American Born Chinese

This section of the novel is narrated by Jin Wang, a Chinese-American boy whose family moves from a Chinatown apartment in San Francisco to a house in a new neighborhood. Jin describes his parents’ background: His mother and father arrived in America at the same airport within a week of each other, but they did not meet until 18 months later, when they were both graduate students at San Francisco State University. Both of Jin’s parents worked menial jobs to pay for their education. Eventually, Jin’s father became an engineer and his mother a librarian. Jin and his parents lived in the Chinatown apartment for nine years, where Jin’s friends were boys who lived in the same apartment complex.

Jin describes a memory of a visit to the Chinese herbalist that his mother consulted weekly for allergy treatments. During this visit, depicted in a series of illustrations dominated by Jin’s transformer toy, the herbalist asks Jin what he wants to be when he grows up. Jin tells the herbalist he wants to be a transformer like his toy and wear disguises to mask his true self. The herbalist takes Jin’s confession seriously, assuring him that his desire is not silly; in fact, if Jin is willing to “forfeit [his] soul” (29), he can turn himself into anything he wants. A drawing of Jin emphasizes his shocked facial expression.

The next illustrations introduce a new scene: Jin’s new third-grade classroom at Mayflower Elementary. His teacher, Mrs. Greeder, welcomes Jin to the rest of the students, but she gets his name wrong. Jin corrects her. She tells the students that Jin moved from China, and again Jin corrects her. When a student named Timmy raises his hand to say that his mother says that “Chinese people eat dogs” (31), Mrs. Greeder scolds Timmy and tells the class that Jin’s family likely stopped eating dogs as soon as they arrived to America.

Jin remembers one other Asian student was in his class: Suzy Nakamura. Even though Suzy is Japanese by heritage, their classmates assume that Jin and Suzy are related; once they understand that they are not related, there are rumors suggesting that Suzy and Jin are betrothed to be married when Suzy turns 13. Jin eats lunch alone, and one day some boys mock his food; one warns Jin to keep away from his pet dog until a blond boy named Greg steps in to defend Jin.

Several illustrations show Jin bullied by an older boy named Peter Garbinsky. Jin remembers thinking Peter was his “first friend” at his new school, but the drawings show Peter stealing his lunch and physically overpowering Jin. One of Peter’s games is called “Let’s be Jews” (35), which involves stealing lingerie from Peter’s mother’s dresser drawer. A drawing of Jin sitting alone at the lunch table in fifth grade is captioned with an explanation: Peter never returns from a visit to see his father in Pennsylvania, and Jin is again friendless.

Two months later, Jin’s fifth-grade teacher introduces to the classroom a boy named Wei-Chen Sun who just moved from Taiwan. The teacher tells the students that Wei-Chen moved from China, and Wei-Chen corrects him. A drawing of Jin at his desk surrounded by Caucasian students is captioned, “Something made me want to beat him up” (36).

Jin sits by himself at the lunch table as Wei-Chen approaches him, wearing enormous eyeglasses, drawstring trousers and a collared top with an image of a robot on the front. In perfect English, Wei-Chen asks Jin if he is Chinese, and Jin responds by telling him that he is in America and should speak English. Wei-Chen is confused because he did speak English, and he rephrases his question: “You, you Chinese-person?” (37), to which Jin responds in the affirmative. Wei-Chen continues to speak in broken English, asking Jin to be friends, and Jin pretends to have friends as Wei-Chen sits down with his transformer toy. Wei-Chen shows Jin how the robot can change into a robot monkey and explains that his father gave it to him before he left Taiwan. The section concludes with a large drawing of the two boys playing with the robot toy in the background as two larger Caucasian boys play football in the forefront of the illustration. A caption explains that Jin and Wei-Chen become best friends.

This section begins with a large drawing containing the face of Chin-Kee and the misspelled phrase “Everyone Ruvs Chin-Kee” (43) in large, fancy font. Chin-Kee’s face has a yellowish tone and his eyes are so narrow, they appear shut. His two front teeth protrude, and he wears a cap over his plaited hair.

The illustrations that follow depict a study session between two Caucasian students named Danny and Melanie. Danny is distracted from his studies by his attraction to Melanie. Just as he is about to tell Melanie about his feelings for her, the voice of his mother announces that his cousin Chin-Kee is coming for a visit and that his father will be home momentarily from the airport. Danny’s face changes, and his enormous eyes and toothy frown reveal that he is horrified by the news. Melanie asks him about his cousin just as Chin-Kee arrives, dressed in traditional Chinese clothing and slippers. Danny’s father carries his luggage, which takes the form of large Chinese take-out boxes. In speech bubbles that contain misspelled English, Chin-Kee greets his cousin Danny. As Chin-Kee notices Melanie, he comments on Melanie’s “bountiful Amellican bosom” (50) and his desire to have children with Melanie. Laughing, Chin-Kee apologizes for his comments, noting that Melanie must “berong” to Danny. Danny looks nervous when Chin-Kee announces that he will be going to school with Danny the following morning.