Conflict Between Two Cultures, The Chinese American And...

In American Born Chinese there is a constant struggle between two cultures, the Chinese American and the white culture. Their interaction yields constructive and destructive results in terms of their cultural integration. The characters can be separated into two distinct categories, empathizers and antagonists. Empathizers are the individuals that allow other cultures to exist freely within their city in the United States. They make no attempts to suppress other’s cultural identity, instead, they make decisions that promote the coexistence of multiple cultures. For example, when Jin Wang went out on a date with a white girl this would represent two cultures actively working to coexist (Yang 164). In this case, the girl would be considered an empathizer. On the other side of the spectrum, antagonists actively attempt to suppress cultures dissimilar to their own. They go out of their way to force conformity through the use of bullying and exclusion. Peter Garbinsky is an exampl e of an antagonist. His abuse of Jin Wang catalyzed Jin’s transition to conformity rather than identifying with his own culture. Yang represents both of these groups through their appearance in the graphic novel, more specifically their eyebrows. Empathizers are given two distinct eyebrows while the antagonists possess a unibrow. The unibrows represent our progress, or lack of progress, as a society towards cultural acceptance. Referring to the examples above, Jin’s date was given two eyebrows whileShow MoreRelatedThe Conflict Between Waverly And Her Mother1001 Words   |  5 PagesHowever, the conflict between Waverly and her mother is very realistic, due to the nature that many mothers and daughters have different views which causes disagreements. The people of Chinese descent have their Chinese heritage, but struggle to keep true to their traditions while living around American culture. 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