And if those parts were to disappear?

So, who is Gene Luen Yang really speaking too? Is it a message about how Asian Americans are treated or is it a message about not losing your history? Is it a depiction of racism or of turning your back on who you are? For all intents and purposes I will be focusing on the aspect of how American Born Chinese reflects on how your history is key to the person you become. The primary source of this comes from the Herbalist’s wife and her message. Earlier in the book she had asked Jin what he wanted to be when he gre up. He wanted to be a transformer. She told him you can become anything as long as you are willing to sacrifice your soul. Later, the night when Jin is undergoing his transformation he dreams of the Herbalist’s wife. She says to him, “So little friend, you’ve done it.” In the morning Jin wakes up a very stereotypical, teenage American boy. Jin has become the transformer from his childhood. Only he gave up his “soul” in order to do so. I believe that his soul is representative of his history. The fact that both of his parents were from China, he seemed to have grown up with much contact to the Chinese culture. Jin, however, wants to reject it. He wants to rid himself of the ancestry that keeps him from being the “normal American boy”. Jin want to forget where he came from, the traditions in which he was raised, the native tongue of his parents. Jin wants it to disappear. But what Jin does not understand is that if those parts disappear than so does he. In this way, Yang is saying your past is reflective of you. If you forget that or decide to throw it away than you have “transformed” or lost yourself to the world.