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Comparing Almost American Girl By Robin Ha And American Born Chinese By Gene Luen Yang

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Graphic novels are a great way to show how stereotypes can shape and affect a person. Two graphic novels, Almost American Girl by Robin Ha and American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, do this by showing readers the lives of Asian Americans learning to fit in with other people while facing prejudice. In Almost American Girl, Robin is a Korean immigrant trying to adjust to her new home in the U.S. Robin also has a hard time fitting in with other people and faces discrimination from students at school. Meanwhile, in American Born Chinese, we follow three stories that all have characters that aren’t happy with who they are. One of the stories we follow is about Jin, a Chinese American boy that changes his appearance and attitude throughout his …show more content…

Ha uses color and close up to show the theme that your home is a place where your not an outcast, even if it’s far away from your birthplace.On page 227, Robin’s mom is talking on the phone with Robin and asking Robin if she is sad to leave Korea, in which Robin responds with “yeah” (Ha 227).On page 227, the reader sees Robin’s mom and Robin talking on the phone.But Robin Ha illustrates this in a unique way.Both halves of Robin and Robin’s mom are halves.Robin’s mom has the color red while Robin has the color blue (Ha 227).Because the reader can see how both of Robin and her mom’s face are put together to make a whole face and the different colors used for each of the characters in this scene, I infer that Ha used these artistic elements to show that both Robin and her mom had gone through the same struggle of being an outcast in their own birthplace, either of being a single mother in Korea or being the only Korean student in her school in Alabama.Both of them when they were moved to America felt like they were at home due to the lack of judgement unlike their birthplace where Robin and her mom had ideas of what they wanted to do with their lives that were different from the rest of the people in Korean society.In conclusion, this scene develops the theme that your home is a place where you are not an outcast, even if it’s not your birthplace because Ha uses the close ups of the halves of Robin and her mom’s faces to show that both of them didn’t feel at home in Korea due

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Faced with stereotypes in America, Lee is also tormented in China for his American nationality and lack of modern cultural awareness. Both communities view Lee and Chinese-Americans as “others”, refusing to fully accept them culturally or socially. Lee is foreign everywhere, since he is not a white American or a Chinese citizen. Only able to find solidarity in the community of “othered” Chinese-Americans, Lee feels more accepted in America than in China. However, those that only see Lee for his ethnicity and not for his inner person are racist against him because he does not fit the mold of what a “perfect” American is supposed to look and sound like.

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American Born Chinese is a story about Jin, an American with Chinese roots, who struggles with his identity - self-conscious about how he looks, sounds, and acts. Jin divides into three different identities; Jin his overall identity, Danny his typical American side, and Chin-Kee his racist stereotype Chinese side. This book is split into three different stories that represent the three different identities, The Monkey King’s story, Jin’s story, and Danny and Chin-Kee’s story. In the graphic novel, American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang uses symbolism and literary elements to illustrate struggling with your identity can lead to a better understanding of who you are and where you came from. Jin is faced with racial discrimination, not fitting

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