45 pages • 1 hour read
Kelly YangFront Desk
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Tip Jar
As Mia casts about for a way to cover her contest entry fee, the tip jar is introduced into the story. Once the girl receives her first random tip from a departing guest, she improvises a way to raise more money the same way. Prominently displaying the jar on the front desk offers a gentle nudge to guests who might want to express their thanks monetarily.
The jar symbolizes Mia’s hopes and dreams. Not surprisingly, she keeps both the tip jar and her dreams secret from Yao and her parents. Protecting the tip jar from Yao can easily be understood because he is a thief who would steal the money. Keeping the jar from her parents is harder to explain. The decision hints at Mia’s fear that they, too, would try to destroy her dreams. Mia’s mother has been quite critical of her daughter’s aspirations as a writer. Her father, in a misguided attempt to protect her, would discourage her from the folly of hope.
Ultimately, Mia is forced to sacrifice the contents of the tip jar to pay for her mother’s hospital visit. She says, “In a flash it was all gone. But another part of me felt tremendously proud, to be able to pay for our first visit to the doctor in this country with money I’d earned all by myself” (179). The tip jar has been transformed from a symbol of Mia’s hopes to an expression of her self-sufficiency.
The Baseball Cap
The baseball cap doesn’t emerge until midway through the story. It becomes a sign to immigrants to stay away because Yao is on the premises. Much like the secret signs used to guide runaway slaves along the Underground Railroad, the Chinese immigrants of Front Desk pay attention to the baseball cap as they run away from the quasi-slavery they’ve endured since coming to America.
The hat is negatively associated with Yao—the arch-oppressor. Ironically, this symbol of oppression is typically viewed in a more positive light as an emblem of a popular sports team. Most people would associate such an object with an enjoyable leisure-time activity. Strangely enough, Yao himself has formed a positive association with the cap. Mia is surprised when he confides to her that the hat originally belonged to a former manager, whom he liked: “Mr. Yao put the cap back on the desk and looked into the distance. ‘He was a good guy, that Ye. Very hard worker.’ Wait, what?? Had I heard that right?” (242). This brief glimpse of Yao’s softer side makes Mia wonder if he was always as awful as he’s become. Despite his consistently abusive behavior, Mia still finds herself longing for a kind word acknowledging what a good job she and her family have done.
Mia’s Letters
The novel is interspersed with letters Mia writes to various individuals. These are the result of her earliest attempts to master written English. The text shows strikethrough marks to indicate editing changes she has made. Some of her mistakes are grammatical, but some corrections have a more nuanced meaning indicating a growing adeptness with her adopted language.
Mia’s first effort is a thank you note to the guests who left her initial tip. The girl’s struggle with correct wording is indicated by the types of mistakes she makes. The reader understands the effort it costs her to find the proper way to express her thoughts in English. Armed with Mrs. T’s dictionary and thesaurus, Mia improves gradually. Each letter displays fewer simple mistakes and more finely tuned word choices. Eventually, Mia can mimic the correspondence style of an attorney and a hotel manager without the recipients being the wiser.
Aside from the way the letters display Mia’s writing skills, they also display her state of mind. The letters she writes to Lupe and Jason both suggest that writing has become something more than a technical exercise, or even a way to help people in trouble. It has become a way for Mia to express herself emotionally and artistically. All her letter-writing exercises culminate in the essay she writes for class about coming to America. Mia has ceased to write in secret. She displays her thoughts for the entire world to see. In doing so, she discovers the power of words to touch others and realizes her dream of being a writer.
