Confronting the Immigrant's Truth in Chang Rae Lee's Native Speaker

Abstract

Chang Rae Lee’s debut novel Native Speaker talks about a confused second generation immigrant and the continuous trial for understanding his own culture in foreign land. In this paper, the researcher will be discussing about the search of one’s long forgotten native culture by the Korean American, the second generation immigrant in America. Henry, the protagonist finds his identity and the lost culture through the events which happens to him as an immigrant. Being a second generation immigrant, he was lost in the foreign land and slowly he tries to uphold his culture and identity by recognising the importance of both in his life. The confession mode in the spy genre of the novel makes it more amusing for the minority immigrant in America. Although the protagonist is an American born, he too goes through the taunts and never ending questions pertaining to his ethnic origin even from his American wife. To get back his love and to understand his roots, he takes up a search for his self, self identity and cultural identity. This transformation and the hybrid identity will be discussed in the paper.