Why is this picture so important?
Watch our Truth in Two to find out (and don’t miss the afterword and full text below).
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Picture Credit: Luke Renoe https://readgraphicnovels.blogspot.com/2018/01/page-215-chapter-9-american-born-chinese-book-online.html
FULL TEXT
American Born Chinese is the story of a boy, Gene Luen Yang, trying to make sense of his new American surroundings within the history of his Chinese heritage. Yang uses a bedtime story to overcome his fears about fitting in with another culture. American Born Chinese is a classic tale of adjusting to a new home.
Yang’s bedtime story is all about the Monkey King. In Yang’s community, the Monkey King was considered a deity. But the other gods from other communities did not accept the Monkey King. As the story goes, the monkey was not allowed in the banquet hall with the other gods. Yang’s point in the story is that just like the Monkey King, the Chinese author had a hard time fitting in to American culture.
What fascinated me the most about this story was Gene Luen Yang’s personal quest to fit in came about by what he called in an interview, “The Old, Old Story.” You see, on the last page of American Born Chinese the Monkey King – considered to be a god in Yang’s culture – offers a gift to the baby-who-would-be-king, Jesus. Yang’s assimilation into a different culture found completion in the history of the Christian message. By his own admission Yang said [Quote] “Christianity lies at the very center of my identity as an Asian-American. I would even go so far as to say that Christianity is a vital part of ‘The’ Asian-American experience. By adopting the ancient religion of Christianity, that is both a part of and at odds with contemporary Western culture, we attempt to make sense of ourselves.” [End Quote]
For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel personally agreeing with American Born Chinese author Gene Luen Yang that we celebrate the baby who would be king, Jesus, the Messiah on Christmas day and every day.
AFTERWORD In 2016, I took a class in Children’s Literature at IUPUI. One project we were asked to complete was an analysis of a graphic novel; for all the folks my age or older, think “comic books.” I chose the graphic novel American Born Chinese.
Works Cited
Yang, Gene Luen. 2006. American Born Chinese. New York, NY: FirstSecond Books.
Yang, Gene Luen. 2006. “Origins of American Born Chinese – Part One,” https://firstsecondbooks.typepad.com/mainblog/2006/08/gene_yang_origi.html
Yang, Gene Luen. “Telling the Old, Old Story.” 2011. Sojourners (Sept/Oct). https://sojo.net/magazine/septemberoctober-2011/telling-old-old-story#sthash.rgAZl2FL.dpuf