Parents

Something that bothered me while reading through American Born Chinese was the role of the parents, or really any adult figure in the book. I’m sure it was intentional, but the lack of influence was a bit disturbing. To me, the self-loathing issue that Jin has going on just seems to be the sort of thing that a parent would pick up on. Take for instance the day that Jin decides he’s going to perm his hair. I would like to hope that if my child did something along those lines, I might pick up on the fact that everything wasn’t okay. And the parents in the Danny storyline are portrayed as completely oblivious to any conflict whatsoever. I don’t know, I just think there’s a distinct lack of parental guidance. Not that I would want a scene where the parents sit Jin down and have a heart-to-heart of how they feel about being immigrants or tell him they understand, because that’s not the focus of the story. I mean we never see his parents’ faces, or even a scene at his home that isn’t his bedroom. But even a scene with one of his parents showing concern of some sort, even if it wasn’t voiced...although, I guess it does help to make Jin seem that much more isolated. And the point is that he doesn’t identify with what he sees his parents as being. So I guess I understand where Yang was coming from. But...still. I guess I’m just too much of a motherly type.