Gene Luen Yang

Yang’s parents, like Jin’s in the novel, emigrated to the United States as college students and met in the San Jose State University library during their time in graduate school (though Yang draws on details like this from his own family history, American Born Chinese isn’t autobiographical). His parents encouraged him to get a college degree in something practical, despite Yang’s intense love of comics and his desire to be an animator for Disney. He received a degree in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley. Though Yang worked as a computer engineer for several years, he ultimately decided that teaching was his calling and began teaching computer science to high school students. In the mid-1990s, he began self-publishing his own comics, all of which were well-received. Though American Born Chinese is his most famous work, he also wrote the series Avatar: The Last Airbender for Dark Horse Comics, as well as a Chinese character featured in DC Comics’ New Superman. Yang is vocal about the educational value of comics and graphic novels. During his master’s degree, he created an online comic to teach students math. American Born Chinese is also influenced greatly by Yang’s Christian beliefs, which manifest as the very Christian God-like figure of Tze-Yo-Tzuh.