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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in In the American Society, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Difficulties of Assimilation
Success, Race, and Immigration
The Illusion of Belonging
Loyalty and Family
Summary
Analysis
Mr. Chang takes over a pancake shop to save money for his daughters Callie and Mona’s college tuition, though the girls are still in middle school. His business succeeds, and the family quickly gets rich. As his pancake shop continues thriving, Mr. Chang starts telling stories about his wealthy grandfather in China, who would help the poorer residents of his town, like the patriarch in the movie The Godfather. In an effort to emulate his grandfather, Mr. Chang starts handing out extra paychecks to employees in need. His wife, Mrs. Chang, responds by sighing to her daughters and saying, “Your father thinks this is China,” or by getting angry at his unnecessary spending and yelling, “But this here is the U—S—of—A!”
The story opens with Mr. Chang’s ownership of the pancake shop, setting the stage for his business to become a major topic in the story. Right away, in describing the family’s higher earnings and Mr. Chang’s reliance on Chinese customs to manage his wealth, the story begins to explore the theme of success, race, and immigration—specifically implying that Mr. Chang’s instant success and Chinese traditions might come into conflict later on. In conjunction, Mrs. Chang is portrayed in these first pages as vacillating between loyalty to her husband’s ways and a desire to conform to American habits.
Themes
The family’s newfound wealth enables Mrs. Chang to stop working at the supermarket, buy a station wagon, and develop a stronger American identity. She tells her daughters Callie and Mona that she might like to join the town country club. Mona encourages this idea and says her friend Annie’s mother would write them a recommendation letter to the club. Mrs. Chang then writes off the country club idea, explaining, “Your father doesn’t believe in joining the American society. He wants to have his own society.” Callie sees that her mother’s loyalty to her husband is more important than country club aspirations.
The country club represents the next strata of American assimilation for the Changs. Now that Mrs. Chang can afford to quit her job at the supermarket, she is becoming more like the white American housewives in her neighborhood, many of whom seem to belong to this country club, like Mona’s friend Annie’s family. A divide is also established between the sisters Callie and Mona. Mona believes that the family should join the country club, and that it won’t be an issue to get a reference letter from Mrs. Lardner. Callie, on the other hand, stays mostly quiet at this point, letting readers wonder which parent, if any, she sympathizes with more. Meanwhile, Mrs. Chang’s statement about Mr. Chang’s beliefs on American society highlights the tension that exists between Chinese and American ways of life. Because the issue of the country club remains unresolved, the conversation also serves to increase suspense.
Themes
Having given generous paychecks to his employees, Mr. Chang expects their loyalty in return. He asks them to “fix radiators and trim hedges” at his home. When they complain, then quit, he calls them “robots.” Understaffed, the restaurant declines. Mona and Callie start working as busgirls and dishwashers at the pancake shop. They try to convince their father to hire more staff by stuffing the suggestion box full of fake complaints. Instead, Mr. Chang fires the busboy. After several failed attempts to find a replacement, he hires a Taiwanese man named Booker, who is running from the deportation authorities and doesn’t have the necessary documents to work in the U.S. Mr. Chang doesn’t tell his wife about Booker.
Differing expectations between Mr. Chang and his employees lead to conflicts at the pancake shop, complicating Mr. Chang’s earlier success. His inability to understand why his employees aren’t personally loyal to him (according to his Chinese-informed standards) illustrates the difficulties an entrepreneur might face working in a new culture; calling them “robots” suggests that Mr. Change sees his employees as only concerned about their wages and not about him. Meanwhile, Mona believes she knows what is best in this situation, indicating that she believes her level of assimilation is superior to her father’s and will help him navigate his new society better. However, when her suggestion box plan backfires, the story hints that her confidence about the country club might also be unwarranted. Mr. Chang’s loyalty to fellow immigrant Booker coincides with a lack of honesty within his own marriage, suggesting that for Mr. Chang, loyalty to family and loyalty to culture don’t neatly harmonize at this point.
Themes
Mrs. Lardner, the mother of Mona’s friend Annie, visits the Changs and announces to Mrs. Chang that she’d be “honored and delighted” to write her family a reference letter for the country club. Mrs. Chang deflects, saying she doesn’t want to be any trouble. Mrs. Lardner is insistent, revealing the “secret” of her own Jewish heritage. When Mrs. Lardner leaves, Mona is excited, until Mrs. Chang gets angry at her daughter for having mentioned the country club to the Lardners. Callie reveals that a Black family has been waiting so long for country club admission, they’re going to sue. Mrs. Chang decides not to tell her husband about the country club.
Mona’s diversion from family loyalty in seeking Mrs. Lardner’s letter-writing help causes an imbalance within the family that threatens to shake their social position and cause instability within their community. Mrs. Lardner’s blindness to the Changs’ real feelings—her insistence on writing the letter, even though Mrs. Chang appears uncomfortable—only underscores the lack of understanding between the Changs and their suburban neighbors. In disclosing a fact about her own heritage, Mrs. Lardner shows that “assimilation” can mean something different to people of varying backgrounds, and what’s more, that not everyone experiences the same kind or degree of discrimination in the process of assimilating. Mona’s transgression of privacy leads to more dishonesty within her family, as Mrs. Chang doesn’t tell Mr. Chang about the visit from Mrs. Lardner. Her silence suggests that she feels she’s been disloyal to her husband by considering the country club.
Themes
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Booker is a hard worker who goes above and beyond to please his boss. When he gets sick, he sends over several undocumented friends to work in his place, most notably the talented Cedric. The head cook in the pancake shop, Fernando, believes Cedric to be a crook. The restaurant staff start initialing their cigarettes to make sure Cedric doesn’t steal them from the ashtrays. Soon after Mr. Chang hires Cedric full-time, Fernando is caught stealing steak from the kitchen and then punches Cedric. Mr. Chang fires Fernando.
Tension at the pancake shop continues to increase with the introduction of the Cedric/Fernando conflicts. Now, Mr. Chang is in a more precarious position, where he does not have the security of happy employees. Fernando’s theft reveals that Mr. Chang’s employees are behaving badly behind his back, sowing doubt in readers’ minds that even Booker or Cedric feel completely loyal to Mr. Chang.
Themes
The day before school starts for his daughters, Mr. Chang comes home and announces that Fernando called the police on Booker and Cedric, who are now in custody. He tells the full story to Mrs. Chang, who is angry at her husband for this turn of events. Mr. Chang posts his employees’ bail and receives reassuring advice from the Immigration Department. The situation seems to calm down. Mr. Chang apologizes to his wife, and Mrs. Chang tells him about the country club.
The pancake shop is only in deeper trouble now that the police are onto Booker and Cedric. Fernando’s betrayal of Booker, Cedric, and Mr. Chang not only depicts yet another challenge faced by immigrant workers; it also leads to a reconciliation between Mr. and Mrs. Chang. Mr. Chang is forced to reveal his shady hiring to his wife, she owns up about the country club, and as the restaurant is thrown into a state of chaos, the equilibrium in his marriage appears to be restored.
Themes
Mr. Chang wants to provide more help to Booker and Cedric, whom he now calls “my boys.” He decides to talk to the judge for their case. Mrs. Chang thinks this is a bad idea, telling him, “This is not China.” When he insists, she indignantly asks, “What about your family? What about your wife?” Mr. Chang counters that in China, his father put the town before the family, so his first priority should be helping his fellow Chinese immigrants—especially because he himself had to play “hide-and-seek” with the immigration police as a new arrival in the U.S. Callie suggests he go to a lawyer rather than the judge, but he dismisses her and concludes he needs a son instead of a fearful wife and daughter.
Mr. Chang mistakes the U.S. legal system for China’s legal customs, showing he hasn’t yet assimilated fully into American society—and that his family members, who question his wisdom here, are ahead of him in this regard. The situation also pits Mr. Chang’s family against his employees, raising the question of who deserves ultimate loyalty: one’s wife and children, or one’s countrymen and workers. This passage explores the idea that sticking together makes life easier for immigrants; while it might be true, the story suggests that a person’s loyalty to countrymen may end up costing others close to them. It also showcases Mr. Chang’s latent sexism against his wife and daughters, as he equates realism about the social system with fear and assumes a son would be more helpful.
Themes
Mr. Chang and Callie spend the next day waiting to speak to the judge. Instead, they get an unsympathetic clerk. After some flattery, she responds that she doubts anything will happen to Booker and Cedric. Mr. Chang asks if she could “perhaps put in a good word with the judge.” She yawns and says that they’ll get a fair trial. At home, Booker and Cedric are overjoyed and compliment Mr. Chang on his savvy. Mr. Chang takes the entire family out to dinner to celebrate.
Mr. Chang acts inappropriately, talking to a judge’s clerk, though that’s not how the legal system works in the U.S. He misinterprets the clerk’s boilerplate comment about a fair trial, believing that he has achieved some good result because of his savvy. The focus on Booker and Cedric’s appreciation, and Mr. Chang’s desire to celebrate, indicates that Mr. Chang’s feels he has scored a victory and is irrationally happy with the result. This sequence of events underscores the fact that Mr. Chang’s assimilation into U.S. society isn’t as complete as he believes it is.
Themes
Shortly after the celebratory dinner, Mr. Chang receives a letter from Booker and Cedric informing him that they are running away to avoid trial. They pay him back $140, but they don’t have enough to fully reimburse him for their bail—although they vow to pay it back with interest. Despondent, Mr. Chang starts spending more time in the house. Concurrently, the Changs learn that their application to the country club has been rejected.
The letter comes as a blow to Mr. Chang, who went out of his way to help his employees, only to be abandoned and lose more money in the process. The takeaway appears to be that prioritizing work interests or loyalty to unrelated immigrants—especially when naïve about how one’s new society works—can be costly for immigrant business owners like Mr. Chang. Likewise, his retreat into the house implies that loyalty to family is his real comfort zone. The rejection from the country club only punctuates the difficulties of assimilation, validating Mrs. Chang’s concerns and revealing that Mona was overly confident about their application prospects.
Themes
