American Born Chinese

After finishing McCloud's book and starting the book, American Born Chinese, I am really beginning to take a better understanding for comics and am beginning to have more of an appreciation for them and what the bring to me as a reader. In comparison to McCloud's book, I found this book as a much easier read and way easier to follow. The panel I would like to focus on and which I found very interesting was the panel where the boy, Chin-kee, goes to school in America for the first time. First of all, his name is Chin-kee, which the word "chink" is often referred to as a dereogetory comment towards Asians. I was shocked at the fact that the author would go that far, but I think it does an excellent job of expressing stereotypes against Asians, in general. This panel/section shows a young, Chinese boy, and his first experiences in an American school, while visiting his cousin in the US. I actually found a lot of what was happening in this section and the expressions used to hold very true in a sense. In my own experience, when people from other countries come in to the United States for the first time they are so excited to do so. A lot of times too, they are eager to learn. In this panel Chin-kee is so excited to learn and participate, while the other kids are so used to the education they are given that they show no enthusiasm to learning, what so ever. In every class they show him in, he is always raising his hands and answering questions. I also liked how it actually showed Chin-kee's difference in dialect because I feel it really held true. He knows English, but it's broken English, which is what you see a lot of times with those who have not been in our country for too long (I am impressed, none the less, because I don't think I'd ever be able to pick up a language as fast as a lot of people do).  The multi modality used in this section I chose, doesn't exemplify as much as in other parts, from what I noticed, but multi modality is used in the classroom setting, where most of the section I chose takes place. In the science classroom, a human skeleton is used as a visual aid. In English, the teacher is reading out loud to the class and in math equations are written on the board by the teacher. This portion of the text actually truly does exemplifies multi modality in the classroom and the different ways of learning and teaching that honor all of our different senses.  So far I have really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading the rest of it!