The ‘funny’ jokes are also part of a history of institutional racism that has taken place in the United States: The second allusion in the text is to William Hung, the Asian-American American Idol contestant who was turned into an instantly-reco gnized butt of many jokes. On April 9, 2001, in response to the Chinese spy plane crisis, American political cartoonist Pat Oliphant drew a six panel strip depicting Uncle Sam’s visit to a Chinese restaurant, where he is served “crispy fried cat gizzards with noodles” by a slant-eyed, bucktoothed waiter.The blatantly stereotyped political cartoon was not criticized by American Media and News outlets. In a lunchroom scene in the sixth chapter of American Born Chinese, Cousin Chin-Kee offers Danny a bite of his “crispy fried cat gizzards with noodles.” One of his most over-the-top lines is a word-for-word quotation from a political cartoon by an award-winning, nationally-syndicated cartoonist. I yanked him, every last detail about him, straight out of American pop culture. You see, Cousin Chin-Kee is no more my creation than the Monkey King. There haven't been that many Asian superheroes in American comic book history.“To those of you who are offended by every third chapter of American Born Chinese, I say this: Thank you. Yang liked the idea of Asian American kids being able to see themselves in a new character. you kind of have to do the project,” he says. And any writer knows that if a character starts to talk with you. “During those meetings, this character started talking to me. I did not want anything to do with it,” he says.īut eventually, he agreed to at least consider the idea and attend some preliminary meetings at DC. In fact, when DC Comics asked Yang if he wanted to help create this Chinese superman, he balked. Critics called it 'affirmative action for superheroes.' And some Asian Americans were like, why do we even need this? We've already got cool heroes of our own. When DC made the announcement last summer, a lot of people were pumped. This superman does not replace Clark Kent in the DC Universe. It's an entire reinvention and addition to the ongoing narrative. And of late, he's back to his golden-boy self.īut now there's an even bigger change. And it took him a long time to become the Clark Kent we're all familiar with.”Įven in recent decades, Superman has changed a lot. He likes to make fun of people for not being able to find out his secret identity,” says Yang. He's kind of condescending to the people around him. He's not the moral paragon that he is today. Not until DC Comics writer Gene Luen Yang told me. That's how he started anyway, back in the 1930s. Superman is always like, 'I am good and I am noble.' Here are three descriptions from people in our newsroom:ġ. You think you know Superman, right? I mean, anyone can name his traits.

Gene yuen lang