Mia Tang emigrated from China with her parents and lives in California. Her parents were professionals back in China, but they have to work long hours in low paying jobs when they move to America and they are very poor. Mia is excited when her parents get a job managing a motel. The salary is much higher, they get to live in the motel, and the motel has a swimming pool!
Unfortunately, their boss, Mr. Yao, is a liar and a cheapskate. Their wages are much lower than he promised, they have to work day and night, and they aren’t allowed to use the pool. Even though she is only ten, Mia must help her parents by working at the front desk.
The first thing Mia does is establish her authority. By being firm and professional, Mia gets the guests to take direction from a ten-year-old, and after a few fiascos, a confident Mia is running the front office efficiently and implements some clever new policies. From her vantage point of the front desk, Mia learns a lot about life. She figures out how to deal with crazies, criminals, and disgruntled guests and learns about injustice in America. She listens to the tales of mistreatment from other Chinese immigrants whom her parents secretly allow to stay in the motel and observes how racism hurts Hank, an African American who is one of the regulars living at the motel.
Mia makes friends with Lupe, an immigrant girl from Mexico. They both feel alienated in their middle-class school and both of their families are struggling to break out of poverty. To make matters worse, Jason, the horrible son of the terrible Mr. Yao, is in her class. Mia’s favorite subject is English, and even though she struggles with the language, she wants to be a writer. Her mother constantly tells her that she can never be a writer because English is not her first language and encourages her to excel in math. But Mia doesn’t give up.
Mia continues to practice writing and has such success writing letters that help solve problems for the Chinese immigrants and Hank, that she decides to enter her essay in a lottery contest to win a motel in Vermont.
Front Desk is based on the real-life experiences of author, Kelly Yang, the daughter of Chinese immigrants who grew up in a motel. Through Mia’s eyes, the reader gets an unflinching look at racism, abuse of power, and life in America for immigrants and the working poor. Mia is a quiet hero whose compassion and determination to improve her writing and help her family save the day.