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Gabby Perlewitz Mrs. Barth October 22, 2008 **American Born Chinese Reflection on Online Conference with Gene Yang**

Transformation. Stereotypes. Characters. Symbolism. Inspirations. These are all things we talked about in our online conference with Gene Yang, the author of American Born Chinese, on October 21, 2008. The conference was exciting and a new experience for me. I thought it was cool how we got to talk live through a webcam to the famous author of an award-winning book- Gene Luen Yang. I feel lucky that I got this opportunity because most people don’t ever get the chance to do something such as this. The conference gave me a more in-depth understanding of American Born Chinese, Gene, and reasons/explanations for certain circumstances in the book. For example: we learned why Jin never changes his shirt throughout the book; he keeps the same shirt on the whole time because it helps the readers look and identify that it is Jin right away because of his overall appearance. I found that it takes four to eight hours to create each page. It is astounding that it takes so long just for one page. I could imagine four to eight hours for maybe a chapter, but I definitely would never have guesses that it would take so long to write one page! What surprised me is how Gene used all of his resources so well. I think it was clever of him to use his students as a resource and to use his mother as a resource. I think it was an especially good idea to use one of his student’s ideas for the pimped out car for the end of the book because it showed how he really did look above and beyond to find things he needed for his graphic novel. What helped me understand American Born Chinese more was all of Gene’s explanations and reasons behind putting things in the book, his reasons for illustrating the scenes the way he did, and the way he portrayed the messages and ideas he wanted to get across. I think it definitely gave me a clearer and more in-depth view on American Born Chinese because of all the reasoning and explanations. I strongly believe that online conferences withauthors are a great idea because it let’s the reader understand what they read more and it gives them new views and perspectives on what happened and why they happened. The conferences allow the readers to expand their knowledge on the book and get to know more about the book and it’s author. I really, really liked our online conference with Gene Yang. It gave me new ideas and views and it gave me a better understanding of American Born Chinese.