Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Native Speaker, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Multiculturalism
Silence, Language, and Communication
Racism and Xenophobia
Love, Loss, and Moving On
Summary
Analysis
Regardless of his feelings about Hoagland or his job, Henry can’t deny that he’s the perfect person for the Kwang assignment. He fits right into the Kwang organization, taking notes for Kwang as constituents visit the office. Kwang likes to keep a running register of everyone who gives money to his team, printing out long lists of names and taking them home each night to memorize them so that he has a firm understanding of his base. Henry makes copies of these lists for him. One evening, Kwang finds Henry copying out the lists and studying them himself. But he doesn’t seem unsettled by Henry’s apparent interest in them. Instead, he’s pleased that Henry is “learning the business,” and he invites him out to a nice restaurant.
Kwang’s success is built on how much he interacts with and engages his core base of constituents. He isn’t an absent politician who overlooks the value of reaching out to his own community. It is perhaps because of his genuine devotion to his constituents that Henry seems to admire and respect him, though this respect also clearly comes from their shared cultural backgrounds. Still, the fact that Henry starts studying the donor lists himself suggests that Jack has gotten through to him and convinced him to start finding out valuable information about the Kwang organization.
Themes
On their way to the restaurant, Henry and Kwang pass an argument unfolding on the sidewalks. It’s between a Black man and a Korean vendor. Kwang gets out of the car and asks what’s going on. Apparently, the Black man bought a defective watch from the vendor and now wants to return it for credit. The vendor is refusing this request, and both parties are very upset. The vendor says racist things about the Black man, so Kwang takes him inside for a quick chat. Meanwhile, the Black man tells Henry that he often stops at the vendor’s cart to buy his wife jewelry—it’s cheap, but his wife likes it. He should have known better, he says, than to buy a watch. In the end, Kwang returns with the vendor, who gives the customer a better watch and a pair of earrings.
As a politician whose primary message revolves around unity, Kwang has his work cut out for him in Queens. Although there are many different racial and ethnic groups living side by side in his borough, that doesn’t mean everyone gets along. In particular, the Black and Korean communities have been clashing, which is why Kwang spoke at the church in Brooklyn with Black priests and community leaders. Now, though, he takes this opportunity to serve as a mediator in a disagreement between a Black man and a Korean vendor. It’s unclear what he ends up saying to the vendor, but he manages to convince him to treat the customer with kindness, perhaps using his own influence in the Korean community to talk the vendor into striving for peace and harmony instead of tension and strife.
Themes
Confused, the customer is about to refuse the vendor’s offer, but Kwang interjects. He tells the Black man that the watch and earrings are a gift from the vendor and that he should accept them. The customer then shakes everyone’s hands and leaves with the gifts. When Henry and Kwang get back in the car, they can see the vendor’s poorly concealed fury, as he slams merchandise down and seethes about what just happened. But Kwang doesn’t mind, saying that whatever benefits the campaign will also benefit the vendor in the long run—even if it enrages him now. Nonetheless, Henry thinks about how the vendor will surely stay open extra late tonight in an attempt to make back the money he lost today by giving away the watch and earrings.
The way Kwang handled this situation sheds light on just how important he thinks his own political movement is. He thinks the vendor’s financial sacrifice is worthwhile because it will help create a sense of unity amongst his constituents. Henry, however, recognizes that this doesn’t change the fact that the vendor now has to somehow make up for the money he lost in this interaction—a harsh reality that most likely reminds Henry of all the personal sacrifices his own father made in order to stay afloat and become successful as an immigrant in the United States.
Themes
