Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in American Born Chinese, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Prejudice
Racism and Popular Culture
Pride, Stubbornness, and Humility
Storytelling and Universality
Summary
Analysis
One day in seventh-grade English class, Jin notices a girl named Amelia for the first time when she takes off her sweater to reveal her bare shoulder. In this moment, Jin’s life changes forever. From then on, Jin feels Amelia’s presence everywhere. She makes Jin so nervous that he constantly drops things—like his and Wei-Chen’s science project—if she’s around. Jin spends his nights thinking about her. Amelia isn’t especially beautiful, and has a slight lisp and a bit of dandruff, but her smile drives Jin crazy. After a month, Jin tells Wei-Chen about her. Wei-Chen laughs at first and explains that in Taiwan, boys who like girls before they turn 18 are laughed at. Jin scolds Wei-Chen for being F.O.B. (fresh off the boat). Two weeks later, Wei-Chen and Suzy Nakamura start dating, much to Jin’s surprise.
The very fact that Jin has an all-consuming crush like this shows clearly that he’s a normal teen like anyone else in the novel, or indeed, the world. Everything he’s experiencing is somewhat universal—it has nothing to do with him being Chinese. Because of this, American Born Chinese is more broadly able to humanize its Asian characters and make it clear that they’re no different from white readers, thereby encouraging readers to be more empathetic in their own lives and experiences.
Themes
Not long after this, Jin’s science teacher, Mr. Graham, introduces the class to several animals—a lizard, a monkey, and a rabbit—who are temporarily on loan to the class from a classmate’s mother. The mother runs Babelene Cosmetics, and all the animals have long, curled eyelashes and huge, human-like lips—as does the classmate responsible for bringing in the animals. Mr. Graham asks for volunteers to care for the animals after school and offers extra credit to volunteers. Amelia, who sits next to Greg, volunteers. Behind her, Timmy offers to let her “pet his lizard” any time, but Greg shuts Timmy down and makes Amelia laugh. Across the room, Wei-Chen encourages Jin to raise his hand, but Mr. Graham insists that Wei-Chen must want to volunteer if he’s making so much noise. Wei-Chen agrees to volunteer and thinks that Jin is a scared turtle.
The appearance of the lab animals makes another point about changing one’s appearance or identity: when it’s done by force (as the scientists likely did to these animals) it takes on a sinister quality, given how abnormal and scared the animals look. When Timmy taunts Amelia, it shows that he bullies everyone—he doesn’t confine himself to hurling racial slurs or stereotypes at his Asian classmates, he’s just a rude and mean person. Just like Timmy may have learned to detest his Asian classmates from television shows akin to Everyone Ruvs Chin-Kee, it’s also possible he learned to treat women like this from the media.
Themes
Jin stares across the room at Greg and Amelia, who are chatting happily, and later asks Wei-Chen and Suzy if they think Amelia likes Greg. Wei-Chen and Suzy are too caught up in “looking at each other with eyes of love” and giggling to hear. Jin repeats his question. Suzy tells Jin to not be so paranoid since talking doesn’t mean anything, but Wei-Chen points out that Jin is a “little cowardly turtle” and hasn’t even spoken to Amelia. When Jin insists he’s spoken to Amelia before, Suzy insists that dropping his books in front of Amelia and then giggling doesn’t count. Wei-Chen and Suzy laugh as they recount an episode from science class last week, when Jin walked in front of Amelia’s desk, knocked over a bunch of test tubes, and then made a bad joke about not breaking all of them. They laugh hysterically.
Again, the way that Wei-Chen and Suzy good-naturedly tease Jin about taking his crush on Amelia too seriously shows that these are normal teenagers who aren’t not fundamentally different because they’re not white. For Jin, however, focusing on whether Amelia might have a crush on Greg means that he’s sizing up the differences between Greg and himself, trying to figure out where he falls short in the scheme of things. Given Suzy’s recitation of Jin’s embarrassing incident in science class, it appears the main difference between Jin and Greg isn’t their races, it’s that Greg can speak without losing his cool—something Jin could learn to do too.
Themes
Jin tells Wei-Chen and Suzy that they’re awful as they continue to laugh uncontrollably. Timmy and a friend walk by and loudly remark that it’s getting cold, fitting in as many racist slurs as they can. They laugh as they pass Jin, Wei-Chen, and Suzy, who all burn with shame. Jin walks home alone and thinks of Amelia. He pictures Amelia next to Greg, and then thinks of Greg only. As he gets home, he thinks only of Greg’s curly blond hair. The next day at school, Suzy and Wei-Chen are floored when Jin comes to school with Greg’s hairstyle. Suzy stops Wei-Chen from saying something rude to Jin, but after Jin is gone, Wei-Chen incredulously asks why Jin’s hair looks like broccoli.
For Timmy and his friends, tormenting Jin, Wei-Chen, and Suzy is recreational—they don’t care that it’s hurtful, as they potentially don’t even see their Asian classmates as truly human due to their differences. When Jin fixates on Greg’s hair, this characteristic becomes akin to the Monkey King’s shoes. It’s not about the hair or the shoes at all, but changing that one thing makes Jin feel as though he’s controlling something and changing himself to appear more like a white boy, a change that his friends who care about him can see right through.
Themes
Get the entire American Born Chinese LitChart as a printable PDF.
After school, Wei-Chen goes to science class to feed the animals with Amelia. The monkey grabs Wei-Chen’s face and chatters at him, and Amelia comments that the animal seems quite attached to him. Wei-Chen corrects Amelia’s assumption that the monkey is female. Amelia asks if Wei-Chen will get the pinky mice for the lizard from the back of the closet. As he searches, Amelia says she’s thrilled Wei-Chen could volunteer with her, since the furless mice creep her out. Wei-Chen can’t find the mice, so Amelia goes into the supply closet to help look. She finds them, but only after the door closes behind them. They realize that there’s no knob on the inside of the door, so they sit down to wait for someone to rescue them. Wei-Chen shares that he’s supposed to meet Jin after school, and Jin will figure out where they are.
The monkey seems to be unusually drawn to Wei-Chen, and the fact that he knows the sex of the animal suggests that there is some kind of connection between them. Meanwhile, the way that Amelia talks to Wei-Chen throughout this chapter is significant—she doesn’t appear to treat him any differently because he’s Chinese, which makes Amelia the only white character in the novel who treats Jin and Wei-Chen like real people worthy of respect and kindness. In this sense, she may be worthy of Jin’s affections.
Themes
Amelia confirms that Jin is the Asian boy with the Afro and then asks if Wei-Chen and Jin are good friends. Wei-Chen says that Jin is his best friend, and he owes Jin a lot. When Amelia asks him to elaborate, Wei-Chen says that when he first moved to America, he was afraid nobody would be his friend. He met Jin on the first day, and Jin made him feel like everything would be okay. Jin treats Wei-Chen like a little brother, teaches him English and slang phrases, and buys him McDonald’s French fries. Wei-Chen says that sometimes he thinks his accent embarrasses Jin, but Jin is still his friend—and really, Jin was Wei-Chen’s only friend for a long time. Wei-Chen says that Jin has a good soul.
Here, Wei-Chen’s description of Jin shows how good and generous of a friend Wei-Chen is. He surely knows that speaking so highly of Jin to Amelia will pique her interest in Jin, but Wei-Chen doesn’t seem to be saying any of this as part of an act. This, then, suggests that like the Monkey King, Jin is a naturally kind, generous, and giving person. Given the parallels between the Monkey King and Jin, then, this foreshadows a similar trajectory in their stories—Jin will likely continue to attempt to change his identity, and ensue dire consequences as a result.
Themes
Wei-Chen smiles to himself and Amelia asks if Jin likes her. With a laugh, Wei-Chen tells Amelia to ask Jin herself. Meanwhile, Jin waits for Wei-Chen for almost an hour. He has to bribe the custodian with an orange freeze from the cafeteria and a promise of doing garbage duty to open the biology room, but Jin gets in and figures it out. He’s worried and jealous that Wei-Chen is alone with Amelia, but when he opens the closet, everything is a blur. Jin looks down at Amelia and Wei-Chen whispers in his ear that this is the chance of a lifetime. Jin feels a jolt of confidence that comes from his hair and awkwardly asks Amelia if she’ll go out with him. Amelia agrees. Her “yes” keeps Jin warm all night long.
The fact that Jin’s confidence seems to come directly from his curly hairstyle, modeled after Greg’s hair, suggests that being Chinese made Jin feel less confident, while looking more white (even if, given Wei-Chen and Suzy’s reaction, Jin really just looks silly) makes Jin feel far more invincible. Further, by taking on the role of the rescuer and then being the one to ask Amelia out, Jin also begins to embody a bit of stereotypical masculinity. Regardless, experiencing this success after changing his hair will likely show Jin that acting like someone he isn’t yields positive results.
Themes
