Jason Davis

English 1100
Professor Alva
Response Paper 2
Response Paper #2
Everyone is fighting a battle that you know nothing about. Whether it be fighting with
your significant other, bad relations with family members, losing a job, missing a bill, a lack of
self confidence, a feeling of isolation or not fitting in. Many of those struggles can happen to the
majority of people on the planet today, but not everyone grows up on an Indian reservation in the
modern day United States of America. As an adolescent, one may have a hard time finding what
they have passion for and what they are good at. Junior, a character in Absolute True Diary of A
Part-Time Indian, is born into the reservation of his ancestors and has a very hard time fitting in.
He faces some major stereotypes from both his fellow Native Americans and the more dominate
white community surrounding their reservation. Jin, the main character in American Born
Chinese, facing issues that can relate to those of Junior. His parents both decided to seek a better
life and immigrate to America. While he seems to be more intelligent than Junior, it seems like
Jin isolates himself from social interactions more oftenly. At school he rarely talks, and it seems
rather difficult for him to have any friendships.

Both characters face extreme pressure in terms of fitting in to society - not only do they
have to be apart of their culture, they also have to figure out how to fit into the harsh and more
dominate white community that surrounds their smaller community. First, let us take a closer

look at Junior to help get a better understanding of the issue that is being discussed at hand. They
live in a small town with no hospitals, under 100 people, yet there is a four liquor stores in the
city. Alcoholism consumes most of the people living on Juniors reservation, and they are the
reason the small town has four liquor stores but no hospital. He is a hydrocephalic, a condition in
which fluid accumulates in the brain enlarging the head, and can often lead to brain damage. This
condition makes it hard for Junior to fit in. Growing up isolated on a Native American
reservation with no money and drunken parents is no easy situation for any child. Now lets take
a look at Jin, and get a better background of his childhood experience. His parents, both
immigrants, journeyed to America to seek a better life. His father later became an engineer, and
his mom is a librarian. After having birth to Jin, his parents began to move from place to place
until they found somewhere to settle down and give Jin the potential to become anything he
wants. You can imagine they wanted to live somewhere in the suburbs, in a good neighborhood
with a good school system. San Fransisco Chinatown is where Jin was born, here he had many
peers that were Chinese American just like him. Later he moves to a new town, and this is where
his life becomes not so fun anymore. Similarly to Junior, at school he was bullied and called
offensive names. In his new school, there is one other Asian student, Suzy Nakamura, but they
preferred distance between each other due to the harsh arranged marriage remarks kids would
say when they were together. It appears in the beginning of both of their lives they appeared to
have it easy, but as the stories develop their situation quickly changes.

Junior, while on the reservation, is spoken to with almost no respect. Because members
within the community are all coping with many of the hardest things to go through in life. They

are often drunk, and Junior gets bullied frequently. In other words, they do not understand what
Junior is going through. The surrounding white community looks down on the reservation
because of their alcoholic reputation, where they frequently have to cope with racial remarks
degrading their kind. At first when Jin is living in Chinatown, he was surrounded by a significant
amount of American Chinese peers. Because of their similarities he had no issues making friends
or interacting with almost anyone. The story goes on we realize how big of a change Jin faced
when he moved. Like I said previously, in his second town there is only one other Asian student,
and she is Japanese American not Chinese American. Instead of his peers being sympathetic,
friend, and open to conversation we notice that the white students are extremely harsh and also
say degrading racial statements. However, Jins situation is a little bit different from Juniors,
because the only relatives Jin has really is his father and mother. They appear to be more
supportive of Jin, and want the best for him. Junior, on the other hand, does not get sympathy on
the same level as Jin from his family. It appears they do not want the best for Junior, and that
they would rather have alcohol and do nothing with their lives.

Both of these two characters had a friendship that was a key to their childhood memories.
After Jin moved to his second town, a new Taiwanese kid arrives in town by the name of WeiChen-Sun. He is described in the book as looking FOB (fresh off the boat), which was a
racially degrading term. Jin becomes friends with him and things start to get better. Now let us
go back to Junior for the rest of this paragraph. He meets Rowdy way before Jin meets ChenSun, and they kick off a relationship almost immediately. Rowdy and Junior make countless
memories together until their friendship started to get bumpy. Rowdy did not take the news from

Junior about his newfound opportunity to get off the reservation, and they stop being friends
after some brief altercations. Wei-Chen and Jin also got into an altercation after Jin kissed WeiChens girlfriend, and it is apparent their friendship has also came to a screeching halt. Jin has a
dream and wakes up in his alter-ego, Danny. Danny is white with beautiful blonde hair and sexy
muscles, and that is how American Born Chinese concludes.

Eventually, Junior gets an opportunity to get off of the reservation and attend a mostly
white school. After growing up, being treated the way he was, it should be easy to understand
why he would want to move off the reservation and start a new life somewhere else. Not only did
this change his life in almost every way, he also had more opportunity to succeed. Another way
of thinking about this is to compare it to Jin and how he woke up as Danny, they both got a
beneficial miracle to change their lives for the better. The protagonists relationship with the
members of the more dominate white culture becomes better, as they both are respected more
amongst society.