Modern Minorities

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EP 212: Reading (into) American Born Chinese

Modern Minorities

“This is an intensely personal book. As much as there is a sort of universality, it's Yang’s own personal journey growing up.”

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American Born Chinese is Gene Luen Yang's seminal comics work first released in 2006 — and comes out as a live-action Disney+ streaming series on May 24, 2023 - by the filmmakers from “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Shang Chi” - Michelle Yeoh and many others. The original graphic novel won all the awards, and launched Yang onto a full blown comics career. For AAPI Heritage month, we’re sharing this Quarantined Comics companion episode on amazing graphic novels - following the earlier Modern Minorities author conversation.


The story of American Born Chinese consists of three seemingly disparate tales: (1) the legend of the Monkey King from the classic 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West, (2) an all-too-familiar Asian American coming of age story of a American Born Chinese teenager Jin Wang, and (3) a TV sitcom starring an all-American cast of cringe-worthy stereotypes. Eventually these three tales become come together into a poignant lesson of culture and self acceptance. Raman and Ryan talks not just about the work - and their anxiety about the new TV show (which they have not yet seen) - but also their OWN American-Born Asian experiences - and a reflection on the impact of Gene Luen Yang's many works that we've covered on Quarantined Comics


LEARN ABOUT AMERICAN BORN CHINESE / GENE LUEN YANG


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