Callie & Mona Chang
Callie Chang is the first-person narrator of the story. She is the second-generation daughter of Chinese immigrants. The Changs have two daughters and Callie is the older of the two. Mona is her younger sister.
Callie presents herself as more contemplative and less openly expressive than Mona. Mona has successfully assimilated deeper into American culture than her sister and is more overt in pushing her parents, especially her mother, to follow her lead. Callie has assimilated as well but is more acutely aware of her Chinese heritage. As a result, her remarks on the subject of cultural differentiation tend to be more subtly encouraging.
While Callie is more intuitively aware of American racism, Mona expresses almost a certain kind of gullibility about the ability for her family to socially integrate. That the focus of the narrative is on racism and xenophobia directed toward Chinese workers indicates that Callie is more mature and sensitive to the nuances of prejudice against immigrant families in American society.
Ralph Chang
Ralph is the father of the narrator and her sister Mona. He is very much still tied to his Chinese heritage and is the most resistant member of the family when it comes to assimilation. The thrust of the narrative is the consequences of his taking ownership of a pancake house.
While Mr. Chang is resistant to assimilation for the most part, he does seek to find business success by replicating American business thinking. He admires and respect American business success. This puts him at odds with capitalism due to his ties to Chinese cultural approaches to helping people.
The result of this paradoxical approach to running a business is that he is both overly generous and overly demanding. He is willing to skirt immigration laws in order to employ workers, but at the same time puts such unreasonable demands upon them that employee turnover at the pancake house is such a problem he has trouble sustaining success.
Mrs. Chang
Although primarily a passive participant in the action of the narrative, Mrs. Chang is the central figure upon whom the story turns. She holds onto certain Chinese traditions, but is more assimilated than her husband, if not as much as Mona.
The story takes a turn based on her desire to join a country club. Callie is more realistic about this desire than Mona, recognizing both the racial issues involved and that becoming like the country club housewives is Mrs. Chang's expression of ultimate assimilation into a higher social class. Mrs. Chang accepts and invitation to attend a country club party in honor of a man who is about to spend six months in Greece.
It is this party that becomes the focus of the last half of the story. The other attendees—all white—express racial discrimination in ways that vary in overt xenophobic prejudice. When the guest of honor begins to directly attack Mr. Chang's status due to his cheap suit, everything begins to fall apart relative to Mrs. Chang's hopes of assimilating easily into the local country club set.
