Kwang’s ggeh, a Korean-style private bank that
pays interest to its members on a revolving basis.
After a series of disasters, Kwang’s mayoral cam-
paign implodes, and the undocumented immi-
grants on the ggeh roster that Henry has turned
over are taken into custody by the Immigration
and Naturalization Service. In the end Henry
leaves his job and finds resolution by helping
Lelia teach her speech therapy classes. His job as a
spy allowed him to distance himself from others,
but his work with Lelia and her students shows
that he is willing to connect with others and fi-
nally confront his problems.
Language is at the heart of the struggle for
identity in Native Speaker. As an identity marker,
it is used for prestige, as a weapon or as a shield
in an ethnically diverse society. Ultimately, it is his
language that marks Henry as foreign: although
he speaks English quite well, his attentiveness to
sounds and careful pronunciation keep him from
perfect fluency. Identity in Native Speaker is con-
ceived both racially and in broader terms. Henry’s
marriage to Lelia and the birth of their son raise
questions of relationships in mixed-race families,
while Kwang attempts to gain the support of vari-
ous ethnic groups and to transcend the limiting
designation of “ethnic politician.” In Henry’s work
as a spy, he is always Asian American, but under
that racial umbrella he devises a number of identi-
ties, creating and embodying diverse traits under
various names, often blurring boundaries by using
his real name but lying about his occupation, or
by permeating an invented personality with details
from his real life.
Native Speaker established Chang-rae Lee as an
important young novelist. The book, his first, re-
ceived a number of prizes including the Heming-
way Foundation/PEN Award, and has been
compared to a number of canonical American
works such as Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.
Bibliography
Chen, Tina. “Impersonation and Other Disappearing
Acts in Native Speaker by Chang-rae Lee.” MFS:
Modern Fiction Studies 48, no. 3 (2002 Fall): 637–
667.
Dwyer, June. “Speaking and Listening: The Immi-
grant as Spy Who Comes in from the Cold.” In
The Immigrant Experience in North American Lit-
erature: Carving Out a Niche, edited by Katherine
B. Payant and Toby Rose, 73–82. Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood, 1999.
Lee, Rachel C. “Reading Contests and Contesting
Reading: Chang-rae Lee’s Native Speaker and Eth-
nic New York.” MELUS: The Journal of the Soci-
ety for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of
the United States 29, nos. 3–4 (Fall–Winter 2004):
341–352.
Song, Min Hyoung. “A Diasporic Future? Native
Speaker and Historical Trauma.” Lit: Literature In-
terpretation Theory 12, no. 1 (April 2001): 79–98.
Jaime ClelandNecessary Roughness Marie G. Lee (1996)
Chan Kim, the protagonist of Lee’s fourth novel,
likes living in multicultural Los Angeles but his
traditional Korean father thinks it is becoming
too dangerous for merchants. His father moves
the family to Iron River, Minnesota, a tiny town
where they are the only Asian-American family.
Unused to a community as homogenous as this
“whiteout” and the racist remarks of their “be-
yond California blond” (40) classmates, Chan and
his twin sister, Young, comfort each other as they
adapt to their new environment. Chan is invited to
join the varsity football team when their kicker is
injured and is immediately liked by Coach Thor-
son and Mikko, the junior quarterback. The other
teammates, however, are not as friendly; they call
him “chink” and attack him in the locker room,
but he does not tell anyone. Further complicat-
ing Chan’s life is his turbulent relationship with
his father, whose high expectations and stubborn
narrow-mindedness make Chan’s life unbearable.
Young helps Chan deal with various issues, but
even she is taken from him in a twisted turn of
events. After his sister’s death, Chan finally opens
up to Coach Thorson, who makes sure the boy
responsible for Chan’s locker room attack is pun-
ished. Chan’s uncomfortable relationship with
his father escalates in intensity as Chan continues212 Necessary Roughness