American Born Chinese Jin Jing Quotes

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Through scenes of bullying and the prominent racism against Jin Wang in Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, Gene develops the identity of Jin to relate with others struggling to find their identity. Jin Wang, the son of Chinese immigrants, moves from San Francisco and goes to a mainly white school. The introduction to another character named Suzy as being the only other Asian in the school adds depth to the small size of the Asian population that appears represented in the book. Jin becomes so lonely and isolated that he resorts to befriending bullies who constantly use and mock him for his ethnicity. He tries as much as possible to fit in and act white to not be singled out anymore. Then a boy named Wei-Chen Sun joins the school from Taiwan …show more content…

Jason named himself Jason instead of keeping his Korean name to fit in with the other kids. He was also isolated from everyone else at school because of his language barrier. He describes the playground as a place where he “learned to hate being Asian.” (Kim 2) Similar to Jin Wang, Jason also rejected his traditional foods to not get bullied. He switched over to eating Mcdonalds, artificial snacks, to fit in with others. His only “primary goal was to blend in” with others to not get bullied and feel isolated from everyone else. He then learns to embrace being an immigrant and had no reason to blend in as he discovered his identity and learned to utilize it (Kim 1-4). A deeper analysis of the purpose of each detail in American Born Chinese reveals underlying meanings to each series of …show more content…

He learns that he does not need to fit in just like Jason learned. These two stories are very similar and both display the journeys people go through to discover who they are. Jason wrote this autobiography to be able to share his story with others and let people who are different know the true value of being able to stand out above everyone else. Jason uses his differences to befriend others who are interested in his culture such as food. Jason’s culture becomes a part of his identity and his journey helps him learn to be proud of the identity that he both built and was born