Author(s): Zicong Fan

Abstract: Since the beginning of Chinese American literature in the United States, the identity issue of the Chinese American community has received much attention from Chinese American writers. Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel American Born Chinese tells the story of the protagonist Jin Wang who experiences his identity crisis due to the ethnicity as a Chinese American. Following the protagonist’s frustrating attempt of getting accepted into the white American society, constructing an affective model of shame, and through the philosophical perspective of “body without organs” of Deleuze and Guattari, it is to be argued that the genesis and resolution of Jin’s identity crisis is actually, as the intensity of affect changes, a process of de-territorialization and entering the state of “body without organs”, which also depicts the authentic living conditions of people of color who are kept dissociated and marginalized from the white American society.

Keywords: Asian American, Body without Organs, shame, identity, affect theory

Article Info: Received: 21 Nov 2024; Received in revised form: 18 Dec 2024; Accepted: 23 Dec 2024; Available online: 28 Dec 2024

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.96.50