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    A Study Guide for Gene Yang's "American Born Chinese"
    A Study Guide for Gene Yang's "American Born Chinese"
    A Study Guide for Gene Yang's "American Born Chinese"
    Ebook46 pages32 minutes

    A Study Guide for Gene Yang's "American Born Chinese"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Gene Yang's "American Born Chinese," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJun 27, 2016
    ISBN9781535818025
    A Study Guide for Gene Yang's "American Born Chinese"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Gene Yang's "American Born Chinese" - Gale

      12

      American Born Chinese

      Gene Luen Yang

      2006

      Introduction

      Gene Luen Yang's graphic novel, American Born Chinese, was originally serialized online on Modern Tales.com. First Second Books published the complete story in print in 2006. American Born Chinese has the distinction of being the first graphic novel to receive the Michael L. Printz Award and was the first graphic novel to be nominated for the National Book Award. The full text is no longer available online. Yang, however, does provide a preview on his home page (http://geneyang.com/american-born-chinese).

      American Born Chinese contains three seemingly unrelated narratives that are creatively linked together in the end. The book begins with an account of the Monkey King, a traditional Chinese folktale. It then details the life of Jin Wang, a Chinese American boy who moves to a predominately Caucasian suburb. The final story concerns the Caucasian American Danny and his cousin Chin-Kee. Chin-Kee is a negative Asian stereotype who makes life difficult for his cousin. Each thread of the graphic novel is drawn into an exciting conclusion that explores themes of self-identity and self-acceptance.

      Author Biography

      Yang was born in Alameda, California, in 1973. Yang describes his childhood in the California suburb of Saratoga as complex in his Kartika Review interview with Sunny Woan. He saw Saratoga gradually shift from a predominately Caucasian population into a diverse neighborhood that came to include people and cultures from around the globe. The child of Asian immigrants, Yang grew up listening to traditional stories from China such as the Monkey King, which he later included in his graphic novel. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in computer science and a minor in creative writing.

      Yang began drawing comics while he was in elementary school. Yang created Humble Comics in 1996 as a vehicle to publish his work. In 1997, he won a Xeric grant to create Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks. Yang has created comics with different themes over the years, including The Rosary Comic Book, which incorporates religious themes that reflect the artist's personal beliefs. Many of his other comics are more fantasy-based. Yang self-published some of his early work and serialized other stories, including American Born Chinese, online.

      The print publication of American Born Chinese in its entirety in 2006 brought the author mainstream popularity as he addressed the issues of multiculturalism, assimilation, and identity. He followed this success with a 2009 collaboration with Derek Kirk Kim, The Eternal Smile. Yang published Prime Baby in 2010 and worked with Thien Pham on the 2011 comic Level Up. Several of Yang's comic tales have received the Eisner Award, which is considered the Academy Award

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