Illegal Alien: Internalized Orientalism in Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker

Abstract

Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker is a novel that depicts the life of a 1.5 generation Korean-American. The protagonist shows the problem of identity, which is related to the problem of language. He otherizes himself from the perspective of internalized Orientalism. The ambivalent positionality of the protagonist derives from his own imagery on his parents who are “ordinary” 1st generation Korean immigrants. The relationship with his wife, who is a white American and a native speaker of English, also makes the protagonist consider himself as an “other.” Working as a spy dealing with people mainly from Asian countries, the protagonist attempts to find an ideal image of an immigrant from John Kwang, a Korean-American politician, who is an object of the protagonist's job. Kwang, however, faces a sudden downfall and the protagonist's desire is frustrated. Here, the story shows the resignation of the one who fails to find an ideal image as an immigrant and assimilates himself with the rule of the American's view on Asians and other ethnicities in the States.