Native Speaker

Content warning: This section contains quoted racial slurs directed at Asian Americans that appear in the source text.

Henry’s son, Mitt, died when he was seven years old. Henry and Lelia would bring Mitt to Henry’s father’s house in the suburbs during the summers because New York City in the summertime was too hot, dirty, mean, and dangerous. While being in the suburbs was good for Mitt, during his first summer, he learned racial slurs that other children in the neighborhood directed at him; words such as “chink” and “gook.” Henry and Lelia had comforted Mitt, and Henry went around the neighborhood introducing himself to the other parents and revealing his son’s bullying. Eventually, Mitt became friends with his former bullies. Mitt died when the other boys made a dog pile on him that lasted too long and was too heavy; the boys accidentally suffocated him to death. Mitt had often played with Henry’s tape recorder, so his voice lives on through his self-recordings. Henry calls Lelia at Molly’s to ask to borrow the tapes; he needs to hear his son’s voice again. She leaves the tapes with the super for him.