American Born Chinese-Chinese Born American

             American Born Chinese is a graphic novel written by Gene Luen Yang. I came across it years ago when my sister had to read it for one of her class at Brooklyn College. She told me to read it like every other book she's read, and I gave in. (Mostly because there were pictures, and I loved easy reads before.)  As I began reading the book, I realized how related it was to my life. His teacher mispronounced his name, and assumed he was an immigrant from China. As well as dealing with stereotypes from my peers. I started to think about all the times that happened and continues to happen to me today."So when did you come to America?" ( I was born in Brooklyn...) "Wow Rafia, you're so different from all the other Pakistani Muslims I met" ( Worst compliment ever)
           At the time when I first read the book, I didn't really think about how much I was transforming myself like Jin was. But those examples from the book aren't from the reading we were supposed to do for class. Which made it hard for me to talk about the book, because I kept thinking everyone else read the whole thing and knew what happened. I really had to distance myself from the rest of the book. ANYWAYS, that feeling of hatred towards Wei-Chen. I see that ALL the time, for different backgrounds. Whether it's from my friends towards people of their same background or, even me. It's such a touchy and confusing topic. Especially when you are growing up, you want to be accepted and want to fit in. And seeing someone who fits into the stereotypes causes anger because we want to forget about that part of us. However, there has to be a middle ground, and asking yourself if that's really what you want to do, and not something you want to do because of others. (Embracing culture, or being more "American")
              Today it's save to say, that I'm proud of where I'm from, and I'm not as afraid or embarrassed as I was before. But I think I was uncomfortable about my background because of the all of stereotypes about Pakistanis/Muslims. I don't want people looking at me and automatically assuming that I'm a conservative and my parents hate me because I'm a girl, and other completely stupid assumptions. I felt like if I embraced my background, it would represent all those negative assumptions towards who I was, and people would have that in the back of their mind while talking to me. And I didn't want that. First impressions are important, you know?
             Okay, my writing is getting a little unorganized... One thing that fascinated me was the details about this graphic novel I didn't notice before. I read this book a bunch of times in the past, and even when I looked over it for English class, I didn't notice he changed his dumplings to a sandwich. It seems like such a insignificant detail, but it definitely ties into the theme of him "transforming."I guess I overlooked it. Also, the title. I named this blog that because I really liked the play on words. Usually we say, someone is a Chinese born American, not an American born Chinese. This is important because towards the end of the novel he embraces his culture. Which kind of relates to me as well, in how I wasn't born in Pakistan, but it's still a part of me. 
             In class, we really analyzed slides and looking into more depth to why certain things were depicted this way and why things were said that way. I definitely learned to really pay attention to what I'm reading and look for things like that while I'm reading. Even if it's just for fun and not an assignment. It absolutely helps the reading experience and gives another level of understanding. So that's one of the many things I took out of this class. Okay, I felt like I had a lot to say and it kind of exploded all over this post. But in short, I LOVE this graphic novel and I will continue to recommend it to my friends :)