43 pages • 1 hour read
Kelly Yang, Illustr. Maike PlenzkeThree Keys
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Different Facets of the Immigrant Experience
Front Desk, the first book in this series, examined the immigrant experience primarily from the perspective of the Tangs and their Chinese friends. Three Keys expands on that theme by acknowledging that not all immigrant experiences are the same. Within the Chinese community, there is a vast difference between the Tangs and the Yaos.
The Yao family has already achieved the American Dream and is now spiraling downward. Lupe once used the metaphor of a roller coaster to describe how poor people stay poor. Mia thinks her family has finally climbed aboard the rich roller coaster. However, she now understands that what goes up can also go down. Mia has this epiphany as she sees Mr. Yao fretting about paying his bills: “As I watched him, I started thinking about the two roller coasters again. I’d been so fixated on going from the poor one to the rich roller coaster, I never once thought about what it’d be like to go the other way around” (219).
Despite the struggles of the Tang family, they came to the country legally. They don’t have to fear deportation. This isn’t the case for the Garcias. Because Lupe is Mia’s best friend, the latter can empathize with her plight. She realizes with a shock that her hardships are nothing compared to an undocumented immigrant’s:
I used to think it was pretty rotten luck, but now, listening to Lupe describe how she and her parents had walked for days in the desert; how it got so cold they’d had to huddle together, skin to skin; how her father caught the rain with his hands and fed it to her—I felt grateful for my family’s luck (170).
Mia’s expanded awareness eventually encompasses all the students in her Kids for Kids group. She is surprised to learn that none of them had it easy. Mia is especially surprised when Jason shares his struggles. Ironically, this shared sense of hardship makes her feel less alone. She thinks, “This whole time, I thought I was the only one who didn’t live in a big two-story house with a white picket fence. I had no idea there were so many others” (94).
Of course, all these tales of immigrant hardship pale compared to the ordeal that Lupe must face when her mother goes missing in Mexico and her father is arrested at the border. In Three Keys, Mia moves beyond her own limited experience of what it means to be an immigrant and tries to help those less fortunate than herself.
The Power of the Pen
Three Keys concerns itself with the issue of prejudice against immigrants. Since 1994 when Proposition 187 was passed in California, hostility toward newcomers has risen to a fever pitch. The book asks how it is possible to counteract such an intense level of prejudice. Hank offers one possible answer when he tells Mia, “The point is, there are racist people everywhere. You can’t avoid them, and you certainly can’t let them stop you […] You just have to hope that through your small interactions with them, eventually you’ll change their minds” (74).
Hank stresses small face-to-face interactions, but Mia takes a different approach. She uses her ability to write to change minds. In Front Desk, the reader sees Mia struggling with the basics of English to get her ideas across. In this book, she has more confidence in her ability to express herself on paper. So much so that she’s offended when her teacher doesn’t immediately give her an A for her first essay.
Mia intends to use the power of the pen to help the people in her life. When her mother’s application for a credit card is rejected, Mia writes to Visa and explains all the reasons why the company should give her mother a chance. The tactic works, and Mrs. Tang is given a small credit line.
Similarly, when Mia becomes incensed by all the misinformation surrounding unauthorized immigrants, she writes a letter to the editor that is printed in the Los Angeles Times. Aside from her exhilaration at seeing her words in print, Mia and Hank use the letter as leverage to get television coverage for Lupe’s plight. Mia writes other letters to public officials to garner more sympathy for Jose Garcia’s cause.
Mia’s greatest literary triumph occurs when her writing moves Mrs. Welch to reconsider her support for Proposition 187. Mia writes an essay describing the struggles of an undocumented immigrant. Because she captures the emotion of the experience, she touches Mrs. Welch’s heart. Mrs. Welch notes, “In your essay about the pizza deliveryman who skidded on the road, racing because he had to support his dying mother-in-law in Mexico. There’s so much feeling there” (158).
Mrs. Welch’s attitude towards immigrants continues to soften to such a degree that she proudly displays Mia’s letter to the editor on the classroom wall. This gesture conveys to Mia how much impact her writing can have: “As I handed her the newspaper, I thought, wow, if I can get someone like Mrs. Welch to change her mind with my words, then maybe, just maybe, Californians will do the right thing” (211).
The Power of Persistence
In Front Desk, Mia grapples with the problem of raising the entry fee for an essay contest to win a hotel. Lupe constantly reminds her that you have to pay to play in America, which can be interpreted to mean, “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Mia’s actions in the first book illustrate a theme that also carries through to this volume—the power of persistence. Significantly, in Three Keys, Mia is the one who gives pep talks to others because she has already mastered the art of persistence.
When Lupe is afraid of losing her family, Mia reminds her that they have to keep trying to save Jose by whatever means possible: “‘It’s okay to be scared,’ […] ‘It doesn’t mean you’re not brave. Even the bravest people are scared sometimes.’ I wiped my eyes. ‘But you know what? We’re going to get through this. Together’” (143).
Mia communicates the same message to Lupe’s father at the later point in the story, when he appears to give way to despair: “Hey, José, remember what you said to me? About not giving up? […] How everyone would say to you, No can do, but you didn’t listen to them and you kept going?” (161). By this point, some of Mia’s determination rubs off on Lupe. She adds her own appeal and tells her father that he has to keep on trying. Mia’s faith in the power of persistence eventually pays off when Jose is freed at the end of the novel.
Mia finds herself teaching this lesson, not only to Lupe but also to Jason. Although he is a talented chef, his family wants him to have a more prestigious career as a doctor or lawyer. Jason appears to give in to their demands and doesn’t put up a fight. In some ways, Jason is the more difficult problem for Mia to solve because he has so much to lose by persisting. While Lupe and Jose have nothing to lose by challenging authority, Jason stands to lose the financial support of his rich family. In both novels in the series, he often adopts a passive stance because it has become his survival skill. He passively accepts his mother’s abuse of both Lupe and Mia without protesting, even though his conscience troubles him later.
It isn’t until Mia reminds him that cooking school is his dream, and nobody can take dreams away that Jason begins to develop the power of persistence in himself:
I stood up as tall as I could and told Jason, ‘Now I don’t care what my mom or anyone says. It’s my dream and nobody can take it away.’ I said the words with all my courage and all my heart, and Jason peered back at me, the morning sun smiling in his eyes (156).
By the end of the novel, both Lupe and Jason have learned the lesson of persistence that Mia mastered during her first year of managing a motel.
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