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Solomon Lo

Ms. Mann

AP English Literature and Composition - Block 2

7 April 2019

A Tale of Two Worlds: The Immigrant Experience

Classics reflect real-world situations that will always be relevant, no matter what time

period they are in. One of the oldest situations that humans have had to face is fitting in, such as

when an immigrant moves to a new country. From the immigrants from ancient history who

immigrated to different civilizations, to modern-day immigrants in America who originate from

countries ranging from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, immigrating and fitting into the dominant

culture of the majority demographic in a country is always a challenging, and often impossible,

thing to do. In Chang-Rae Lee’s ​Native Speaker,​ these issues are expounded upon through the

eyes of Henry, a Korean-American immigrant who works as a spy and tries to establish his own

place and identity in American society. In doing so, ​Native Speaker​ addresses the issues of

assimilation and loss of self-identity, using nuanced characters and symbolism to provide insight

on how immigrants must give up part of their heritage and self-identity to fit into the dominant

culture of a new society. This helps to combat harmful stereotypes of Asian Americans, and

cements ​Native Speaker​ in its position as a classic novel that has the characteristics necessary to

become part of the literary canon.

Native Speaker e​ lucidates the dynamics of how different cultures play a large role in how

we treat each other and express ourselves. In the novel, Henry suppresses and hides his emotions,

a behavior which was passed down from Henry's Korean father as a part of his culture, while
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Lelia is more expressive due to the lack of such restrictions in American culture. This dichotomy

between Henry’s Korean culture and Lelia’s American culture and the conflict it creates

becomes evident when Lelia becomes incredibly distraught over Henry’s lack of emotion after

their son’s death, since it is acceptable in American culture, while Henry suppresses his emotions

on purpose, which is seen as something more “proper” in Korean culture. ​Henry's "unmoved"

nature contrasts greatly with Lelia's normalized expression of emotion with "hollerers and

criers," which causes her to interpret Henry's actions as "not even trying" (Lee 158).​ This

difference in emotion when addressing difficult situations shows how cultures play such a big

role in how we interact with others. By regulating things as small as our thoughts and emotions,

our differences in culture have the potential to cause disconnection and misunderstanding simply

because we don’t account for the cultural bases of other people’s behavior. In the novel, this

difference between Korean and American culture causes a rift in their relationship, where Henry

states that "the one complaint she'll make" about his father arises when Henry "lock(s) up" in

moments of stress or trouble, thereby performing what she calls his "father's act," a scathing

allusion to how Henry’s father suppresses emotions to an even greater extent than Henry due to a

more ingrained Korean culture in his identity as a result of being raised in Korea instead of

America. (Lee 158). Through these conflicts that occur as a result of a difference in culture,

Chang-Rae Lee illustrates why immigrants have a difficult time adjusting to their new country,

since the culture from their heritage may teach them to act and think differently than what the

dominant culture teaches people to do. Due to the ignorance that the dominant culture often has

with regards to the immigrant’s culture, this often leads to the alienation that immigrants so

commonly face.
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Not only does Lee explore how different cultures affect how we act, but he also addresses

how immigrants are treated by the dominant cultures in the countries that they move to. Even

though Henry comes to accept America as a country founded by immigrants and native speakers

of another language, he faces racism during his interactions with Lelia's father, and is treated

differently and poorly due to his Asian appearance. Even though Henry has adopted the standard

behavior and customs of Americans in America, he still faces discrimination due to his

unchangeable Korean heritage. This speaks to how there will always be “a tension in America

between (in Bakhtinian terms) the dominant culture's centripetal assimilationist sentiment and its

centrifugal, stratifying tendency to hold people of color at arm's length." (Engles). Even though

immigrants are supposed to have equal treatment and opportunity in America, the reality of the

matter is that a divide still keeps immigrants from fully integrating into society. Even other

immigrants who act more stereotypically American, including John Kwang, a Korean man who

was so well adjusted to American culture and mannerisms that he was supposedly “silver around

the edges” and “a little unbeatable,” also face difficulties due to his Asian-American background,

illustrating how utterly impossible it is for immigrants to become fully accepted in foreign

societies (Lee 23). Because his accent and Korean identity start to come out from the veneer of

his American culture during his campaign to become mayor of New York, and his traditionally

Korean decision-making becomes exposed, he loses the election. Through these examples, Lee

exposes how immigrants have a hard time fitting into their new country even after immigrants

have embraced the dominant culture and tried to best to assimilate into it. Eventually, aspects of

their heritage and culture that are hard to hide or remove brings their downfall when compared to

the dominant culture in the land, as evidenced by Kwang in ​Native Speaker​.

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Through the use of nuanced characters, Lee also highlights the difficulties that second

generation immigrants must face due to their split identities, where they must choose between

fully adopting what they have been taught by their parents or fully assimilating into the dominant

culture that they’re surrounded with, with little middle ground in between these two extremes.

This mirrors the conflicts in identity that Lee also faced during his life, where he states that “I

don't know what I am. I don't know if I'm Korean, or American" (Belluck). In a push to make

Lee fit in with his American classmates, his mother encouraged him to change his Korean name

into something more American. After grappling with forcing himself to change, Lee states that

he kept his original name even though his mother pressured him to change it, stating that “It was

just a little stubborn act, sort of like putting on a wet coat" (Belluck). This conflict forms the

basis of ​Native Speaker​. In the novel, Henry surrounds himself with people that he aspires to be

by emulating them to fit in, from the completely white Lelia that he married to the well-adjusted

Kwang that he works with, he never finds solid middle ground to successfully preserve and

preserve both his Korean heritage and white culture at the same time. Because of this, “​Henry’s

quest for the ​true ​Henry remains unsolved...Henry cannot see himself as simultaneously

authentic and autochthonic. Perhaps this is why he ought to be pitied — perhaps this is why he

ought to be ashamed" (Berghegger). ​Caught between trying to assimilate into white culture,

while also keep his Korean identity, Henry loses his own self-identity due to trying to conform to

rigid standards that society has set.​ This is seen in multiple situations throughout the novel,

including when he tries to explain how ​Ahjuhmma’s seemingly miserable and decrepit lifestyle

is acceptable in accordance to Korean cultural standards, where he realized that he is now too

“Americanized” to accept Ahjumma’s existence due to its incompatibility with the white culture
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that he had incorporated into himself. As a result, the young Henry, unable to fit her into his

incomplete Korean interpretive framework, listens sympathetically to the perspective offered by

his ‘talkative white friends’ instead ’" (Engles). Because he doesn’t fit into either the American

mold or the Korean mold that society has, he loses out on the benefits that each side has, along

with his sense of true belonging. Instead, he is a straggler to everyone, and forced to reconcile

with his own identity as someone that doesn’t have a concrete label for his cultural identity.

During this struggle for Henry to find his own identity, Lee’s masterful use of symbolism

conveys messages about conformity and the necessity of giving up part of one’s identity to fit

into the dominant culture. According to an article published by the New York Times, ​Lee’s

purpose behind ​Native Speaker​ “lies in language, culture and identity; for him, the spy makes a

convenient symbol for the American immigrant" (Cooper). ​Lee uses Henry’s official occupation

as a spy to draw a parallel to how many immigrants also feel like a “spy” when they have to

emulate aspects of the dominant culture that aren’t natural to them, but necessary in order to fit

in. ​By portraying how Henry has to put on a false image for both his occupation as a spy and his

identity as an American even though he’s ethnically Korean, Lee describes how immigrants must

put on a fake image for acceptance, as Henry does for both his occupation and his daily life.

Additionally, even the language itself is used as a symbol for dominance and control. In an

interview with Lee, the author states that “Everyone in the books has a certain relationship to

language – the English language, the Korean language and they use it as a tool of power for

control over one another” (Quan). With this symbolic use of the English language, Lee critiques

how countries use the immigrants’ poor language skills as a thinly-veiled excuse to keep them

from being part of their society. With the acceptance that Kwang’s excellent English skills gives
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him to the lack of respect that Henry’s father receives due to his heavily accented English, Lee

uses language to characterize how dominant cultures subjugate immigrants by forcing them to

learn their language in order to gain respect. Lee also uses a mask to symbolically portray how

Henry ultimately achieves success at creating and accepting a unique identity for himself, as

someone who isn’t completely Korean or American, but still has power in himself. Near the end

of the novel, Henry starts wearing a mask in a playful attempt to encourage children to improve

their English diction when he takes on a new job as Lelia’s teaching assistant by pretending to be

a “Speech Monster.” Henry describes how he “now reports that when he takes off the mask he

wears as the speech monster [. . . ] my voice moves in time with my mouth, truly belongs to my

face" (Lee 349). This shows how Henry has come to accept his unique position as an immigrant

who is more relatable to the children, while also leveraging his fluent English skills to help

immigrant children learn the language. In fact, according to an academic journal published by the

Eastern Illinois University, “the repeated possessive pronoun here would seem to indicate that

Henry has become a native speaker of himself, one who has achieved autonomous subjecthood"

(Engles). Ultimately, Henry breaks free of the molds that society has established for being an

immigrant and an Asian-American, where he establishes his own identity that he comes to terms

with.

Overall, the novel portrays a universal theme and sends a strong message to immigrants

around the world that the struggle for assimilation does not necessitate the surrender of identity

to fit into a mold of what the dominant culture is. Instead, immigrants must choose to not simply

conform to purely their heritage or the dominant group’s identity, and instead form their own

identity in order to be content in life. After a long period of struggle with trying to cram himself
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into an American identity, even though he is Korean, Henry eventually “realizes how Korean he

is and no matter how much dislikes Korean ways of life, he is...not an American which he has

tried to be" (Bhat and Showkat). However, by describing Henry’s logical deduction and journey

to forming this identity, Lee provides guidance for real-world immigrants in forming this unique

identity without making the same mistakes that Henry makes in the novel. ​Native Speaker​ also

serves a purpose of fighting against racism and stereotyping that occurs towards the

Asian-American community, serving a purpose for those who aren’t immigrants as well.

According to an article published by Indiana University, “Because silence, mystery, exoticism,

and otherness are common characteristics associated with Asians, assumed and maintained by

dominant non-Asian culture, Lee is revising the stereotype while removing the mystery and

framing silence as a legitimate form of communication, albeit non-verbal" (Colwell). Lee’s

decision to emphasize how Henry’s silence was an active decision used to communicate things

instead of a mere aspect of Asian-Americans that the stereotypes reinforce help to catalyze a

change in public perception of Asian-Americans. By explaining the logic behind several

Asian-American traditions, as well as correcting false assumptions that people often make about

them, Lee creates more cultural awareness that combats the stereotyping Asian-Americans face

due to the widespread ignorance people have about their culture.

Because Chang-Rae Lee’s ​Native Speaker​ is intelligently written and addresses the

immigrant experience through nuanced characters and clever symbolism to convey a universal

theme, it possesses the literary merit to be considered a classic. This novel will become an

important piece of literary canon due to how it raises awareness about how immigrants are

treated, and the relatable identity crises that many immigrants have to go through in an attempt to
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assimilate to the dominant culture of a new country. By addressing real-world issues in a clever

and thorough way, ​Native Speaker​ will not merely be just a literary classic, but also an essential

voice of change in a world that is becoming more intermixed through globalism.

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Works Cited

Belluck, Pam. “Being of Two Cultures and Belonging to Neither; After an Acclaimed Novel, a

Korean-American Writer Searches for His Roots.” ​The New York Times​, The New York

Times, 10 July 1995,

www.nytimes.com/1995/07/10/nyregion/being-two-cultures-belonging-neither-after-accl

aimed-novel-korean-american.html.

Berghegger, Scott. “Henry Parks Identity through Selves and Space in Native ...” ​Social

Sciences, Arts, & Humanities,​ Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse LLC, 2009,

www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/22/henry-parks-identity-through-selves-and-space-in-na

tive-speaker.

Bhat, Shafayat Hussain, and Showkat Ahmad Naik. “Negotiating Multiple Identities in Chang

Rae Lee's Native Speaker.” ​BODHI: International Journal of Research in Humanities,

Arts and Science​, vol. 2, no. 6, Mar. 2018, pp. 49–54.​Center for Resource, Research and

Publication Services​. z

Colwell, Jessyca J. “Indiana University.” ​Nativisms and Mannerisms: Language and Identity in

Chang-Rae Lee's Native Speaker and A Gesture Life,​ Indiana University, 1 Aug. 2006,

scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/21190.

Cooper, Rand Richards. “Excess Identities.” ​The New York Times​, The New York Times, 9 Apr.

1995, www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/books/excess-identities.html.

Engles, Tim. “‘Visions of Me in the Whitest Raw Light’: Assimilation and Doxic Whiteness in

Chang-Rae Lee's Native Speaker.’” ​Faculty Research & Creative Activity,​ vol. 4, no. 2,

July 1997, pp. 27–48., doi:10.2307/468145.

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Lee, Chang-rae. ​Native Speaker.​ Penguin Books, 2013.

Quan, Kenneth. “Interview with Chang-Rae Lee.” ​UCLA Asia Pacific Center,​ UC Regents, 21

May 2004, www.international.ucla.edu/asia/article/11432.