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    A Study Guide for Frank Chin's "Donald Duk"
    A Study Guide for Frank Chin's "Donald Duk"
    A Study Guide for Frank Chin's "Donald Duk"
    Ebook50 pages25 minutes

    A Study Guide for Frank Chin's "Donald Duk"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Frank Chin's "Donald Duk," 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
    ISBN9781535822084
    A Study Guide for Frank Chin's "Donald Duk"

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      A Study Guide for Frank Chin's "Donald Duk" - Gale

      12

      Donald Duk

      Frank Chin

      1991

      Introduction

      Donald Duk is a 1991 coming-of-age young-adult novel, with an almost twelve-year-old protagonist at the center of the action. The novel is set in San Francisco's Chinatown during the celebration of Chinese New Year. The author, Frank Chin, has created a contemporary novel that explores the difficulty that even second- and third-generation immigrants face when balancing two cultures: their Chinese heritage and the dominant American culture in which they live.

      The protagonist hates his name, Donald Duk, which makes him the object of bullying and teasing. Throughout the novel, Chin always refers to Donald by his full name, Donald Duk, so the point of his name is never forgotten. Donald wants to fit in and be an American, but because he is Chinese, he can never fit in completely. The novel uses Donald's dreams of working on the transcontinental railroad in 1867 as a way to illustrate Donald's transition from someone who is an anti-Chinese racist to an adolescent who embraces his Chinese heritage.

      Donald Duk has not received any awards, but it has proven to a useful tool for discussing ethnic and racial pride, as well as a way to explore the immigrant experience and the difficulty in fitting into American life. As a result, Donald Duk is often included on school reading lists. Although Donald Duk makes it clear that racism against Asians has been a problem in American society, Chin places an equal emphasis on Donald's own racism with regards to his Chinese heritage and life. Donald Duk was originally published by Coffee House Press in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This young-adult novel is readily available in paperback additions at many booksellers.

      Author Biography

      Chin is a first-generation Chinese American author who was born in Berkeley, California, on February 25, 1940. Chin's parents were immigrants from Guandong province in China. They spent little time with their son as he was growing up in Oakland's Chinatown. Chin attended the University of California at Berkeley, left school to work, and later graduated from the University of California Santa Barbara with a bachelor's degree in English. He briefly worked as a brakeman on the Southern Pacific Railroad, which provided him with experiences that he has used in several of his plots.

      Chin also worked briefly in construction in Maui, Hawaii. It was in Maui that Chin entered a playwriting contest and wrote his first play, The Chickencoop Chinaman, which won a five-hundred-dollar prize, providing Chin with the money that he needed to move back to the mainland. The Chickencoop Chinaman (1972) became the first play by a Chinese American to appear in a major New York City theater. A second play, The Year of the Dragon, followed in 1974.

      In the 1980s, Chin turned his attention to writing short stories and novels. The Chinaman Pacific and Frisco R.R. Co., a collection of eight short stories, was published in 1988 and received the American Book Award. Two novels, Donald Duk (1991) and Gunga Din Highway (1994), followed. Chin is also well known as an essayist and editor of Asian American literature. He

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