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
The book flashes back to when Henry first met Lelia in El Paso, Texas shortly after finishing an assignment. They’re at a party and hit it off. He can tell she’s curious to know his ethnicity—and sure enough, the conversation eventually turns to the origins of his last name, which is Park. She knows about certain Asian names from an old friend, who told her that names like Chung, Cho, and Lee can either be Korean or Chinese, but not Japanese. Henry affirms that this is true, and then he guesses by her last name—Boswell—that she’s from Massachusetts, which is correct.
Henry and Lelia’s conversation in this scene plays with the idea that certain cultural identifiers can tell strangers a lot about a person. Although their playful banter suggests that something like a name can send a message about where someone is from, the novel will ultimately complicate this idea, as Henry experience of drifting between Korean and American culture becomes rather complex. While it’s possible to guess a person’s ethnicity or birthplace, then, the novel suggests that perfectly breaking people up into various categories isn’t straightforward—or even possible.
Themes
Henry and Lelia continue to talk at the party in El Paso. Lelia explains that she delivers food to immigrant families, many of whom don’t speak English. As she unloads the truck, she talks with some of them and gives them impromptu language lessons, so she has started teaching English at nights, and her classroom is always packed with immigrant families.
There’s an emphasis on language in Native Speaker, since the novel explores how different modes of communication impact the way people interact with and perceive of each other. It’s significant, then, that Lelia teaches English to immigrant families trying to learn the language—a service that Henry’s own parents might have benefitted from when they first came to the United States.
Themes
Eventually, Lelia and Henry decide to go outside to continue their conversation. Henry notes that people like him are constantly worrying about whether or not they have an accent, and Lelia says she can hear this in his voice—he speaks perfectly and without any trace of an accent, but his face makes it obvious that he’s listening closely to himself. He’s paying such close attention, she says, and this reveals to her that he’s a “nonnative speaker.” But Lelia herself speaks in the same careful, deliberate way because, she points out, it’s her job to do so.
Lelia’s observation about the way Henry speaks suggests that she’s a very attentive listener—someone who picks up on all kinds of clues that might be lurking deep inside the way another person communicates. In Henry’s case, nonverbal cues make it clear to Lelia that English isn’t his first language. The fact that she notices this suggests that there are modes of communication that transcend spoken language. And yet, Henry and Lelia’s relationship will later come under strain because of a lack of open communication. Just because Lelia can read Henry’s nonverbal cues, then, doesn’t mean she’s capable of guessing his secrets.
Themes
Henry and Lelia end up kissing at the party. Their connection is strong—so strong that Henry stays in El Paso for an entire week, even though he was supposed to leave the following day. In the present, though, he wonders if he and Lelia overlooked certain personality traits in each other, rushing into their relationship because it was so electrifying. These days, he walks the streets of New York City and thinks about what she’s doing in Italy. He thinks about the list she left him, wondering what it means and eventually coming to see it as a list not just of his own shortcomings, but of Lelia’s, too.
There’s an implication here that it’s possible for people to feel very close and connected while also remaining at an emotional remove from each other. Lelia and Henry jump headlong into their relationship because they establish an immediate bond, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re compatible. Lelia is clearly someone who speaks her mind and likes to be straightforward, whereas Henry is reserved and introspective. Although this difference might not have mattered in the very beginning of their relationship, it ultimately leads to tension later on.
Themes
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At work, Henry asks his older colleague, Jack, to tell him about life in the Mediterranean, hoping to get a better sense of what Lelia is doing there. A Greek man, Jack specializes in anything that has to do with the Mediterranean. He tells Henry to go after Lelia, but Pete—another one of his coworkers—points out that Henry isn’t the kind of person to chase after his wife. Rather, he’s the type who would send someone to “tail” her.
At this point in the novel, it’s still unclear what, exactly, Henry does for a living. He’s some sort of spy, but the details remain hazy—just as hazy, it seems, as his job probably seems to Lelia, who perhaps tired of trying to break through Henry’s protective barriers and finally left to branch out on her own. When Pete suggests that Henry’s the kind of person who would send somebody else to “tail” Lelia, he hints that Henry is unlikely to put himself out there to find out what Lelia’s doing, which is yet another indicator of Henry’s guarded, reserved nature.
Themes
Pete talks about how best to follow a woman in public, noting that it’s harder to follow women than it is to follow men, because women are already on alert when they’re in public. As he talks this way, Grace—Henry’s only female coworker—listens but doesn’t chime in. The boss of the company, Dennis Hoagland, then interrupts the conversation. He’s a boisterous man who looks perfectly healthy, but Henry always has the sense that his health is failing. Hoagland is the one who originally recruited Henry for the job, which Henry now describes as a form of spy work, though neither he nor his colleagues think of themselves as spies. Hoagland told him to think of himself as someone who simply “even[s] things out.”
Even though the narration now gives a little more insight into the nature of Henry’s work, his actual job is still quite mysterious. Hoagland’s suggestion that Henry should think of himself as someone who “even[s] things out” is rather cryptic, but it perhaps suggests that Henry ultimately goes undercover to exert some kind of influence or somehow subtly change things. All in all, the ambiguity surrounding his job sheds light on why Lelia was frustrated enough by Henry’s secrecy to leave him.
Themes
Henry and his coworkers mainly keep track of immigrants who have come to the United States. Each operative concentrates on different groups of people: Jack focuses on the Mediterranean and the Middle East, two other coworkers focus on Central America and Africa, Pete focuses on Japan, and Henry focuses on Korea. Hoagland founded the organization in the 1970s, when there were many immigrants coming to the country—he recognized an opportunity to specialize in a certain kind of surveillance, and now the company gets hired by large corporations, foreign governments, and powerful people.
It now emerges that Henry’s job is at least somewhat related to his background as a Korean American, considering that he specializes in spying on people from Korea. His cultural identity therefore factors into his career, as he draws on his knowledge of both American and Korean culture to do his job—a dynamic that is sure to cause some internal tension or conflict, since it requires Henry to essentially work against Korean immigrants who are like his own parents.
Themes
Dennis Hoagland’s company gives its clients valuable information about “people working against their vested interests.” This information includes contextual details about their lives, psychological assessments, and general intelligence about their daily routines. The people in question are usually wealthy immigrants fueling and supporting revolutions taking place back in their home countries, which sometimes simply means helping to establish various organizations in the United States. Henry and his peers become involved in these organizations and, in doing so, get close to the subjects, endearing themselves to the marks and gleaning whatever information they can from them.
It’s now a bit clearer what, exactly, Henry does as a spy: he simply gathers information about people whom his company’s clients want to know more about. However, there’s still a lot of ambiguity surrounding who the company’s clients are, other than that they’re interested in spying on people who are “working against their vested interests.” Considering that most of the subjects Henry spies on are immigrants, there’s a certain level of xenophobia at play here, suggesting that the company’s mysterious clients distrust immigrants and are unwilling to simply let them live in peace in the United States.
Themes
