Diversity Reading Activity – Arthur Fallswamp
March 25 2011
Title and Author of the book:
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
What is the diversity message of the book? Please do not summarize the book. What do you, as the reader, feel the author wants you to get out of the book?
American Born Chinese is a comic by Gene Luen Yang. It has three stories. All of the stories are about accepting yourself. Yang tells us that people should accept their identity, even if they look different from other people. The message is that living in two different cultures is difficult, but a person must remain true to themselves, and not yield to peer pressure.
Who do you believe would benefit most from reading this book and why?
Every person would benefit from the message of American Born Chinese. But it is an important book for immigrants and other people living outside their home country. It would help people to adjust to life in new countries, because it talks about how people feel when they are different to all the other people around them.
Kurt Lewin believed that learning occurred in stages – unfreezing, change, and refreezing. In no less than two paragraphs describe how you moved through Lewin’s Stages of Change as you read the book.
I began Lewin’s ‘unfreeze’ stage when American Born Chinese showed me the difficulties of the characters. Jin Wang wants to stop being Chinese, the Monkey King wants to be a god, and Danny wants to go away from his cousin. All of these things are impossible. If the characters do not change their thoughts they will be frustrated and have problems.
I began the ‘change’ stage when the characters began to change their ideas. The characters realised that their problems were caused by their fear of being Chinese. The characters decided that they need to accept their Chinese and American cultures to have better lives. The ‘refreeze’ stage happened at the end of American Born Chinese. The author convinced me with his message, through the stories of his characters.
What did you learn from this activity about yourself? How can that learning help in your current role?
The message of American Born Chinese is very important for me, because I am a Japanese living in Florida. It makes me feel better about being a foreigner in the United States, because I know other people like the author feel the same way.
The message of American Born Chinese helps me in my role as an International College Program participant at Disney World. It teaches me that I can still be Japanese even when the culture of people around me is very different. It helps me to accept my Japanese culture and be confident in who I am.