THE BIRTH, DEATH, AND REBIRTH OF (ETHNIC) IDENTITY IN GENE LUEN YANG’S WORK
THE BIRTH, DEATH, AND REBIRTH OF (ETHNIC) IDENTITY IN GENE LUEN YANG’S WORK

Summary/Abstract: Authored by Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese (2006) is one of themost critically-acclaimed multicultural graphic novels published in the mid-2000s.Due to the target readers’ age, the majority of the characters that populate its pagesare young middle-class Americans. If read from a non-ethnic perspective, Yang’sgraphic novel makes for an entertaining coming-of-age story in terms of not only plotbut also disrupted structure. An ethnic reading, however, brings out its focus on issuespertaining to ethnicity, identity, and self-acceptance. By additionally looking at thecomic through the prism of the literary trope of the birth, death, and rebirth cycle,readers, especially those of Asian descent, can open up even more interpretationalspace and possibilities. Yang’s more recent work, including Level Up (2011) and TheShadow Hero (2014), the former of which was illustrated by Thien Pham and the latterby Sonny Liew, offers yet another take on the birth, death, and rebirth archetype,focusing on intergenerational differences and expectations of first- and secondgenerationAsian Americans. By the same token, New Super-Man Vol. 1: Made inChina (2017) explores how the Superman archetype can be regenerated in a morediverse setting, namely China. The aim of this paper is to explore the metaphoricalapplication of the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth in Yang’s comics with regard tothe main characters’ evolving (ethnic) identities.

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