transforming of identity

Transforming of Identity

American born Chinese is one of the strong examples of multiple, intertwined

narratives. The narrative of Jin is that Jin Wang is a modern-day kid who moves

to a new town and discovers that it’s not easy being the only Chinese-American student

at your school. On narrative of Danny, Danny is a white American boy, and Chinkee’s

cousin. Chinkee is Danny’s cousin with Chinese old-fashioned clothing. He speaks

extraordinary “Chinglish” really loudly all the time and likes to play tricks on people.

Danny is always really irritated and embraced by his cousin Chinkee. In this essay, I

would like to clarify the changing identities between Jin Wang and Danny.

In the Jin’s narrative, Jin Wang struggle to fit in within his new school and within

white American culture. He was stereotyped a bias of Chinese which is that Chinese

people eat dogs by a white kid, Timmy. Timmy point strong stereotype out to Jin, when

Jin was eating “dumpling”. It’s a very typical story of a kid being bullied by the others at

his school for being different, but it’s told with real heart and honesty that gives a nice

emotional punch. The half of the narrative, Jin Wang changed his lunch from

“dumpling” to sandwich. It shows that he transformed white American socialized person

to protect myself from someone who stereotyping him.

In the third narrative, Chinkee is the embodiment of stereotypes from white

American culture, especially Danny. Chinkee displays many American racial

stereotypes of the Chinese in terms of accent, dress, hairstyle, physical appearance. In

fact, these are Chinese stereotypes that Danny have.

End of the second narrative, Jin Wang ties to fit in American white culture by

changing his lunch and pushing Wei Chen to speak English. It’s mimicry. He is

dreaming to transform his identity to an American white boy. His ideal of identity is

Danny.