Racial Identity In In Native Speaker By Henry Park

Racial and ethnic identity are crucial elements in the framework for individual and communal identity in our society. Deep values through religion and family create a sense of racial and ethnic identity and are manifested in sensible ways for many distinct minority populations in the United States. Individuals with these beliefs have different cultural values that are undesirable in mainstream American society. For others, on the other hand, especially white Americans, ethnic and racial identity are virtually invisible because societal normality is usually constructed around their ethnic, racial and cultural values. We commonly refer to them as the “standard American culture.” In Native Speaker, the protagonist, Henry Park, is unable to define himself in American society. This essay will discuss Park’s cultural self and his path to discovering himself in relationship to his family, friends, and the United States, as well as drawing in personal experiences that relate to Park’s.

In Native Speaker, Chang-Rae Lee describes Henry Park as a family man, a father, a husband, a US spy, and even a betrayer to his own race. However, Park is the only person in the story who is unable to describe himself. The story begins with a description of Henry written by Park’s estranged wife, Leila. Every character in the story, including Park’s father, Leila,

and John Kwang, who is a Korean-American politician running for mayor of New York City, are able to define Henry, yet the only one having a difficult time is himself.
Henry has a hard time understanding how a person, especially himself, is defined. Is it through his homeland, he asks? Henry was born in an airplane over the Pacific Ocean. A person’s childhood? Park’s childhood followed Korean morals but built on American soil. Residency? Henry declares himself an American, but some parts of his Korean race emerges through the mixture of Korean heritage events in New York City. Because he lacks the cultural reasonings of racial myths, his personality in America is neither strictly Korean nor American.
Henry’s life is one of many copies. Regularly, he randomly picks and chooses what the best traits of a Korean-American should be and reminds himself of those traits wherever he goes. Leila’s list of traits creates a record for Henry of unwanted qualities that he still writes down. “The original, he says, I destroyed. I prefer versions of things, copies that aren't so precious. I would make three photocopies…The last, I sealed in an envelope and mailed it to myself” (Lee 4). Originals, including cultural origins, are precious to him, and because of this, he destroys Lelia’s original list. By replicating this behavior, he extinguishes the origins of his supposed identity, such as his Korean and American identities and his wife’s record which distinctly defines him.
With each supporting character surrounding his life, Henry eventually sees some definition of his own self. Still unclear to Henry is whether he is Korean, American, Korean American without a hyphen, or Korean-American with a hyphen. Built on the foundations of opportunities and inclusion, American independence has adapted itself to accept members of all cultures, though at times is not the truth.
In a study conducted by Lucy Tse that examined a group of Asian-American’s ethnic identity formation and its effects towards their heritage language, she concluded that ethnic minority individuals have minimal interest in their ethnic heritage, with some even actively rejecting ethnic identification due to the dominating American culture (Tse 185). American culture has been undoubtedly suppressing on racial and ethnic cultures since the start of immigration in the United States. In a quote from David Mura's memoir, he says, “I certainly didn’t want to be thought of as Japanese-American. I was an American, pure and simple. I was proud I didn’t know Japanese, that English was my sole tongue” (Mura 3). In the novel, Henry Park often faces the back and forth decision of identifying himself as Korean to satisfy his father or to live purely as American in a country dominated by people of the same nationality.
The story of Henry Park’s similarly replicates the actual life of author, Chang-Rae Lee. In a New York Times interview with Lee, he said that by the age of 10, he was forced to become the family translator since his family immigrated to the United States in 1969. Throughout his childhood, he was ashamed of his immigrant parents for not assimilating into American life quickly. In fact, some days he refused to translate for his parents and scolded them for not learning English (Belluck). In the novel, Park has a strained relationship with his father, who was a traditional and driven immigrant, well educated in Korea, became a grocery store owner, and “simply refused to fail, leaving absolutely nothing to luck or chance or someone else” (Lee 53). Park feels the regret and shame for not appreciating his father’s role in his life. At the time the novel was written, Lee, too, felt the shame for not helping his mother assimilate to mainstream American culture.
The relationship between Park and his mother is absent throughout the novel.

Henry was ten years old when she died, yet there is very little detail of her, especially compared to his father. Standing next to his mother’s deathbed, Park describes a faint memory of his mother. He says, “I don't remember what I saw in her room, maybe I never looked at her, though I can see so clearly the image of my father standing in the hall…” (Lee 63). This lack of intimacy and interaction is common in traditional Korean culture. This is also evident in his mother’s and father’s relationship since in their culture, women are subordinate to

men.
A theme that run throughout the entire story is what Henry does to assimilate into American life. Because he desperately wants to belong to society, Park marries a white woman, betrays his family, and even becomes a spy for private clients in order to force himself to blend into roles and identities that he despairingly pleaded. After the accidental death of Mitt, Leila and Henry had a non-symbiotic-like relationship. Leila built her life to helping children learn English, while on the other hand, Henry struggles with the incredible challenge of cultural difficulties of language use. Neither talked to one another nor tried to worked things out. For example, Park discusses the times when he allowed Leila to travel and do whatever she liked and just waited for her to come back. Although Park was constantly concerned about his wife’s travels, he never spoke up about it. In a sense, Park wanted to mirror his father’s attitude by not tolerating any mysteries in life or scars in one’s emotions. The inability to speak to Leila also matches the main character’s relationship with John Kwang. Henry seems to be jealous of Kwang in the way that he is able to cause Henry to become so restrained and soft-spoken. Kwang is able to freely communicate with others while Henry cannot even converse with his own wife. Park accepts most of he responsibilities of his failing marriage, while Kwang, a politician, blames others for being the scapegoat and problem.
Henry is an invisible man in the story because he refuses others to notice him. Park’s career as a spy is a metaphor for his situation as a Korean immigrant trying to find his place in a difficult American society. It is no coincidence that Chang-Rae Lee depicts Park as a spy. Simply, his secretive acts and logical roles to become different people are a sensible explanation of his position as a Korean American struggling to define how others perceive him and how he sees himself. Henry is uncertain of his place in society, an outsider looking at how to assimilate to American culture from afar. Constantly stuck in the middle of two worlds, his family’s and his own, Park faces, throughout the novel, the midst of betraying both and belonging to neither.
As a first generation Chinese-American, I have never really endured the same difficulties that Henry Park or the author, Chang-Rae Lee experienced when they immigrated to the United States. Both my parents immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong in their early 20s, received an education, and relied on their successful careers to raise me and my two siblings. Undoubtedly, first generation children in the 21st century are the most spoiled group that America has ever seen because of what our parents had to experience in order to give us a hopeful life.
Unlike Henry and Lee, I grew up with parents already assimilated into American culture who didn't need me or my siblings to translate for them. In the story, Park was unappreciative of his parents, especially his father who gave up his successful career as an engineer in Korea to allow his son a better life in America. Henry recalls that his father’s life was stressful in America. Henry was eventually grateful for his parents after their deaths. I constantly appreciate my parents for what they have done for my life, such as sending me to school to pursue a career I have passion for.
In some parts of the United States that I have visited, I have been criticized by white Americans who felt my acceptance of Chinese culture were superior to their views on American society. At a point in time as a teenager, I, too, felt whether I belong to an American society that I grew up in throughout my entire life. My friends, who immigrated to the United States at a young age, taught me that assimilating into any culture is difficult because they often face cultural and ethnic discriminations. In order to adapt, for example, I witnessed my friends immerse themselves into activities they never enjoyed, such as golf and baseball which are mainstream American sports. Likewise, they also never shied away from conversations involving politics or religion but were careful not to create any animosity. Although I have never experienced many situations of not being able to assimilate into the American mainstream, I realize that many minorities, including my friends, are unable to identify themselves in a culture that suppresses foreign customs.
In Native Speaker, Chang-Rae Lee writes about a fictional character, Henry Park, who in a sense symbolizes Lee’s struggles to adapt to American culture after immigrating to the United States in 1969. Today, immigrants face numerous challenges as they struggle to assimilate into American society while trying to retain their cultural and ethnic identity. With constant discrimination against minorities, the United States surely does not resemble a country of immigrants in the 21st century.