Donald Duk centers around the titular character who is 11 almost 12 year old Chinese American boy living in San Fransisco’s Chinatown. Donald Duk struggles with his Chinese cultural identity and throughout the novel comes to terms with his lost cultural identity, self deprecation, and internalized racism.

One of the first side characters we are introduced to in the novel is Donald’s teacher, Mr. Meanwright, who teaches the class about Chinese American history — but his version of history is inaccurate and often others Donald for being Chinese. Donald’s struggle with his cultural identity is not only an internal struggle but something that he faces in reality like at school. Donald is content to listen to these inaccurate histories because they all fit his idea of what being Chinese means: passive, uncompetitive, compliant.

Not only does Donald struggle with being Chinese, but he struggles with being American because to him being American means white — which he is not. He takes on a white persona, almost, thinking of Chinese people in demeaning and wrong terms all the while being self deprecating and unconsciously using internalized racism against himself and his people. Donald’s battle with his American side and Chinese side makes him feel that he doesn’t belong, no matter what — he’s too white for the other Chinese people, and too Chinese for the white Americans. He has a lost sense of identity and doesn’t know who he is or where he belongs.

In the novel, Donald’s father describes the 108 heroes of The Water Margin but for Donald, who is completely Americanized, to understand his father uses Robin Hood as a comparison to the heroes. After hearing this story and how Donald’s father was involved with the railroad work, he starts to feel kinship towards the Chinese Americans in history. But while he is starting to understand history a little differently, Donald is still holding on to internalized racism toward his Chinese side — he doesn’t want to face the truth of what being Chinese really means or what the Chinese had done to help progress the United States because that would also mean accepting his Chinese identity which he is not ready for.

A motif I noticed throughout the story was the use of twins, or pairs. There are many twins listed from Donald’s own two sisters, Penelope and Venus, to the Frog Twins, and even the boy and girl pair of twins in the historical dreams he has. Twins are often a symbol of the masculinity of the father so it seems that the novel was playing up the idea of the patriarchy that is often in Chinese homes. Donald’s father, King, is a more prominent character in the story than his mother, Daisy, is showcasing that patriarchy of the father being in charge and being the one to discipline the children while the mother is the caregiver and nurturer.

The number five was also used a lot; Donald’s own family is made up of five people, and during one dream that Donald has, the number five is used to describe how many arms people had, as well as how many boys and girls there were, how many grandchildren, etc. The number five is often seen as a lucky number in Chinese culture: for the five elements of wood, gold, water, earth, and fire (all of which are represented throughout the novel in various ways); the five sacred mountains of China; and the five emperors. While not all of these ideas made it into the novel in an obvious way, I definitely noticed the five Chinese elements like with the building of model planes with balsa wood that would be set aflame as well as emperors being mentioned as part of the mandate of heaven with “kingdoms that rise and fall.”

The story touched on Donald’s internal struggles with coming to terms with his identity multiple times and showed how learning his history and learning of a collective memory and identity with the Chinese Americans in the past. The dreams Donald would have allowed for him to be apart of that collective memory and feel what his ancestors and his people felt during those times when they were robbed of the hard work they had put into the railroad.

I felt the story really allowed for anyone reading to gain a better understanding and articulate what it sometimes means to be Asian American and have that dual identity that is sometimes hard to grasp onto. I feel that I personally have a better understanding of that connection that anyone may have to their ethnic group in history.