Hey everyone!
As we continue exploring what Breaking the Mold means this Asian American Pacific Islander Month, we also want to focus on highlighting the amazing work of creators as well. With the upcoming streaming release of American Born Chinese, someone I thought would be worth highlighting is Asian American cartoonist Gene Luen Yang, original creator of the graphic novel the series is based on.
From American Born Chinese, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Shang-Chi to Monkey Prince (and many more), Gene has an impressive body of work, consistently weaving in bits of his culture and heritage into the narratives he crafts. While he has found success in his career on-page, this is the first time the world will see it translated to the screen.
Luckily for me, last week I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with Gene about the challenges of adapting American Born Chinese for streaming as well as his own journey as a creator through the years. He also had a wonderful response to what Breaking the Mold means to him:
"I think when I was a kid I had all these limitations in my head- I had all these molds in my head. In terms of comics, I do think I had this one limitation that you could only tell superhero stories in comics. I also had another limitation that an Asian or Asian American couldn't be a superhero unless they knew martial arts. And I had another limitation that Asians and Asian Americans should primarily be side characters- as opposed to the hero or protagonist. So I do think part of my growing up process- part of my maturing process- is breaking those molds in my head and figuring out that the world of possibilities is much larger than I was expecting."
His response really resonated with me on a personal level- I grew up seeing a lot of Asian characters in American media being shoved to the sidelines as the butt of jokes or- at worst- portrayed as negative one dimensional stereotypes. It's been a tough road but we've come a long way since the days of the Hays Code and it's just great to see more mainstream embracement of Asian culture and characters, whether they know martial arts or not.
That was just one of many parts of the wonderful conversation I had with Gene.
I also may have told him he's kind of my hero.
American Born Chinese premieres May 24th exclusively on Disney+
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