It is very obvious that in both novels, American Born Chinese and The Bluest Eye, focus on racism and cultural identity. Pecola is seen and described by other characters in the novel as a little, dirty black girl. She has very dark skin and this makes her more "ugly" than other children who have lighter skin than her. In one scene, Marueen Peal calls Pecola ugly and a "black e mo." Because of these hurtful accusations, Pecola feels the need to be prettier or more white, so she asks and prays for blue eyes. She is trying to be something that she is not just to be accepted by the people in her community and even the world in general. White privilege is seen in this novel clearly. The black people, such as Pecola's parents and Geraldine, do not have good jobs and they make very little money. They do the wash for white population and clean their houses day in and day out.
In American Born Chinese, the issue of cultural identity is seen very clearly. The monkey king believes that he is a deity; he saved the monkeys from the tiger-spirit and he mastered the four parts of kong-fu. When he tries to get into a party held only for the gods, he is not allowed in because he is not wearing shoes. He takes this as a personal jab and beats a lot of the other gods up because he is extremely angry. For the rest of the novel he practices other art forms and believes that if he masters them he will be worshipped by others. He can transform himself and change into many forms. When he meets God he refuses to accept the fact that he is a monkey and gets infuriated when anyone calls him a monkey. He doesn't understand that God made him that way for a reason. The same type of thing happens with Jin when he tries to get Amelia's attention. He changes his appearance to look more like Greg because he is attractive and thinks Amelia likes him. When Amelia tells him that she doesn't like him Jin prays, like Pecola, that he would become more attractive and recieves a new face and hair. Jin does not make many friends at his school right away and the other kids make fun of him because he is Chinese. The same scenario occurs when Wei-Chen Sun joins the school. He is made fun of by others, even Jin at first, because he is Chinese and does not speak English very well.
Both novels focus on racism and cultural identity. Pecola, the monkey king, and Jin are not accepted by others because they are not good enough for one reason or antoher. Pecola is not liked because of her skin, the monkey king is not liked because he is dangerous from all the art forms he learned, and Jin thinks that he is not attractive because Amelia doesn't like him. Each of them wish for or change themselves in order to become more accepted by society. I think that this is another major theme that is prevalent in both novels; be who you are and be proud of it. God made us who we are and how we look for a reason and we shouldn't want to be or look like others.
I really like the points that you picked out to relate the two novels. I liked that you included that the characters wanted to "change themselves in order to become more accepted in society." I think that was the most important idea to be picked out of both of the novels.
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