A stereotype that is exploited in American Born Chinese is the idea that all Chinese eat cats, dogs, and other common house pet animals. When Jin is being introduced to the class by his teacher a boy named Timmy raises his hand and says, “My momma says Chinese people eat dogs.” This is unfortunately a common stereotype of Chinese people in the United States that I have actually heard of myself. The misunderstanding that all Chinese people eat cats and dogs stems from the fact that dogs are sometimes eaten as a delicacy in their culture. This might seem strange to other cultures; however; each culture has various things that are different from any other culture. When I had an exchange student from Japan named Ayaka staying at my house I asked her what the strangest thing we eat in the United States is, and she responded with “Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches”. Every culture has various items that are different from others, but just because something might be found in one culture such as a delicacy of eating dog does not mean that every person from that culture abides by the same traditions.
Another one of the stereotypes I discovered in American Born Chinese was that many people believe that all Asian cultures are related and that they have arranged marriages for their children. When the students in Jin’s class found out that Jin and Suzy Nakamura were not related they started rumors that they were arranged to be married. “Rumors began to circulate that Suzy and I were arranged to be married on her thirteenth birthday. We avoided each other as much as possible.” Just because Jin and Suzy are both Asian the students thought that the two of them must be related in some aspect. When the students then found out that Jin and Suzy were not related they decided to switch to the stereotype that they must be in an arranged marriage. In various ancient cultures all around the world arranged marriages were a real life ordeal that some children were placed into by their parents. Unfortunately; when things are not fully understood, people try to use what they already know in order to