It’s 1993 in Anaheim, Calif., and 9-year-old Mia Tang and her Chinese immigrant parents are finally able to move out of the car in which they’d been living. The family has left the repressive and economically stagnant China of the 1980s in the hope of better prospects in America but, with only $200 between them on their arrival, their life has become a constant struggle.
“Front Desk,” by Kelly Yang, is based on the author’s own experience as an immigrant child, and it combines an authentic background with a rapidly moving plot that is sometimes distressing but, ultimately, hopeful. With Mia as the bubbly and optimistic narrator, the plot covers the plight of immigrants in general, prejudice against them and Black Americans, and the dangers of loan sharks.
We meet the Tang family just as Mia’s parents are offered the job of managing a run-down motel. The owner is an unscrupulous businessman who offers them a generous salary, and then slashes it once they have moved in. When the family protests, the owner reminds them that there are plenty of other immigrants who would be only too happy to take their place.
Mia’s parents are fully occupied in cleaning the motel rooms and keeping up with the laundry, so Mia takes over the front desk, and learns to book in customers and deal with their complaints. She makes some early mistakes, but we see her grow in confidence and competence.J
The motel is home to a few long-term residents, and they soon adopt Mia into what has become a small community of people going through hard times. Mia’s parents also find themselves offering free rooms to other immigrants, who are fleeing from exploitative employers or vengeful loan sharks.
With the move into the motel, Mia has to join a new school, which has its challenges. One of these is the fact that she’s one of only two Chinese in the school, and the other is that her English is not yet fluent. Against the odds, Mia wants to be a writer, though her mother — who was a highly qualified engineer back in China — encourages her to concentrate on math, and says she will never make it as a writer in a language that isn’t her own.
Mia perseveres, however, despite having an initially unsympathetic teacher. She develops a knack for letter writing, which she uses to help one of the motel residents find a job. She also writes a letter — after several drafts — pretending to be a lawyer, which helps an exploited restaurant worker recover his passport from the boss who’s been holding it unlawfully.
At school, Mia forms a close alliance with a Mexican girl, nicknamed Lupe, whose father is exploited in his work as a repair man for the motel owner. Both girls begin by pretending they come from more prosperous backgrounds but soon confess the truth to each other, and find common cause in adversity.
Mia and her parents continue to struggle to make the motel work, in the face of indifference, and even hostility, from the owner. The motel becomes known as a haven for people in trouble, a fact the family find increasingly difficult to keep from their boss. Mia herself comes up with an audacious plan that could transform the family’s fortunes, but when that falls through she is not discouraged. Instead she comes up with an even more unlikely idea, which she puts into effect with help from Lupe.
“Front Desk” is a warm-hearted novel that’s hard to put down, and a good read for fifth-graders and above. It has a very engaging heroine, but doesn’t shy away from the real problems that face people at the bottom of the social scale in America. Luckily, this isn’t all the author has to tell us about Mia, and once you’ve finished “Front Desk,” you’ll want to read the just-published sequel, “Three Keys,” which we added to the Village School fifth-sixth grade library. Our students love them both.
George Bennett is the Village School’s fifth-sixth-grade teacher.