Native Speaker

Native Speaker is very much about New York City. Central to Kwang’s existential conflict as a future mayor is the divisions of race and ethnicity that thrive in a diverse city. The issue at hand is that Kwang can’t make everyone happy because any demonstrations of loyalty to one side automatically becomes racialized. Due to the city’s division by race, Kwang can either be seen as an Asian American “Other” or as too close to white. This represents the history of Asian Americans in the United States. When convenient for mainstream American culture, such as during the World War II internment of Japanese Americans or the Chinese Exclusion Act, Asian Americans were identified as non-white. But hand in hand with this bigotry is the Model Minority Myth. The Model Minority Myth presents Asian Americans as “model minorities” because despite their small numbers relative to white Americans, statistically Asian Americans have made progress in financial and educative stability unseen in other immigrant diasporas or in Latinx and African American communities. White culture uses the Model Minority Myth to push back on non-white communities who protest injustice, saying that it is possible to work your way out of poverty—that lack of work ethic, not xenophobia or racism, is holding those communities back. In other words: If the Asian community can do it, why can’t you? This places Asian Americans in the Model Minority role, which leads to several problems.

The first is the obvious issue which is that not all Asian immigrants or Asian Americans have wealth and access to elite educations. The Model Minority Myth thus makes poorer Asian Americans internalize fallacies of their lack of work ethic if they are not as wealthy as, say, Kwang. The other issue with the Model Minority Myth is that it uplifts Asian Americans in white societies while alienating them from other non-white communities. Black or Latinx Americans can develop resentment and distrust towards the Asian American community for being close to whiteness. In a city like New York, where neighborhoods and school systems are de facto segregated, these racial disparities and stereotypes are evident and important. Kwang is both a symbolic promise that New York can change and a symbol that New York won’t change at all because of Kwang’s proximity to whiteness or acceptance by whites.

The bombing of Kwang’s office is not only a plot twist, but also symbolizes the threats Kwang faces as a candidate for political office. Because Kwang’s race is not white, people immediately jump to what other racial community could be responsible for the bombing. In attacking his offices, the bomber is making a statement, whether it was intended or not, that Kwang is being targeted because he is Asian American. The idea that the bombing must have been racially motivated is fodder for fast rumors because it testifies to human beings’ sense of tribalism. Because nothing is really known about the reasons for the bombing, there are a myriad of possible perpetrators. Kwang doesn’t want to make a statement in part because he is expected to lay blame on a group of people as opposed to an individual with unreasonable motive. This puts Kwang in a difficult situation. If he stays quiet for too long, he will be seen as weak. If he speaks, he will be asked to propose a theory for what group could have bombed his offices. The bomb then doesn’t only hurt Kwang’s physical space and kill his workers. The bomb also silences Kwang, placing him in a vulnerable situation in which Kwang is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. It is notable that Henry at first suspects that his firm is behind the bombing. Jack quickly corrects this theory because the firm exists to collect information, not to make symbolic messages about race and power.

Kwang and Henry see one another as versions of the same person. Henry is promoted so rapidly that it is reasonable for him to think that Kwang sees something of himself in Henry. They share the kinship of a similar upbringing and the experience of being Korean American in New York City. They both understand the linguistic and cultural affectations of trying to appear assimilated without alienating their own community. This poses a problem for both of them, though Kwang doesn’t know it. For Henry, the compatibility between him and Kwang threatens the integrity of his spy job. If he becomes too close to Kwang, or begins to see Kwang as a version of himself, his feelings could compromise his mission. Meanwhile, Kwang unknowingly places trust in a spy because of tribalism. Kwang and Henry are therefore threats to one another as much as they are blurred mirror images of each other. Henry’s promotion, in which he takes over Eduardo’s secret project, provides Henry with the exact type of secret information that Dennis needs. Here, Lee uses irony to create tension in the novel. Henry may feel like a type of cousin to Kwang , but Henry is actually Kwang's destroyer.

Like Henry, Kwang is imperfect, no matter what diasporic dreams his constituents project onto him. Kwang's secret project is a type of ggeh, reminiscent of Korean community financial pools. Ggehs are typically developed to help diasporas survive. The idea is a communal investment: People provide what money they can to the pot, and when they are in a challenging financial situation, they can seek help from the fund. While this is not inherently illegal, in Kwang’s position, it is certainly suspect because he is a politician. It is likely that the people contributing to Kwang’s ggeh also assume they will receive some political favors when needed. This compromises Kwang’s integrity as a politician. It is also implied that Kwang, being powerful and in charge of the ggeh, could be taking money from the ggeh for himself. This would signify that he is laundering money, which is a serious white-collar crime. If a crime is discovered, Kwang’s political future would certainly be in jeopardy. What’s more, if a criminal is discovered, it would be easy for white politicians to point to Kwang’s practices as shady and not in keeping with American ethical standards. Because it belongs to Korean culture, a ggeh is ethnic in nature. Kwang’s ggeh is large; at around 2,000 contributors, it has a wide scope that could include suspicious individuals.

As close as Henry feels to Kwang, he still perceives Kwang through a lens of Otherness. For Henry, a successful and charming Korean man like Kwang who seems unencumbered by the bigotry unleashed upon him publicly and privately is a different version of the Korean men Henry grew up with. Henry struggles to decide what he actually thinks about Kwang, even though the nature of Henry’s job as a spy is not to have any opinions whatsoever. This internal conflict adds to Henry’s character development. Shattered by his son’s premature death, heartbroken by the separation with his wife, and embarrassed and confused by his failure in his job, Henry doesn’t have a secure footing on which he can rest his conflicts. He gets back together with Lelia, but the relationship is still fragile. He decides to actively be more transparent with Lelia, which helps them start to reestablish trust. They rekindle their sexual relationship at Henry’s late father’s house, the site of their son’s death, which symbolically implies that they are both ready to revisit their past in order to rebuild their future. But they still debate whether or not to have another child, and the reinvigoration of their relationship relies on a set of understandings that are easily fractural.

Henry is by nature and upbringing a quiet, reserved, and secretive person. Lee questions if Henry can truly change in the way that Lelia wants him to. Lelia’s proximation to Henry’s subconscious anxieties is also problematic. Lelia works with children in speech therapy, many of whom are English Language Learners. In Lelia’s students, Henry sees the child version of himself. He cringes inwardly as the children struggle to wrap their mouths around the formation of American-sounding accents. The imagery of physical movement Lee employs helps his reader understand the toll learning a new language takes on immigrants. Henry also sees himself in Kwang’s son, Peter. That Henry is looking for himself in immigrant children demonstrates that his psyche is still as fragile as a child’s when it comes to understanding himself as an American and an English speaker. Children show adults symbolic mirrors of their own anxieties, and with Henry’s son dead, he doesn’t have a proxy through which he can relive the American Dream.

Henry has more security in his life in these chapters. Lelia moves back into their apartment, and Dennis is again satisfied with Henry’s work. Everything is going well for Henry on the outside, which is one of Henry’s many problems. If Henry can create an external appearance of security, he can trick others and possibly himself into believing he is happy, loved, and accepted. But internally, Henry still struggles to trust his job, Kwang, and Lelia.