Themes of Language and Racial Identity in Native Speaker, By Chang-Rae

Chang-Rae Lees Native Speaker expresses prominent themes of language and racial identity. Chang-Rae Lee focuses on the struggles that Asiatic Americans charter to looking at and endure in American society. He illustrates and shows readers throughout the novel of what it really means to be native of America that true nativity of a someone does not simply entail the fact that they argon from a certain vex, but rather, the fluency of a language verifies ones defense of where they are native. What is meant by possessing nativity of America would be ones citizenship and legality of the country. Native Speaker suggests that if one looks different or has the slightest indication that one should have an emphasis, they will be viewed not as a native of America, but instead as an alien, outsider, and the like. Therefore, Asian Americans and other immigrants feel the need to mask their true identity and imitate the native language as an attempt to fit into the mold that makes up what people would define how a native of America is like. passim the novel, Henry Park attempts to mask his Korean accent in hopes to blend in as an American native. Chang-Rae Lee suggests that a person who appears to have an accent is automatically marked as someone who is not native to America. Language directly reveals where a person is native of and people can immediately mark one as an alien, immigrant, or simply, one who is not American. Asian Americans as well as other immigrants feel the need to try and hide their pagan identity in order to be deemed as a native of America in the eyes of others. Since ones language gives away the place where one is native to, immigrants feel the need to attempt to mask their accents in hopes that they sound fluent ... ...silenced in this country, in order to have voice and be visible in society, one must strive to be a white American. They feel the need to embody and assimilate to whiteness because the white backwash has a voice and i s seen, rather than silenced and unseen, in society. They are privileged with the freedom of not having to cope with the notion of being marked, silent, and unseen in society. This creates pressures for Asian Americans and immigrants to suppress their own cultural identities and assimilate to whiteness in an attempt to potentially be able to prosper and make a life for them in America. Asian Americans feel as though being who they truly are and express their unique cultural identities will alienate themselves even more than they already are. Chang-Rae Lee Works Cited.Lee, Chang-Rae. Native Speaker. NewYork Riverhead Trade, 1996. Print.