Anushka Zafar
The Monkey King, Jin, and Danny are all characters who make disasters of their lives by trying to deny their true identities and literally to transform into something they are not…When he goes back to his mountain home, his “monkey smell’ becomes very noticeable and starts to bother him…He (Jin) is even bothered when little Wei-Chen speaks to him in Chinese, and Jin exclaims, “You’re in AMERICA, speak ENGLISH!” All three characters are so overwhelmed that they want to become something else in hopes of improving their lives and achieving their dreams, but…the best way is to accept and embrace yourself and your true identity; this is what the old herbalist’s wife teaches us…
Samantha McFadden
Slanted eyes, “yellow face,” mispronunciation of specific letters, and other characteristics are often seen as ways to identify Asians in popular culture. These depictions have come to define them and to segregate those of Asian descent in the United States from other ethnicities, defining them as “alien” and different…I enjoyed how Yang took these stereotypes and used them both to weave a coming-of-age tale, and to describe his own experiences with prejudice. I noticed how his obvious frustration at the misconceptions about Asians in the U.S. went directly against Sheng-mei Ma’s ideas in the passage from The Deathly Embrace.
Philix Liu
Despite difficulties, the Asian American moviemakers take the challenges by producing movies that reflect real Asian American life. Moreover, they encourage the youth to “get into the positions where decisions are made” and to find an “alternative channel to make an impact.”…In Sheng-mei Ma’s article, he claims that “embracing Orientalism is a deathly action.”…It (American Born Chinese) is a story of an Asian American teenager challenging the stereotypes or “Orientalism” in American society who eventually finds his racial and social identity. When I was reading this book, I occasionally related myself to the character Jin. I tried to fit in this society as a foreigner or an alien, challenging the stereotypes; however, the conclusion is that fitting in is not the only choice to survive in this society.
Alexa Ebert
In the beginning, they will not let the Monkey King into the party since he is not wearing any shoes. It is ironic that all of the other monkeys (in other words, people of the same race as he is) regard him highly, yet…The man at the door even says, “You may be a king…but you’re still a monkey.”…When the monkey returns home, “the thick smell of monkey fur greet[s] him”…and he wants to get rid of it. This parallels with the Asian Americans’ inability to feel comfortable with their heritage and their desire to assimilate completely with American culture…Jin thinks that he should change the way he looks by making his hair puffier like Greg’s in order to attract a white girl he likes. It is as if he assumes she will not like him because of his heritage.
Marlene McManus
Edward Said’s introduction to Orientalism introduces the concept of Orientalism as “a…distinction made between “the Orient” and (most of the time) ‘the Occident’ (Said 2),” where the Orient is the perpetual “other,” and the Occident defines itself by contrast. The continued act of the Occident, posing itself as the antithesis to the Orient, is an act of opposition; however, the Occident needs the Orient in order to make this self-definition. In both opposing and requiring the Orient, the Occident maintains toward it a hate-love relationship…Each of the sets of opposing attitudes I found within our texts, I term as ‘hate-love relationships,” because they all begin with a rejection of the Orient, the idea of, or the physical “other,” of that which is different. Following this rejection, the attitudes turn toward, or are forced into acceptance of the opposing side, due either to necessity, or the undeniable fact that the two sides are perpetually and symbiotically linked.
Rachel Furman
Viewing this complex and amorphous social and theoretical dilemma through the eyes of a child allows us, as readers, to break down the theoretical perspectives of Orientalism put forth in the writings of Edward Said, Sheng-mei Ma, Robert G. Lee, and Ronald Takaki into personal, emotional, and, I feel, more socially pertinent snapshots…Yang’s graphic novel does just this, confronting and destabilizing racial stereotypes while poignantly showing the personal tolls of economic, political, and colonial dealings of the past in the present context of what it means to be both “American” and “ethnic.” Jin’s dual identity…clearly expresses the strain placed upon a child when forced to confront the creation of a sense of self amongst forces prescribing one’s ethnic identity as synonymous with certain traits that one does not possess…In short, both cannot exist wholly within any one person’s sense of self without unrest; like weeds they force each other out until one is dominant.
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