from ethnic nationalism to recognition of multiplicity. The study also seeks to counter <em>Orientalist</em> stereotypes in American literature through the analysis and examination of postcolonial Asian American Diaspora to highlight a number of questions: 1) How is the identity of the Asian immigrant’s hybrid visually constructed? 2) How can Asian American visuals be addressed in non-white children’s literature? 3) What nurtures the transnational imaginations of the authors/illustrators in question? 4) What are the ramifications of transnational perspectives on Asian American narratives? 5) What are the nature of belonging and citizenship? The questions are a vehicle to investigate the cultural and ethnic politics of Chinese American literature and to explore new forms of self-identification in American literary discourse. They also yield rich insights into how to practice <em>multiculturalism</em>. What draws the visual narratives in question together is their postcolonial theme of reformulated identity to unsettle dichotomies within Asian American community. Furthermore, the present study explores semiotic systems in terms of image syntax, gestural, spatial and iconic signs to examine the relation between the <em>denotative</em> context of the narrative text and the <em>connotation</em> of the visual text that creates <em>polysemous</em> illustrations and indefinite meaning-making.</p>

Graphic Contaminations: Cosmopolitics of the ‘I’ in American Born Chinese and Persepolis

<p>The article explores the demands that the conflictual dimension of globalization poses for a cosmopolitan education. Such an emphasis seems necessary in times where the populations who undertake inter- and intra-national border crossings are increasingly those who are forced to: those trying to escape unbearable poverty, atrocious wars, the disenfranchised and victims of racist, sexist or religious persecution. Reflecting on the experiences articulated in the two graphic novels, <em>Persepolis</em> and <em>American Born Chinese</em>, the dimension of the globalizing world and its impact and demands on its future world citizens which comes to the fore is one that highlights the necessity for learning how to take a critical and political stance rather than the search for how education can facilitate a smooth adaptation to a new mobile order. Stanley Cavell’s examination of the relationship between autobiography, philosophy, and the founding of a self-reliant voice will be reconsidered in light of its contribution to re-thinking the meaning of a cosmopolitan education between critical self-appropriation and developing a transformative political vision of a new societal order.</p>

Tradition vs. Transformation: Ambivalent Immigrant Identity in Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese

Jin Wang, the protagonist of Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel American Born Chinese, hates almost everybody around him simply because no one tries to understand him. Yang’s portrayal of this Asian-American youth nudges his readers to ponder on the challenges facing minority youths in their efforts to survive in an environment where people with difference feel alienated. Jin is pushed to such an extreme by the unaccommodating school atmosphere that he gradually develops self-hatred. As the tension builds up, he acts like a paranoid and becomes ready to “barter his soul” all for getting an acceptance in the white dominated community. Jin’s traumatic experiences and neurotic behaviors raise a number of questions about the life of immigrant children in the United States. How difficult is it to grow up in an alienating environment? Can parents gauge the depth of the trauma their children are going through? Are American schools safe places for children of minority cultural backgrounds? How much do stereotypes about certain cultures and nationals shape people’s attitude towards others? This paper will explore these issues focusing on the experiences of immigrant children in the novel.

The Joy of Synthesis.

As an ABC (American Born Chinese) growing up in the United States, holidays at home tend to have an East meets West flair. Thanksgiving in particular is Mom’s favorite holiday, as it gives the family the chance to have turkey at noon and then Chinese food in the evening, because she still insists that any meal that doesn’t include rice is not a real meal but simply a snack, and she wants to make sure we actually eat something that day. Like many families, we learned how to brine and cook a proper turkey using the Joy of Cooking, a classic staple in the cookbook annals, which to this day makes me appreciate the power of sodium chloride and water to make almost anything taste better. Chemistry is often compared to cooking, but what people are really referring to is that synthesis is like cooking. You want to find the right ingredients, mix them in the right ratios at the right temperature at the right time, and create something brand new that is more than the sum of the individual parts. In a nutshell, that’s what chemists do and that’s what makes chemistry unique. In many ways food is the best way to communicate the impact of synthesis to a broader community, as it speaks to both function and aesthetics in a way that is both personal and universal. Everybody needs to eat, but the quality, variety, and innovation in the food and the journey to get to those final products make it a uniquely human experience. Moreover, just like you don’t have to be an expert chef or even a simple cook to consume and enjoy food, you don’t need to be a chemist to use, appreciate, and benefit from the products that chemistry gives back to society. But the implicit, underlying message is that chemistry and synthesis go hand in hand, and you can’t have one without the other. While chemistry is the central science, synthesis is central to chemistry. And because synthesis is limited only by our imagination, then it really shows how rich the present and future of chemistry is and can be. There are so many open frontiers to address, like can we develop methods to specifically make and/or break bonds between any and all elements in the Periodic Table? Can we create or find receptors to selectively recognize these elements in the environment or in our bodies? Can we make nanomaterials where we can control the precise shape and morphology of the same atomic composition in one, two, or three dimensions? Can we make other biomolecules like proteins and glycans with the same automation and fidelity that are possible with nucleic acid structures? Can we make truly living structures with the ability to heal and replicate, or create hybrid structures between living and nonliving components? The list could go on and on. Finally, I want to emphasize that although functional applications and technologies that grow out of the products of synthesis are exciting and important, the act of synthesis itself is a worthwhile endeavor. I still remember the excitement of making my first brand new molecule in the old 321 Noyes lab: a manganese-nitrido complex that precipitated as perfect, jewel-like emerald-green crystals from a mud-like sludge reeking of bleach and ammonia. It didn’t matter that this complex had potential applications for catalytic C–N bond-forming methodologies or as multielectron redox shuttles for solar cells. It was the simple thrill of making something new, to be the first person to create and bring a new form of matter into the world, no matter how big or small. It’s the simple joy of chemistry, the joy of synthesis. And I for one am thankful to be a part of that experience.

The Relationships among Heritage Language Proficiency, Ethnic Identity, and Self-Esteem

With the trend toward globalization and the continual change of the ethnic composition of the U.S. population, there is increasing awareness in the U.S. that not every child is raised in an English-only family. The purpose of this research is to explore the relationships among heritage language proficiency, ethnic identity, and self-esteem in the American-born Chinese (ABC) children who go to Chinese language schools for Chinese language learning on weekends. A total of 63 students and their 56 parents are surveyed in the quantitative study. Results show that there are positive relationships between Chinese heritage language proficiency and ethnic identity (r = .316, p = .006), language proficiency and self-esteem (r = .255, p = .022), and ethnic identity and self-esteem (r = .240, p = .029). The study provides implications for the Chinese language schools, parents, educators, and policymakers, as well as the implications for future study. The full text of the article can be found at 10.18275/fire201502021039

What impact entrepreneurial intention? Cultural, environmental, and educational factors

Entrepreneurial intention is a key part of entrepreneurship. This paper aims to explore internal and external impact factors on entrepreneurial intention from the perspective of information transfer. It examines how cultural differences, environmental factors, and environmental education affect entrepreneurial intention. A questionnaire-based survey on Chinese and American college students is conducted to verify three hypotheses. The results show that there is no significant difference in entrepreneurial intention level between college students in China and America (American-born Chinese) college students, that individuals' perceived environmental support is positively related to their entrepreneurial intention, and that individuals' entrepreneurial education level is not positively related to their entrepreneurial intention.

Reading Images in American Born Chinese through Critical Visual Literacy

The author of this article conveys how teaching Gene Yang’s graphic novel American Born Chinese from a critical visual literacy approach enables students to gain a deeper understanding of Yang’s commentary on historic and modern stereotypes of Asians and Asian Americans.

Postmodern Chinoiserie in Gene Luen Yang'sAmerican Born Chinese

This paper offers a synthesis and critique of the existing academic literature on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese and an overview of Asian American alternative comics. It examines the range of literary and linguistic sources which Yang draws upon in his collage of Chinoiserie and Japonism. It presents the argument that existing criticism has failed to take into account the rising presence of Asian and Asian American characters and creators in American comics.

Childhood and Ethnic Visibility in Gene Yang's American Born Chinese

Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese (2006) raises questions of Asian American visibility and invisibility through the juxtaposition of legend, Bildungsroman, and sitcom. Using the graphic form, a medium that foregrounds the image and, consequently, the visible more directly, Yang engages with the ways persons of Asian descent in the USA have been simultaneously rendered invisible by racism or made visible in stereotypically damaging forms (based on the model minority stereotype, for example, or through the commodification of particular images of Asians in films and other popular media). This essay explores the ways Yang approaches the history and forms of Chinese American visibility through multilayered storytelling and the graphic form.

Rainbow Beneath the Sky: Mental Health Help for Chinese Americans

<i>Rainbow Beneath the Sky</i>: Mental Health Help for Chinese Americans

Graphic Novels and Multimodal Literacy: A High School Study with American Born Chinese

Graphic Novels and Multimodal Literacy: A High School Study with American Born Chinese

Comic books and American cultural history: an anthology

Introduction Books as History Teachers By Matthew Pustz Part I: Doing Cultural History Through Comic Books 1. How Wonder Woman Helped My Students 'Join the Conversation:' Comic Books as Teaching Tools in a History Methodology Course By Jessamyn Neuhaus 2. Comics as Primary Sources: Case of Journey into Mohawk Country By Bridget M. Marshall 3. Transcending the Frontier Myth: Dime Novel Narration and (Jesse) Custer's Last Stand in Preacher By William Grady 4. 'Duel. I'll Give You a DUEL': Intimacy and History in Megan Kelso's Alexander Hamilton Trilogy By Alison Mandaville Part II: Comic Books as Cultural Artifacts 1. Golem: Reading America through Super-New Dealers and 'the Melting Pot' By Martin Lund 2. 'Dreams May End, But Love Never Does': Marriage and Materialism in American Romance Comics, 1947-1954 By Jeanne Emerson Gardner 3. Parody and Propaganda: Fighting American and Battle Against Crime and Communism in the 1950s By John Donovan 4. Grasping for Identity: Hands of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu By Peter Lee 5. 'Paralysis and Stagnation and Drift': America's Malaise as Demonstrated in Comic Books of the 1970s By Matthew Pustz 6. The Shopping Malls of Empire: Cultural Fragmentation, the New Media, and Consumerism in Howard Chaykin's American Flagg! By Matthew J. Costello Part III: Comic Books and Historical 1. Transformers and Monkey Kings: Gene Yang's American Born Chinese and the Quest for Identity By Todd S. Munson 2. Agent of Change: Evolution and Enculturation of Nick Fury By Philip G. Payne and Paul S. Spaeth 3. The US HIV/AIDS Crisis and the Negotiation of Queer in Comics, or, Is Northstar Still a A Fairy? By Ben Bolling Part IV: Comic Books and Contemporary History 1. The Militarism of American Superheroes After 9/11 By A. David Lewis 2. Septemeber 11, 2001: Witnessing History, Demythifying the Story in American Widow By Yves Davo 3. 'The Great Machine Doesn't Wear a Cape!': American Cultural Anxiety and the Post-9/11 Superhero By Jeff Geers.

The Expression of Chineseness and Americanness in Chinese Popular Music: A Comparison of ABC Pop Stars Wang Leehom and Vanness Wu

Beginning in the early 1990s, Chinese popular music has seen an increase in the number of Chinese American or American-Born Chinese (ABC) musicians who have left the United States to pursue careers in China. These musicians not only possess their Chinese cultural heritage, but also bring with them aspects of the American experience. Two of the most prominent ABC pop stars in China are Wang Leehom and Vanness Wu. Although the two have similar backgrounds and both identify as ABC, the ways in which they express their Chineseness and Americanness in their music and public image vary significantly.

Graphic subjects: critical essays on autobiography and graphic novels

Some of the most noteworthy graphic novels and comic books of recent years have been entirely autobiographical. In Graphic Subjects, Michael A. Chaney brings together a lively mix of scholars to examine the use of autobiography within graphic novels, including such critically acclaimed examples as Art Spiegelman Maus, David Beauchard Epileptic, Marjane Satrapi Persepolis, Alan Moore s Watchmen, and Gene Yang American Born Chinese. These essays, accompanied by visual examples, illuminate the new horizons that illustrated autobiographical narrative creates. The volume insightfully highlights the ways that graphic novelists and literary cartoonists have incorporated history, experience, and life stories into their work. The result is a challenging and innovative collection that reveals the combined power of autobiography and the graphic novel.

Animal Subjects of the Graphic Novel

In “Animal Subjects of the Graphic Novel” Michael A. Chaney analyzes Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese and David B.’s Epileptic for the way each graphic novel represents animal-human characters and themes and for the way these texts engage, more broadly, with a recent set of theories regarding the animal as a critique of the human. American Born Chinese appropriates and updates Chinese mythology and uses various representations of monkey-human character hybrids in order to foreground animality and race (or animality as race) in its psychic splittings. Like American Born Chinese , the graphic novel Epileptic also exemplifies the graphic novel’s inimitable capacity to articulate visual systems for cognizing the human by resorting to illustrations that pit the human in close proximity to the animal and the monster. The character of Master N is particularly intriguing in this regard, being one of the only characters in the graphic novel that is visually animalistic but also socially interactive with characters other than the author-protagonist alone. Ultimately, the animal in Epileptic becomes the grotesque icon of the Deleuzean becoming of the human, its proliferating transpirations and expirations.

A case for interruption in the virtual English classroom with the graphic novel American Born Chinese

This paper describes and interprets how preservice English teachers explore constructions of race and identity in the graphic novel, American Born Chinese, with a small group of adolescents from a mostly white community in the U.S. in the space of a virtual classroom. Findings indicate that the secondary students constructed characters’ feelings of racial and cultural inferiority as a matter of the individual rather than as a result of institutional forms of exclusion. The author argues for educators to attend more closely to the social, historical and political context within which a critical approach to teaching literacy is implemented. Implications for using technology to mentor preservice English teachers to explore systemic forms of oppression in their development as critical educators are discussed.

The Chinese‐American Engineer's Perspective: The ABCs of Being Chinese

The author describes her experiences growing up as an American‐born Chinese (ABC) in the southeastern United States, where there were few Asian‐Americans. In her college experience, she encountered more ethnic diversity, and pursued a degree in environmental engineering where she was a member of another minority ‐ a female engineer. She offers insightful advice to other engineers who wish to be successful in a diverse and ever‐changing workplace.

&amp;#8220;More than Meets the Eye&amp;#8221;: Transformative Intertextuality in Gene Luen Yang&amp;#8217;s American Born Chinese

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