Graphic novels are fun because the text is accompanied with pictures! Yes, I am passed the point of picture books, but who doesn't like to have novels with pictures to switch it up every once in awhile. This is the first graphic novel that I have read and it was definitely enjoyable. I found myself speeding through this book as if I were watching a movie. Every picture was descriptive as was the subtitles and the dialogue throughout the text. After reading the inside cover, I spent the entire time reading the book trying to make connections between the three characters but found that I was wayyyyy off when we finally found out.
As I read the book, I marked pages where stereotypes were present in the text. Being part of the presenting group in the following class, I am working on the stereotype portion of the discussion. Many were blatantly obvious while reading... Like on page 103 when Jin is looking for Wei-Chen and he questions, "What's taking him so long? He couldn't've gone to Math Circles - It's Wednesday!" The one stereotype that comes to mind when talking about people of Asian descent, it's that they are good/enjoy math. So this builds to the stereotype I think. Like, why couldn't it be a creative writing class or soccer practice? I don't know, I just pulled that out.... among many others.
Which include:
- When Chin-Kee is answering all of the questions in the classes he is attending with is cousin "Daaa - neeeee." Fitting the stereotypes that the Chinese are smarter than Americans.
- Or when Steve, the jock, that has nothing to talk about but basketball and how he beats the snot out of kids. Typical meathead comments...
- Or on page 118 when Chin-Kee takes Steve's coke and "Me Chinese, me play joke! me go pee-pee in his coke! This was a phrase that was thrown around the school when I was younger... childish
- or when the kid on page 121 is pulling outward on his eyes to slant them (this is a common gesture from people making fun of Asians)
- Or when Jin speaks about his mother and father and how they started dating... His mom chose him because of the thickness of his glasses. Because, it has been said that the thicker the glasses the smarter someone is... This is false by the way for those of you who still believe.
- and then there is the comment on 164 that Jin is talking about regarding another Asian, his cousin Charlie
- "Charlie had breath that smelled of old rice, a Bruce Lee haircut, and parents even stricter than my own, so I always thought it was just sour grapes
- Asians are also tied to rice and compared to Bruce Lee, because he is Asian
And for my real world connection:
South Park is a show that is watched by most teens and young adults. It is filled with negative stereotypes and racial slurs. I must admit it is comical, at times, but they are usually only making jokes at the expense of other groups. If the language was clean in this show, this would be a clip of how not to act in life....
Thanks for pointing out those stereotypes... I was keeping track of them too. The one that hit me first (and hit me hard!) was on page 37--"You're in America. Speak English." Even though Wei-Chen had mastered English, Jin wanted him to speak broken English. I guess this was to distance himself from another Asian-American?
ReplyDeleteI also thought it was interesting (and funny as in "I've seen this happen but it's not really funny") when the teachers introduced both Jin and Wei-Chen as coming "all the way from China" even though Jin lived in San Francisco and Wei-Chen is Taiwanese. People tend to lump all Asian-Americans into one category (Chinese!) without really caring to get it right (Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, etc).
I picked up on a lot of the stereotypes too. I was glad someone else did. As for your connection to South Park, I think that was a pretty good connection, and one that students in your classroom might be able to relate to and compare to how the characters in this novel are stereotyped.
ReplyDeleteI liked the points you made about stereotypes - the math one really set the tone for the rest of them. This reminded me of a math and reading tier program we have at my school, and how kids are often stereotyped based on ability level (the "slow" kids have extra math and reading based on their PSSA scores).
ReplyDeleteThe stereotypes was definately something that I picked up on, as well. How about the teachers presenting the students to the rest of the class. It was humorous how it was presented in the novel, but in a real life situation it's not. I think a lot could be done with stereotypes in this novel. I am curious to see what your group does with them.
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