Blog #5: The Bluest Eye vs. American Born Chinese

In comparing The Bluest Eye and American Born Chinese I found many simularities.  The first simularity I looked at was the characters in the novels.  Jin Wang is a lot like Pecola because they both want to be 'beautiful.'  Jin Wang wants be white, while Pecola wants blue eyes to be pretty.  They are also both teenagers just trying to fit in. 
Another simularity was the friendships that were made among the characters.  Jin Wang and Wei-Chen become friends almost right away but later in their friendship, Jin treats Wei-Chen badly and Wei-Chen refuses to be his friend ever again.  Later in the comic we learn that this really effected Wei-Chen's life.  This friendship reminded me of Maureen Paul's friendship with the three girls; Pecola, Frieda, and Claudia.  Maureen singles out Claudia and Claudia says something smart, which makes Maureen comment on the fact that they are 'black and ugly.'  They get mad and the friendship is lost.
Finally, the most obvious comparison was discrimination and racism.  In the Bluest Eye, rascism is all around.  In their world, the idea is that the 'Shirley Temple' look is beautiful and anything else is not. Claudia hates Shirley Temple for this but Pecola wants to be just like Shirley Temple.  Cholly discriminates against women where at one time he loved women now he just takes his anger out on them due to his past.  In Pecola's class, the teacher and classmates igonore her because she thinks she's ugly.  She also gets harassed on her way home from school but Maureen steps in and all of the sudden everything is okay because Maureen is light-skinned and wealthy.  We also read about discrimination when Geraldine didnt let Junior play with the lower class blacks only the upper class, neat children.  In American Born Chinese, in the beginning of the comic, the gods and godesses discriminate against the Monkey King of Flower-Fruit Mountain.  They wouldn't let him into the party because of what he looked like even though, he was a king just like them.   In Jin Wang's life, his classmates picked on him and made rumors up about Chinese people.  When Wei-Chen comes to school he befriends him and things get better for Jin Wang.  He finds the courage to ask out an American girl who does go out with him but is then told by a white boy to not communicate with her.  This angers Jin and causes him issues within himself and with Wei-Chen.  Also, another example of discrimination was cousin Danny and Chin-Kee.  Although, Chin-Kee does make it hard to get along with that's still your cousin and blood family you need to love them and respect them regardless of who they are or how they act.  Danny doesn't treat him very nice and even tries to beat him up. 
I think the main theme or quote of American Born Chinese is to just be yourself and don't try to change it.  If people don't like you, so what because the people that do like you are the ones that mean the most and are the best friends. 

Both of these novels relate to our discussion in class through rascism and discrimination within them.