Theme Of Reading Images In American Born Chinese By Gene Luen Yang

American Born Chinese, a graphic novel by cartoonist Gene Luen Yang, follows three characters as they struggle with their cultural identity. Once the narratives of Jin Wang, the Monkey King, and Chin-Kee are revealed to be intertwined, an overall theme of acceptance emerges. Yang reflects on his experiences as a Chinese American and a practicing Roman Catholic within the graphic novel, which professors Schieble and Pinti explore. Melissa Schieble, an English professor, asserts the importance of understanding visual cues in “Reading Images in American Born Chinese through Critical Visual Literacy,” as it encourages the development of critical thinking skills that allow students to function in a democracy. Professor Pinti, a part-time Episcopalian

235). Considering Yang's Catholic upbringing, Pinti examines the influence of Catholicism on Yang’s novel in his criticism, “Theology and Identity in Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese.” He explores how “theological images and language function in Yang’s graphic novel and argues that the theological discourses woven into the novel are, no less than ethnicity, constitutive of its characters’ experiences, understandings, and discovery of identity” (p. 234). Pinti asserts that faith plays an equally important role in shaping identity as culture does. This is seen as true as “people who grow up between cultures… cannot find a home in either culture, so [they] find a home in the divine will” (p. 236). Those who belong to two cultures may feel as if they are too different to belong in either one, thus, many look to faith as it accepts everyone. Pinti links Yang’s Catholicism to many of the characters and the theme of the novel since Yang “expects his perspective as a person of faith to manifest itself in his work” (p. 236). For example, Tze-Yo-Tzuh’s emissaries “are themselves figures adopted from heavenly beings giving glory to God in the Book of Revelation” (p. 239). They represent Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who are prominent figures in the Bible. Similarly, “Tze-Yo-Tzuh, who is Asian as well as distinctly biblical in appearance… [carries] a shepherd’s crook” (p. 239). Tze-Yo-Tzuh is God in this universe, and the shepherd’s crook alludes to Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Tze-Yo-Tzuh guides all of his creation, and when the Monkey King begins to reject his heritage, Tze-Yo-Tzuh steps in. He traps the Monkey King under a pile of rocks, referencing his birth from a rock. Pinti points out that “[the Monkey King] is positioned for what might be understood as a spiritual