Essentialism In American Born Chinese By Gene Luen Yang

One of the main issues that has been a result of representing the under-represented in children’s literature is essentialism. Essentialism is the idea that members of a specific ethnic group should be the only ones to represent their culture in literature because they will give an accurate portrayal of their culture. Essentialism is a very sensitive issue because whole cultures are being represented and those cultures do not want their ethnic group to be portrayed in a negative manner. Furthermore, while essentialism is a matter of opinion and personal beliefs there is one novel that gives a good account as to why essentialism may be preferable to most audiences. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang is a novel that displays stereotypical images of Asians and shows how three main characters

Moreover, even though this was an amazing novel that was written by an Asian-American author, the Asian-American audience was still appalled at the stereotypical images that were displayed. However, it was more acceptable because an Asian-American created the novel. Therefore, one could only imagine how outraged the Asian-American community would be if another author who is not a part of this ethnic group wrote this novel. So as previously stated, it is a matter of preference when one is discussing essentialism and it is an issue that will take many years to solve, if it can be solved at all. Next, during a speech that Gene Yang gave at the National Book Festival, he discussed representation in regards to essentialism. In his speech, he stated that authors of different ethnic