Paired Texts: China Boy and American Born Chinese

While a student is in high school, it is important to respect others for who they are, no matter how different they are from you. Both China Boy and American Born Chinese offer strict views from the point of an Asian boy, and the difficulty they experience when they first enter an American society. It would be a good idea to adopt these two literatures into the 11th grade curriculum because it includes and promotes the idea of empathy, the ability to understand someone else's feelings and emotions. Most people cannot discern the difficulty of adapting to a new environment, and the paired texts give a great understanding of what it's like for someone to try and fit in to a completely new community. Discrimination and racism is all too evident in them, and the ignorance that many children express are due to lack of judgement and understanding of different cultures. Therfore, adding this paired text would help educate many people in a different viewpoint, and would emphasize the significance of cultural difference, hoping to abate the discrimination that is still contemporary in this world today.