From the Bookshelves: Front Desk trilogy by Kelly Yang
On my summer reading list is a series of young adult books about the Asian American experience. Although I began learning about these books in order to lead a book club for Asian American girls, I found myself drawn into some of the stories for my own reading benefit. When I read the Front desk trilogy, for example, I found myself crying with the characters about the hardships they face as immigrants (confronting poverty, discrimination, and exploitation) and cheering for them as they navigated lackluster public schools and health care. These stories made me reminisce about the volatile racial and ethnic politics of California in the 1990s, where I lived and attended public high school.
The Front Desk triology’s author, Kelly Yang, writes fiction inspired by her own real life stories as a child immigrating to the US in the 1990s. The books center on protagonist Mia Tang, a 10-year old girl who is reluctantly along for the ride, whose parents migrate to California in search of a better life for their family. They take on work managing the Calavista Hotel in Anaheim, California. The parents work long hours cleaning rooms for low pay and dubious employment conditions (e.g. sleeping in the front room to be awakened all night by customers’ bells for checkin/checkout) under a Chinese owner who exploits their labor. Mia helps with the front desk, meeting a parade of colorful hotel guests and weeklies (long-term residents of the hotel who pay on a weekly basis) and learning about American mores along the way. She also learns the stories of the other immigrants they harbor in the hotel, unbeknownst to the heartless hotel owner. Her school experiences are another site of cultural learning where she navigates the usual school yard stresses and the hidden struggles of being poor and immigrant. In addition to surviving a rough California public school, she is on quest to improve the life of her family and immigrant community.
Front Desk, the first book in the series, became a New York Times bestseller and won several awards, including the 2019 Asian Pacific American Award for Literature, the Parent’s Choice Gold Model, and the 2019 Global Real Aloud. It was also designated the best book of the year by Amazon, Washignton Post, Kirkus, School Library Journal, NPR, and Publisher’s Weekly.
Three Keys picks up where Front Desk left off, with Mia’s family now owning the Calavista Motel and acquiring three more. In the background of the immigrant family story, California’s political scence has turned rampantly anti-immigrant. Proposition 187, the precursor to national intiatiatives to deny public funding for social services to undocumented immigrants, is on the ballot. Mia’s best friend, Lupe, who is a Mexican immigrant, becomes a lens for understanding another immigrant journey in the US. It won best book of the year from amazon and the Week Jr, and it was selected as a 2019 Project Lit Middle Grade Book Selection.
A third book will be released in October 2021 titled Room to Dream. (Available for pre-order at Scholastic Books and other booksellers). It broadens the horizon with Mia taking a vacation to China to see her relatives and how the nation has become unexpectedly prosperous during her family’s departure. This causes them to reflect on the missed opportunities in China and how they fared in America instead.
Author Kelly Yang lives in California and Hong Kong and became a writer after graduating from Harvard law school at age 17 and working as a journalist. Apart from writing, she is the founder of a youth program to teach children writing and debating (The Kelly Yang Project). Her author website contains reading guides and discussion questions for book clubs, among other interesting items.
MHC