Blog #5

In both the American Born Chinese and The Bluest Eye the common theme is racism and cultural identity. In the Bluest Eye it talks about Pecola seeing herself as ugly because she does not look like every ones model of beauty. She wants to fit in and be something she is not, she even goes so far as praying to have blue eyes. This ugliness she seen in herself was caused by her classmates and teacher discriminating her in class. This issue caused her to be an outcast in school. Another form of discriminating is when Pecola, Frieda and Claudia started arguing and called each other bad names which they obviously did not make up themselves.

In American Born Chinese the monkey king was not allowed to go to the dinner party because he didn't have any shoes on. So he goes back orders everyone to wear shoes and masters kung fu. He meets God and after their talk still won't be convince that he was made a monkey for a reason and God makes no mistakes. So God traps him under boulders that will not allow him to use kung fu; he stays here for 500 years. Jin was an outcast and wanted to be like everyone else. He liked a girl named Amelia but thought the only way she would talk to him was if he looked more like Greg so he changed his hair. After his date Greg ask Jin not to see her anymore basically because he was Asian and he also convinced Amelia that he wasn't cool. So he like the monkey king changed his form to fit in more but this changing of the form change everything else about him as well. He lost his true friend and became something he wasn't. In the end we see how the monkey king and Jin are just alike and the monkey king helps Jin realize that it's better to be yourself because being something your not will get you no where.

In this two novels it shows how their is a privilege being white because it is what everyone sees as beauty or normal. Anything other than white would be an outcast. This is obvious when Pecola and Jin wants to be something their not just to fit in to society and liked by others.