American Born Chinese

by

Gene Luen Yang

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Themes and Colors
Identity and Prejudice Theme Icon
Racism and Popular Culture Theme Icon
Pride, Stubbornness, and Humility Theme Icon
Storytelling and Universality Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in American Born Chinese, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Popular Culture Theme Icon

Racism and the idea of the foreign “other” are woven in throughout the book in a variety of ways, one of the most significant of which is the way that the book handles the intersection between racism and popular culture, specifically when it comes to television media. The chapters telling Danny and Chin-Kee’s story are set up to read like a sitcom, Everyone Ruvs Chin-Kee with elements like a laugh track and organization that follows that of a classic television show. Through this, American Born Chinese makes the case that the racism espoused by white characters in Jin’s story doesn’t emerge out of nowhere. Rather, those characters likely internalized their racist beliefs thanks to an American media landscape that casts Asian characters on the whole as little more than punch lines because of their perceived differences.

Nearly everything Chin-Kee does and the entirety of his appearance were inspired by real world pop culture happenings. He sings a song that a Chinese American Idol contestant auditioned with, he eats “crispy fried cat gizzards with noodle” like a Chinese character from a 2001 political cartoon, and he also resembles the lone Asian character from the film Sixteen Candles, Long Duk Dong. Drawing inspiration and elements from this wide variety of sources, from cartoons and reality television to American-made kung-fu movies, and even stereotypical dishes from American Chinese restaurants, begins to make the case that Chin-Kee isn’t someone whom Yang created out of thin air. Rather, Yang shows that Chin-Kee himself doesn’t exist as an actual person—he’s the product of non-Asian creators who continue to bring Asian characters to life and present them as nothing more than stereotypes.

When it comes to the specific element of the sitcom setup in Chin-Kee’s chapters, American Born Chinese then forces readers—especially white readers—to step into the role of a viewer of the sitcom Everyone Ruvs Chin-Kee and confront the fact that characters like Chin-Kee are, by design, only supposed to exist as jokes. Having the laughter and applause right there on the page in the form of the laugh track also means that whether the reader is laughing or not, someone is, and the laugh track is supposed to tell the reader (or sitcom viewer) when they, too, should be laughing. This, in turn, means that the reader has to acknowledge that even if they might not personally find Chin-Kee funny (and indeed, they shouldn’t), the media landscape in which he exists finds him hilarious—and presumably, so do audiences of that media.

The chapters concerning Jin show the consequences of a pop cultural landscape that, through Chin-Kee-like representations of Asian characters, presents the idea that all Asian people, regardless of their country of origin, sex, or any other qualities or identifiers, are just like Chin-Kee. Kids at school accuse Jin of eating dogs and warn him to stay away from their pets, while being called a “Chink” is what causes Suzy Nakamura to realize that on some level, she feels constantly embarrassed about being Asian—that is, she’s embarrassed that in the eyes of her racist white peers, she appears as nothing more than a female version of Chin-Kee. In spite these stereotypes, of course, the novel makes clear to the reader that Jin, Wei-Chen, and Suzy all experience the exact same normal teenage things that their white peers do, from awkward movie dates to conflicts with their parents about dating or personal hygiene. In other words, the novel’s Asian characters are people just like anyone else—but they’re people who must deal with the constant expectation that they, like Chin-Kee, will know all the answers, eat people’s house pets, and sexually prey on vulnerable white women.

While American Born Chinese offers no real remedy or redemption for individuals like Greg, Timmy, and Jin’s teachers who act in racist or offensive ways, it does imply more broadly that the best way to begin to tackle racism like this is to challenge and dismantle the stereotypes that fuel it. Within the novel itself, this happens quite literally when Danny knocks the head off of Chin-Kee. In particular, the fact that Chin-Kee was never a real person (he was a puppet of sorts, created and manipulated by the Monkey King) drives home the fact that what he represents is a fiction that exists nowhere in real life—the stereotypes that make him who he is are simply ideas that other people apply to Asian individuals, whether those individuals are fictional or real. Recognizing that all individuals are people with rich inner lives of their own, and being aware of how media can negatively shape one’s perception of a group of people, Gene Luen Yang suggests, are the first steps to creating a pop culture landscape in which Chin-Kee no longer exists.

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Racism and Popular Culture ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Racism and Popular Culture appears in each chapter of American Born Chinese. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Racism and Popular Culture Quotes in American Born Chinese

Below you will find the important quotes in American Born Chinese related to the theme of Racism and Popular Culture.
Chapter 2 Quotes

“Class, I’d like us all to give a warm Mayflower welcome to your new friend and classmate Jing Jang!”

“Jin Wang.”

“Jin Wang! He and his family moved to our neighborhood all the way from China!”

“San Francisco.”

“San Francisco!”

Related Characters: Jin Wang/Danny (speaker), Mrs. Greeder (speaker)
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:

“My momma says Chinese people eat dogs.”

“Now be nice, Timmy! I’m sure Jin doesn’t do that! In fact, Jin’s family probably stopped that sort of thing as soon as they came to the United States!”

Related Characters: Mrs. Greeder (speaker), Timmy (speaker), Jin Wang/Danny
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:

“Class, I’d like us all to give a big Mayflower Elementary welcome to your new friend and classmate Chei-Chen Chun!”

“Wei-Chen Sun.”

“Wei-Chen Sun! He and his family recently moved to our neighborhood all the way from China!”

“Taiwan.”

“Taiwan!”

Related Characters: Wei-Chen Sun (speaker), Jin Wang/Danny, Mrs. Greeder
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:

Something made me want to beat him up.

Related Characters: Jin Wang/Danny (speaker), Wei-Chen Sun
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

“My apologies for not sending someone to arrest you in person, but frankly none of the gods wanted to go anywhere near your mountain. Nothing personal—we just aren’t particularly fond of fleas.”

Related Characters: Ao-Kuang (speaker), The Monkey King/Chin-Kee
Page Number: 62
Explanation and Analysis:

“Silly monkey. You were never out of my reach. You only fooled yourself.”

Related Characters: Tze-Yo-Tzuh (speaker), Jin Wang/Danny, The Monkey King/Chin-Kee
Page Number: 78
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

“Ooh ooh! Chin-Kee know dis one!”

“Put your hand down!”

“Go ahead...Chin-Kee, was it?”

“Judicial, executive, and registrative!”

“Good, Chin-Kee! Very good! You know, people—it would behoove you all to be a little more like Chin-Kee.”

Related Characters: Jin Wang/Danny (speaker), The Monkey King/Chin-Kee (speaker)
Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis:

“Every year around this time, I finally start getting the hang of things, you know? [...] Then he comes along for one of his visits.”

“Who?”

“Chin-Kee, my cousin. He’s been visiting me once a year since the eighth grade. He comes for a week or two and follows me to school, talking his stupid talk and eating his stupid food. Embarrassing the crap out of me. By the time he leaves, no one things of me as Danny anymore. I’m Chin-Kee’s cousin.”

Related Characters: Jin Wang/Danny (speaker), Steve (speaker), The Monkey King/Chin-Kee
Page Number: 126-27
Explanation and Analysis:

“People here aren’t like that. No one ever says anything about my weight. Well, maybe that’s because I broke Todd Sharpnack’s nose for calling me ‘Mr. Jiggles’ when we were freshmen. But whatever. People here are different. You’ll see. Heck, if anyone ever gives you trouble, I’ll break his nose.”

Related Characters: Steve (speaker), Jin Wang/Danny, The Monkey King/Chin-Kee
Page Number: 128
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

“It’s just that she’s a good friend and I want to make sure she makes good choices, you know? We’re almost in high school. She has to start paying attention to who she hangs out with.

Aw, geez. Look, Jin. I’m sorry. That sounded way harsher than I meant it to. I just don’t know if you’re right for her, okay? That’s all.”

Related Characters: Greg (speaker), Jin Wang/Danny, Amelia Harris
Related Symbols: Shoes and Hair
Page Number: 179-80
Explanation and Analysis:

“About twenty minutes into the party, though, I figured out that Lauren didn’t actually invite me. Her mom wanted to hang out with my mom, and I sort of just got brought along. Lauren and her new friends had their own thing going, so I spent the rest of the party watching TV in the living room. I felt so embarrassed.

...Today, when Timmy called me a...a chink, I realized...deep down inside...I kind of feel like that all the time.”

Related Characters: Suzy Nakamura (speaker), Jin Wang/Danny, The Monkey King/Chin-Kee, Timmy
Page Number: 187
Explanation and Analysis:

I replayed the day’s events over and over again in my mind. Each time I reached the same conclusion: Wei-Chen needed to hear what I had to say. It was, after all, the truth. And at around three in the morning, I finally believed myself.

I dreamt of the herbalist’s wife.

“So, little friend. You’ve done it. Now what would you like to become?”

Related Characters: Jin Wang/Danny (speaker), The Herbalist’s Wife (speaker), Wei-Chen Sun, Amelia Harris, Greg
Related Symbols: Shoes and Hair, Transformers
Page Number: 192-94
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

“You misunderstand my intentions, Jin. I did not come to punish you. I came to serve as your conscience—as a signpost to your soul.”

Related Characters: The Monkey King/Chin-Kee (speaker), Jin Wang/Danny, Wei-Chen Sun
Page Number: 221
Explanation and Analysis:

“You know, Jin, I would have saved myself from five hundred years’ imprisonment beneath a mountain of rock had I only realized how good it is to be a monkey.”

Related Characters: The Monkey King/Chin-Kee (speaker), Jin Wang/Danny
Page Number: 223
Explanation and Analysis: