Native Speaker

by

Chang-rae Lee

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Themes and Colors
Identity and Multiculturalism Theme Icon
Silence, Language, and Communication Theme Icon
Racism and Xenophobia Theme Icon
Love, Loss, and Moving On Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Native Speaker, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Xenophobia Theme Icon

Native Speaker highlights the intolerance many immigrants of color face in the United States. Henry Park is an American citizen, but he still experiences bigotry because he’s Korean. While working in his father’s store as a teenager, he hears a white woman make a racist comment about him. This experience makes him feel invisible, since she clearly assumes he can’t understand her—or doesn’t care. The same woman later bites an apple and puts it back, but Henry’s father stops him from saying anything, noting in Korean that she’s a “steady customer.” Henry thus sees the difficult societal position his father occupies: in order to be successful, he’s forced to tolerate mistreatment from wealthy white people who think they’re above him. To make it in the United States as an immigrant of color, the novel implies, often means having to navigate and put up with bigotry.

It's perhaps because Henry witnessed American society’s mistreatment of his father that he later respects John Kwang, a Korean American councilman whose success stems from his engagement with New York City’s immigrant community. Kwang’s base is made up of immigrants from many different countries, including—or perhaps especially—Korea. The fact that he has so much influence over New York politics is significant to Henry, since it means Kwang has harnessed the political power of a largely nonwhite demographic. In other words, he has risen to a position of power not by acquiescing to racists but by mobilizing a previously disenfranchised segment of the population. This trajectory stands in stark contrast to the way Henry’s father gained success by quietly tolerating racism.

However, the novel hints that Kwang might have underestimated the intensity of the racism and xenophobia he faces as a public figure. The mere fact that Henry has been hired to spy on him is an indication of how suspicious certain people are of immigrants of color who rise to power. Henry steals a list of Kwang’s supporters involved in a “money club,” which isn’t technically illegal—but that’s not the point, since whoever hired Henry’s company just wants to arrest and deport the undocumented immigrants supporting Kwang. It’s clear, then, that many white Americans in positions of power are hesitant to let people like Kwang join their ranks, and their hesitancy is mainly a reaction to what he represents: namely, a broad and diverse coalition of new Americans.

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Racism and Xenophobia ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Racism and Xenophobia appears in each chapter of Native Speaker. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Racism and Xenophobia Quotes in Native Speaker

Below you will find the important quotes in Native Speaker related to the theme of Racism and Xenophobia.
Chapter 9 Quotes

“And if they do not have the same strong community you enjoy, the one you brought with you from Korea, which can pool money and efforts for its members—it is because this community has been broken and dissolved through history. […] Know that what we have in common, the sadness and pain and injustice, will always be stronger than our differences. I respect and honor you deeply.”

Related Characters: John Kwang (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Ggeh (The “Money Club”)
Page Number: 153
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

We joked a little more, I thought like regular American men, faking, dipping, juking. I found myself listening to us. For despite how well he spoke, how perfectly he moved through the sounds of his words, I kept listening for the errant tone, the flag, the minor mistake that would tell of his original race. Although I had seen hours of him on videotape, there was something that I still couldn’t abide in his speech. I couldn’t help but think there was a mysterious dubbing going on, the very idea I wouldn’t give quarter to when I would speak to strangers, the checkout girl, the mechanic, the professor, their faces dully awaiting my real speech, my truer talk and voice.

Related Characters: Henry Park (speaker), John Kwang
Page Number: 179
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

“Everyone’s got a theory. Mine is, when the American GIs came to a place they’d be met by all the Korean villagers, who’d be hungry and excited, all shouting and screaming. The villagers would be yelling, Mee-gook! Mee-gook! and so that’s what they were to the GIs, just gooks, that’s what they seemed to be calling themselves, but that wasn’t it at all.”

“What were they saying?”

“‘Americans! Americans!’ Mee-gook means America.”

Related Characters: Henry Park (speaker), Lelia (speaker)
Page Number: 242
Explanation and Analysis:

“That’s perfect,” Lelia says, shaking her head. “I better ask Stew.”

“Don’t harass your father,” I tell her. “He won’t know anything. It’s funny, I used to almost feel good that there was a word for me, even if it was a slur. I thought, I know I’m not a chink or a jap, which they would wrongly call me all the time, so maybe I’m a gook. The logic of a wounded eight-year-old.”

Related Characters: Henry Park (speaker), Lelia (speaker), Stew
Page Number: 242-3
Explanation and Analysis:

“If I had heard that one redheaded kid say even one funny word to Mitt! God! I would have punched his fucking lights out! I would have made him scream!” Her chest bucks, and she almost starts to cry, strangely, as if she’s frightened herself with a memory that isn’t true.

Related Characters: Lelia (speaker), Mitt
Page Number: 243
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

For so long he was effortlessly Korean, effortlessly American. Now I don’t want him ever to lower his eyes. I don’t want to witness the submissive dip of his brow or the bend of his knee before me or anyone else. I didn’t—or don’t now—come to him for the occasion of looking upon this. I am here for the hope of his identity, which may also be mine, who he has been on a public scale when the rest of us wanted only security in the tiny dollar-shops and churches of our lives.

Related Characters: Henry Park (speaker), John Kwang, Janice
Page Number: 328
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

She would have called John Kwang a fool long before any scandal ever arose. She would never have understood why he needed more than the money he made selling dry-cleaning equipment. He had a good wife and strong boys. What did he want from this country? Didn’t he know he could only get so far with his face so different and broad? He should have had ambition for only his little family.

Related Characters: Henry Park (speaker), John Kwang, Henry’s Mother
Page Number: 333
Explanation and Analysis:

And when I reach him I strike at them. I strike at everything that shouts and calls. Everything but his face. But with every blow I land I feel another equal to it ring my own ears, my neck, the back of my head. I half welcome them. And at the very moment I fall back for good he glimpses who I am, and I see him crouch down, like a broken child, shielding from me his wide immigrant face.

Related Characters: Henry Park (speaker), John Kwang
Page Number: 343
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

When we’re done she asks if I’m interested and I point out that she hasn’t yet mentioned who used to live in such a grand place.

Foreigners, she says. They went back to their country.

Related Characters: Henry Park (speaker), John Kwang
Page Number: 346-347
Explanation and Analysis: