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Asmaa Arifi

Professor Erica Law

EDUTL 5225

November 14, 2018

Discussion Questions

1. When we first meet Jin, he is a happy child living with his family in a Chinese community

that is familiar to him. This changes when he moves to a different school and finds he is the

only Chinese boy amongst a classroom of Caucasian children. Jin feels an intensifying desire

to assimilate into his new environment. His need to deny and avoid his own heritage is the

clearest evidence of him being made to feel different and foreign. How did his teacher

contribute to making him feel this way?

2. On Jin’s first day of school, his teacher makes the situation worse by carelessly calling him

the wrong name, Jin Jang. In this way, the teacher has accidentally modeled for other

students an easy way to mock Jin and make him feel even more “other.” As the United States

continues to become more and more diverse each day, we are bound to teach students of

different backgrounds who also come with unique names. In addition, a child’s most

important part of their identity is their name. How can we ensure that we don’t make students

feel “othered” or unaccepted?

3. One of the central messages in American Born Chinese can be summed up by the idea that

being yourself gains you true power and friendship. Jin transforms himself in the book in

order to fit it. However, he realizes that in order to keep his friends he would have to become

his true form. The monkey also went through something similar when he says; “.. had I only

realized how good it is to be a monkey” (Yang 223). Why does Gene Yang incorporate the
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story of “The Monkey King?” How does the Monkey King motif play out in American Born

Chinese?

4. In American Born Chinese, almost all of the characters are engaged in some type of fantasy,

whether it is magic or self-delusion. Danny, who is actually Jin, finds out that Chin-Kee is

actually the Monkey King, who’s actually Wei-Chen’s father. In the span of a few pages, we

find out how everyone connects to each other. Did you enjoy how the falling action was

played out? Or could the author have revealed the characters in a more progressive way?

5. Author Yang writes in realistic dialogue at times by including foreign accent.. For instance,

on page 51 yang writes; "Perhaps Chin-kee can find pletty Amellican girl for hisself when he

attend Amellican school tomollow wiff cousin Da-nee!” (Yang). Similarly in Roll of

Thunder, Hear My Cry, the author writes in a way that brings out their dialect. Is there a level

of authenticity when this technique of writing is used? Does the simplicity of Yang’s

language enhance or detract from the themes of the book?

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Work Cited

Yang, Gene Luen., and Lark Pien. American Born Chinese. New York: First Second, 2006.