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Chapter 5
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
Henry goes to John Kwang’s headquarters in Flushing, Queens. Everyone in the community loves Kwang—there are buttons and posters with his face on them. One of Kwang’s most loyal staff members delivers a short talk at the headquarters about how Kwang decided to run his city council term as if he were still on the campaign trail. Constituents seem to like the idea of Kwang as mayor, but he still hasn’t come out and said that he’ll run for the position. Instead, he just hints at this possibility. Regardless of his plans, though, it’s clear that he’s well-liked. Violent crime has gone down and school test scores have gone up since he was elected as a councilman.
In many ways, John Kwang is—as a political figure—a bastion of hope. His community clearly sees him as a very positive leader, and the fact that violent crime is down and test scores are up undoubtedly reinforces the confidence his constituents have already placed in him. And yet, the fact that Henry has been sent to spy on Kwang indicates that there are powerful people out there who don’t want him to succeed, perhaps because of a xenophobic unwillingness to let immigrants occupy positions of power in the United States.
Themes
Early in Henry’s time at Kwang’s headquarters, he catches the eye of his superiors by successfully quelling a small protest. There’s a group of Peruvians outside the headquarters with signs about how unfairly their Korean employers have been treating them at the local grocery stores where they work. Realizing that the protest will soon attract cameras, Henry invites them all inside and shows them the offices, all the while hearing their complaints and assuring them that Kwang will be informed of their discontent and do what he can to influence local Korean businessowners. The protestors are pleased and readily accept Kwang merchandise on their way out, so that the cameras waiting for them simply encounter a content group of constituents carrying Kwang bumper stickers.
Despite Kwang’s popularity within Queens and the broader immigrant community, he hasn’t yet won over all of his constituents. When the Peruvian protestors arrive at his headquarters, they make it clear that there are factional tensions at play in Queen’s immigrant community. Their anger at Kwang also suggests that they see him not as a representative of their entire borough but solely of the Korean population—an idea that Henry helps counter by welcoming the protestors into the headquarters. By doing this, though, he also endears himself to powerful people in the Kwang organization, thus getting that much closer to the information he needs to spy on Kwang.
Themes
Henry’s savvy handling of the protestors attracts the attention of Janice, who serves as Kwang’s scheduling manager—among other things. It’s her job to scout out good locations for his public appearances, so she takes Henry and a college volunteer named Eduardo to check out a location in Brooklyn, where Kwang will be meeting with church authorities and then delivering a short speech. It will be Henry and Eduardo’s job to make sure nobody gets in between Kwang and the many cameras that will surely be at the event.
Henry seems to have made his way deeper into the Kwang organization by attracting attention to himself after mollifying the Peruvian protestors. The fact that he, like Kwang, is Korean American helps justify his interest in the entire political movement, making it that much easier for him to work toward getting to know Kwang so he can spy on him.
Themes
After scouting the location in Brooklyn, Janice takes Henry and Eduardo to a diner. Henry studies Eduardo, who looks older than 23. He’s muscular and wears glasses, which he frequently adjusts. He’s a political science major and is deeply devoted to John Kwang. Over breakfast, Janice asks Henry about what he does for a living, forcing him to start drawing from his invented backstory. He claims to be a freelance magazine writer and that he wants to do a profile on Kwang. But Janice is skeptical: she’s sure he’s working on something else, too—perhaps a novel. She then jokingly outlines a hypothetical political thriller based on Kwang’s career.
At first, Janice’s suspicion is probably unsettling to Henry, since she suggests that he’s not being completely honest about why he has come to work with the Kwang organization. When she guesses that what he’s hiding is that he’s a novelist, though, it becomes clear that he hasn’t been found out—in fact, this conversation illustrates just how unsuspecting the people in Kwang’s organization are, perhaps because they don’t think anyone would want to work against someone as charming and popular as Kwang.
Themes
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Later, Henry stays with Janice while Eduardo goes back to the office. They drive through the southern neighborhoods of Queens in search of potential locations for Kwang to make an appearance. They talk about how there’s yet another grocer boycott going on in the city, but then the conversation shifts and Janice starts talking about a Korean boyfriend she had when she was in college. They had a falling out, and Janice was offended that his parents didn’t seem to know anything about her. Henry suspects that they just acted this way. He also suspects that her boyfriend’s silence when she yelled at him in their final argument was “more complicated” than she could have understood. Koreans, he thinks, might depend too much on silence, which can give a person a certain advantage. He himself has used this unfairly against Lelia.
Henry’s thoughts about silence shed light on how he feels about his own parents’ hesitancy to openly voice their feelings and opinions. He suggests that this hesitancy aligns with Korean cultural values, which present silence as an honorable, respectable way of responding to surprises or hardships. Janice comes at things differently, though: her Korean boyfriend’s silence made her feel like he didn’t care about their relationship. The entire interaction somewhat resembles the argument Henry and Lelia had about Ahjuhma: in both cases, cultural differences and misunderstandings led to tension. At the same time, though, Henry also recognizes that silence isn’t always honorable, perhaps acknowledging to himself that Lelia ended up feeling like she was suffering alone with her grief because he refused to speak honestly about his feelings after Mitt died.
Themes
