American Born Chinese: Your Very Own War Against The Decepticons

"It's easy to become anything you wish...so long as you're willing to forfeit your soul."

An herbalist's wife tells a nine year old Chinese boy this, when he tells her he wants to be a Transformer when he grows up. Jin Wang is the American-Born Chinese of the title, and he wants to be a transformer. Especially when he moves to a new school and realises he's the only Chinese person in his class.

The Monkey King doesn't like who he is either. He doesn't want to be a monkey. He wants to be a god. Jin Wang's story is familiar because a lot of us lived it. The Monkey King story is taken from one of the most famous novels of classical Chinese literature, called Journey to the West. (The abridged translation I read was just called Monkey, and is highly recommended.)

Danny likes who he is, more or less. But he really hates who his cousin is, since his cousin is an amalgamation of the most appalling Chinese stereotypes you can think of, and named nothing less than Chin-Kee. Chin-Kee visits Danny every year, and follows him to school, making his life a living hell, so that Danny ends up transferring schools after each annual visit.

These stories are all thematically unified, but Gene Luen Yang goes a step further to unify the three plots as well, and does so in a very satisfying manner. This book is incredibly insightful and a great read. The main message about not turning your back on your cultural identity is clear without being preachy, particularly because it paints a very sympathetic picture of just how difficult it is to sort out your identity as an ABC (or a CBC in this country). The characters' choices, even the bad ones, are very understandable attempts to cope with the fact that so much of your conception of who you are, particularly when you're young, comes from the way in which other people see you. So what do you do when anybody who looks at you can tell that you're not Caucasian, but everyone around you is? What if you don't want to be their Chin-Kee-esque stereotype of a Chinese person?

Read this book. Then you can find out how Jin works out how to become the person he wants to be (without forfeiting his soul).