Ellen Oh interviews new National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Gene Luen Yang at LOC

Ellen Oh @elloellenoh (author of Prophecy series and co-founder of WNDB) interviewed Gene Luen Yang, WNDB Advisory Board member and newly inducted National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, at the Library of Congress (Washington, DC, January 7, 2016).

Ellen – First burning question of the day, how did you react when you first heard you were the new Ambassador?

Gene – I was in a car. I was on a book tour. It was in October. I was touring for the first volume of Secret Coders which came out in September. Mark Seigel, my editor, calls me up and he tells me the news but also tells me I cannot tell anybody. So I’m in a car with an author escort and I just had to keep it inside. It still felt awesome, but I just had to keep it all inside. As soon as I could, I called my wife and I told her the news. And I was really excited, I was super excited. But honestly, I don’t think I realized the breadth and the scope of the program until [this week at the Library of Congress]. It’s just been shocking. It’s been crazy.

Ellen - Are you overwhelmed?

Gene - A little bit. [laughs] But I’m also really excited. I think it definitely presents a bunch of different opportunities for me. I’m an author. I’m passionate about books. So to get to talk about books in general is awesome.

Ellen - Yes, and you have this terrific platform. Can you talk a little bit more about it?

Gene - Sure, so every national ambassador has a platform. I had a discussion with the folks at First Second Books and the Children’s Book Council and what came out of that discussion was the platform of “Reading Without Walls.” What we mean by that is we want kids to explore the world through reading and we want them to explore it in 3 very specific ways. One is to read books about people who do not look or live like them. Two is to read books about topics that they might find intimidating. And my own pet project for this area is to get kids to read about STEM topics - to read about science, technology, engineering and math. Third is to get kids to read stories in different formats. So if you are a kid that only reads novels with only words I want them to try a graphic novel. And the exact opposite, if you’re a kid that only reads graphic novels I want them to try a prose novel.

Ellen - How busy is your schedule this first year, do you know yet?

Gene- You know, I travel a lot already. I do maybe 2 trips every month. I’m not anticipating having to travel more this year. Because I was comparing my travel schedule with Kate’s (DiCamillo) and hers was a lot less. [laughs] But I think what the difference is that normally I travel a lot to talk about my own books. Now a lot of these programs that I already have scheduled will be folded into the ambassadorship so I won’t just be talking about my books, I’m going to be talking about reading in general.

Ellen – Here’s a specific WNDB question. When did you first see yourself represented in the pages of a book or comic?

Gene – I think it slowly happened for me as I got older. I think I first learned to call myself an Asian American in college.

Ellen - Me too.

Gene - That was really the first time I explicitly thought about my cultural heritage. And I was able to make sense of a lot of the uncomfortable situations I’ve been in when I was a little bit younger. But early on in comics, one of the things about comics that’s awesome is that you do have these characters that are covered from head to toe, like Spiderman. And when you’re reading Spiderman and he’s going through those actions, you can kind of imagine yourself underneath that suit. And even beyond that, X-Men has always been like this bastion of diversity in the superhero world. In the X-Men there were a number of prominent Asian and Asian American characters. There was Jubilee, who really felt like someone I would have known when I was in high school. She’s just written that way. She’s a Chinese American, grew up in La Jolla. Has the mutant power of firing fireworks out of her hands. Nobody I knew did that part, but everything else about her felt like someone I would have known. And there was Sunfire, who was a Japanese national and then Psylocke who did not start out life as an Asian American. But she was kidnapped by ninjas and given an Asian body so I kind of count her. [laughs]

But there were characters of Asian descent in comics and it did mean something to see them. I remember when Milestone Comics, Milestone Media, came out. It was a company that came out in the early 90s. It was headed up by Denys Cowan and Dwayne McDuffie who were two really prominent African American comic book creators. And it was a company founded on the idea of diverse comics. They wanted to create diverse superheroes. I think they were hugely influential, both on the comic book industry and to me as a comic book fan.

Ellen - Building on that, what about kids of color being able to see themselves as superheroes? We’ve seen a black spiderman and we’ve seen all the negative reactions to changing up classically white characters who are recast as POC. How important is this and the conversation that is happening right now about it?

Gene – I think America is diversifying, right? We are changing as a culture and we want to see our stories change as well. So that conversation is happening not just in superhero comics but in comics in general and in stories in general. In books, in movies and television. There’s this widening conversation about diversity. I think for kids, I think its important because there is something affirming about seeing your own experience reflected in the stories that you read. There’s a certain sense of validation that you are not alone when you read something like that. For superheroes specifically, I think superheroes are such an American genre. They’re created from America and [historically] superheroes came up just as America came into its own as a world power. Superheroes came into their own as popular mythology. And because they’re so American, I think when people of color, when minority groups in general, see themselves reflected in this genre it’s almost like an affirmation. Regardless of who you are or where you are from, you can be an American. You can be just as American as anybody else.

Ellen - I totally agree. I’m just as excited when I see a Black superhero as when I see an Asian one.

Gene – Yes!

Ellen - It does feel like anytime you see some kind of diversity it raises all people of color, all of us up.

Gene – It makes anybody who feels like an outsider realize “I don’t always have to be an outsider.” I definitely felt that way too. Like with Milestone Media, their most prominent characters were African American. My favorite of their characters was a guy named Static, Static Shock. And he’s a kid who has electricity power. He had a trashcan lid that he could turn into, it was almost like a surf board that could fly through the air. I found it awesome. He was an African American character. But I felt like the fact that he existed said something about the changing nature of that genre.

Ellen – So what is your Dream Project?

Gene - I feel like I’ve kind of gotten to do a lot of my dream projects already. American Born Chinese was a dream project of mine. Secret Coders was something that I thought about for a really long time. Boxers and Saints as well was kind of a dream project. So it’s been kind of awesome. The next dream project – well I want to do something that is non-fiction, and that’s actually what I’m working on right now. I followed a high school basketball team for a season and I’m going to be doing a book about them.

Ellen - And that was challenging for you because it was something beyond your walls?

Gene – Yeah, because I was not an athlete, I was not a sports fan growing up. The way I got interested in basketball was partly through reading. I read this book called Outside the Paint by Kathleen Yep, who is in some way related to Lawrence Yep. Anyways, that book and a bunch of other books pointed to the fact that basketball overlapped with culture. And that’s what really intrigued me. Basketball historically has been this place where outsider cultures have worked out there own dramas. It’s been really interesting to learn about the history of basketball.

Ellen – Time for a writing question. What are your must haves when you’re working?

Gene – Coffee is really really important. Which is probably not a good thing. Yeah and I do a lot of my writing at Panera. Actually, Kwame Alexander mentioned the same thing and I was like YES! [laughs]

Ellen - That’s so funny. I don’t go to Panera, I end up at Starbucks.

Gene – It’s cause they have great wi-fi. Really wonderful wi-fi there.

Ellen – Now an Avatar question. If you were an Avatar character, what would you be?

Gene – I’d be an Earthbender. Yeah, I would definitely be an Earthbender.

Ellen – I want to be Korra… Okay what is your favorite fan moment?

Gene - My favorite moment. I’ve had children of immigrants regardless of where their parents came from, come up and tell me that my books resonated with them. And that means a lot. That means the world to me.

Ellen - Last question. This is a hard one. What do you want to be remembered for as the National Ambassador?

Gene – Oh my gosh! I don’t know. I don’t know if I can answer that one! Okay, I’ll tell you. So the two things I want to promote are figuring out how to get kids to read outside their walls, to read without walls. And the second thing is to figure out how to promote reading through technology. If I could do a good job on those two things, I’ll leave happy.

Ellen – Thank you, Gene, and congratulations!