Racism In Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

As you might know, many people struggle with their identity; they don’t know how to accept themselves in the world that’s full of prejudice from how you look like your eye color, hair color, and skin color. People doubt their values and want to change themselves entirely even though they can’t. From my personal observation of racism, it makes me feel depressed to see them judged on how the other people look and couldn’t be different than some people in this world; it also makes me feel so angry and disgusted on thinking about it. From Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, many of these characters demonstrate their self-awareness and self-acceptance to others, in which help them grow as individuals. The Monkey King and Jin Wang want to change …show more content…
For example, in the Monkey King’s story, soldier won’t allow him in the party based on his customs: “Yes, yes. I apologize profusely sir, but I cannot let you in- you haven’t any shoes” (13-14). He has rejected by other gods, demons, and creatures in Heaven culture, which treated him more like an outcast to their culture because their norms are more appropriate than the Monkey King. From being humiliated by others, it caused him to hurt everyone in the party and leading him to a deep hatred on everyone in Heaven society and even himself. When he returned home, he reflects his cultural norms and leads to fit in with the Heaven culture. From Jin's story, Timmy has judged Jin on how Chinese people are like: “My Momma says Chinese people eat dogs.” and the teacher is not helpfully defending him: “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” (31). From being judged by his ethnicity, Jin Wang has a hard time adjusting toward the other students; he becomes mentally isolated and hostile toward another Asian student like