American Born Chinese End

I quite liked the ending of "American Born Chinese". It included a bit of a twist that involved the idea of identity. Danny, a boy who seems the epitome of the "American (white) Ideal" is actually Chinese. He is actually the boy from another story, Jin Wang, a boy who struggled with the desire to fit in when he moved from a predominately Chinese area to a mostly white area. He eventually, because of his intense desire to fit in, adopted the Danny persona in an attempt to further himself from his Chinese heritage.

When his cousin comes to visit, 'Danny' is deeply uncomfortable because his cousin reminds him so strongly of everything that he has worked to hard to reject. It brings up a bit of a conflict within with the constant reminder to 'Danny' that part of his identity is made up of his Chinese heritage. That just because 'Danny' has rejected it- ignored the fact- that it doesnt make the fact go away.

I thought that the books exploration of identity- the message at the end that it is important that people not feel forced to have to reject parts of themselves just in order to fit in- was really interesting in this book. I am glad that there was a twist at the end, and I think that it just worked wonders for the amount of power this book holds. I liked the fact that eventually all of the different stories in the book did end up making sense- converged together well.