Author: mcpheron.40

Text Review- American Born Chinese (Jack McPheron)

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The graphic novel, American Born Chinese, is a story divided into 3 distinct storylines that blend into one final story that uses both realistic and fantastical ideas. The graphic novel begins with Jin, a Chinese-American boy, struggling to fit in, the ‘Monkey King’, a fantasy-like deity with some similarities to Chinese traditional fables, and Danny, a caucasian alter-ego to Jin. After moving to a new city, Jin is ostracized because of his race, and begins to hate other Asians out of fear of losing his already minimal popularity. In the second storyline, the caucasian Danny, later revealed to be Jin’s fantastical alter-ego, struggles to maintain his popular status as his cousin Chin, a racist caricature of Asian men, moves in with him. Finally, the Monkey King character serves as a test of character for Jin and helps affirm his identity as a Chinese American.

Overall, this graphic novel depicts struggles with identity. Jin struggles with his Asian identity throughout the novel, even forcing himself to create a white alter-ego to himself. This internalized hate causes him to despise other Asian Americans in an effort of self-preservation. The text also highlights the complexity of the Asian American experience, as the Taiwanese-born Wei-Chen and the American-born Jin struggle to understand the other’s identity in contrast to their own.  This has similarities to Lisa Ko’s The Leavers, as both Jin and Deming, Asian boys in the US, struggle to balance their identities as American and Chinese. In the way Daniel rebels against his white adopted parents and explores his Chinese heritage by travelling to Fuzhou, Jin learns to accept his Asian identity and forfeit his caucasian alter-ego, both reaching an understanding of their complex identities.

Regarding power dynamics and injustice, Asian Americans are “Othered” as a white student forces Jin to not date a white girl, teachers intentionally mispronounce and mock Asian names, and Asians are repeated victims of racist remarks from other students. Also, Asian culture, including language and cuisine, are seen as ‘weird’ by white students. In this way, white students are assumed to be the ‘default’, while Asian students are bullied through the above methods into accepting the lie of their cultural ‘inferiority’. De Beauvoir defines “Othering” as the ‘One’ being the default, forcing the ‘Other’ to view themselves as inferior, in a similar way to this graphic novel.

Overall, I believe the author wants the reader to contemplate how Americans view Asian culture, the “Othering” of Asians in power dynamics, and how Asian Americans develop a sense of identity. How can we understand the identities of Asian Americans and immigrants? Which ethnicities have access to power in the US, and which do not? How can the US minimize injustice and racism? These questions are prompted by this complex work.

(Yang and Pien)

 

Works Cited

“American Born Chinese.” Macmillan, 20 July 2021, https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312384487/americanbornchinese.

De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Vintage Classic, 2015.

Ko, Lisa. The Leavers. Little, Brown, 2018.

Yang, Gene Luen, and Lark Pien. American Born Chinese. First Second, 2021.

 

 

Lack of Representation of dark skin tone in medical literature

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Dr. Jenna Lester was searching for images of COVID rash on black skin. As a dermatologist, she wanted to educate herself on how to detect COVID rash, a rash caused by the coronavirus infection, in order to see signs of COVID in her patients. However, she could not find a single image in the literature that was on black skin. She had no way to understand what to look for on black patients. Only 4-18% of images regarding skin in medicine is of black skin. The only area this differed was in STDs, where images were much more likely to be of black skin than when the diseases were not sexually transmitted. Based on this lack of representation, the survival rate for melanoma is 24% lower in black people than white people, partially due to the fact that doctors do not have adequate literature.

 

In this article, it is evident that the lack of depiction of Black skin in textbooks except STD related images has systemic impacts. The lack of proper information for black skin diagnosis can cause long term health defects and even death, as black people can be misdiagnosed or have their ailments unnoticed more than white people. Secondly, the depiction of Black skin more often in STDs than other conditions can perpetuate racist notions of sexual promiscuity and the prevalence of STDs in the black community from the historical context of the Tuskegee Syphilis studies, where doctors allowed Black men to die of syphilis to study, which was preventable. This injustice is systemic because it is not the discrimination of one doctor or provider, but rather the lack of proper education and inclusion of black individuals in medical education. To right this wrong, all skin tones should be depicted in medical textbooks. The impact of Black stereotypes on medical literature should not impact their representation in STD literature.

 

This article can be viewed through de Beauvoir’s One and Other. de Beauvoir writes “the Other is posed as such by the One in defining himself as the one” (de Beauvoir 2). Throughout her work, de Beauvoir defines societal power structures as a struggle between the One- the group with power, and the Other- a group defined in contrast to the One in order to allow the One to create their sense of identity. The Other is often oppressed, seen as inessential, while the One is seen as the default, with the power to oppress. As white Americans are the One, the default, medical textbooks silently assume white skin is the “normal”, while dark skin is an abnormality. This is due to the fact that white Americans are the One, those with power, possibly oppressing minorities.

A Black medical student wrote a book about the subject, found here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/07/22/malone-mukwende-medical-handbook/

(McFarling, Usha Lee. “Lack of Darker Skin in Textbooks, Journals Harms Patients of Color.” STAT News, Stat News, 20 July 2020, www.statnews.com/2020/07/21/dermatology-faces-reckoning-lack-of-darker-skin-in-textbooks-journals-harms-patients-of-color/)

This image shows the difference in dermatitis on white versus black skin. The obvious difference emphasizes the importance of inclusion in medical literature.

 

Employing Undocumented Asian Americans (Context Presentation Week 10)- Jack McPheron

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In Lisa Ko’s The Leavers, the mother, Polly, is an undocumented Chinese immigrant, working at a nail salon. To better understand employment of undocumented immigrants, I looked to the NY Times article “The Life of an Undocumented South Asian Immigrant”, “The Overlooked Undocumented Immigrants”, and a final article titled “Addressing Labor Exploitation”. From these articles, a general narrative is built. For undocumented Asian Americans at work, they are often underpaid or not paid at all for their work, or physically and sexually abused in the workplace. Wage theft is common and seldom reported. Many workers continue to work in these roles, as they must support their families and themselves, and they have no legal pathways to employment as undocumented immigrants.

In understanding why these people continue to work in such harsh conditions, the 2 New York Times articles highlight the motivations for working in these challenging roles. In the first article, a Nepalese man named Nirmal sends his wages back to his wife and his daughter he has never met. When asked why, he states that there are no opportunities in Nepal, and he has no choice but to send money to his wife. In the second article, an Indian engineer named Ankit, interviewed by the Times, explains that the workers found sleeping inside their restaurant are undocumented and argues that there are no legal pathways for the men to work or become documented.

These articles make clear why many illegal immigrants work in challenging or illegal roles, like Polly at the nail salon. To put it simply, many immigrants do not have a choice. While Nirmal, above, does so to support his family, the men Ankit notices do so because there are no legal options of work or documentation available to them. In our novel, Polly works as an undocumented immigrant because she has to, to support both herself and Deming. For most undocumented workers, their employment and undocumented status are not voluntary, but required as a means of survival.

 Works Cited

Bhattacharya, Piyali. “The Life of an Undocumented South Asian Immigrant.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Nov. 2013, https://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/the-life-of-an-undocumented-south-asian-immigrant/.

Jordan, Miriam. “The Overlooked Undocumented Immigrants: From India, China, Brazil.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Dec. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/01/us/undocumented-visa-overstays.html.

Ko, Lisa. The Leavers: A Novel. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2018.

Nguyen-Ngo, Matt. “Addressing Labor Exploitation: An Examination of Undocumented Asian Americans in the Workplace.” Asian American Policy Review, 3 Sept. 2020, https://aapr.hkspublications.org/2020/06/02/addressing-labor-exploitation-an-examination-of-undocumented-asian-americans-in-the-workplace/.