Gene Luen Yang remembers feeling pumped in 2007 when Hollywood came calling about his trailblazing graphic novel “American Born Chinese.” But that excitement turned into exasperation when it became clear the interested party completely missed the point of the book.
“It came out that the reason why they were interested is because the Beijing Olympics were coming up in 2008. And they wanted some property that had the word China or Chinese in it,” Yang said in a recent interview. “Every now and then there would be an inquiry. But I really think the world needed to change in order for there to be an appetite for a story about an Asian American protagonist.”
