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The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir
Author: Kao Kalia Yang
In search of a place to call home, thousands of Hmong families made the journey from the war-torn jungles of Laos to the overcrowded refugee camps of Thailand and onward to America, but their history remains largely unknown. Driven to share her family's story after her grandmother's death, Kao Kalia Yang's memoir is a tribute to the remarkable woman whose spirit held them all together.
Born in Thailand's Ban Vinai Refugee Camp, Yang immigrated to St. Paul, Minnesota when she was only six years old. With a journalist's heart for truth and a storyteller's gift for lyricism, Yang describes her family's harrowing escape from Laos, their life in the refugee camps, the hardships and great joy of caring for a growing family in a new land, and her own experiences with American life and learning.
Through this moving, intimate portrait of a family, she also gives voice to the dreams, wisdom, and traditions passed down from her grandmother and shared by an entire community.
Publishers Weekly
Yang, cofounder of the immigrant-services company Words Wanted, was born in a Hmong refugee camp in Thailand in 1980. Her grandmother had wanted to stay in the camp, to make it easier for her spirit to find its way back to her birthplace when she died, but people knew it would soon be liquidated. America looked promising, so Yang and her family, along with scores of other Hmong, left the jungles of Thailand to fly to California, then settle in St. Paul, Minn. In many ways, these hardworking refugees followed the classic immigrant arc, with the adults working double jobs so the children could get an education and be a credit to the community. But the Hmong immigrants were also unique-coming from a non-Christian, rain forest culture, with no homeland to imagine returning to, with hardly anyone in America knowing anything about them. As Yang wryly notes, they studied the Vietnam War at school, without their lessons ever mentioning that the Hmong had been fighting for the Americans. Yang tells her family's story with grace; she narrates their struggles, beautifully weaving in Hmong folklore and culture. By the end of this moving, unforgettable book, when Yang describes the death of her beloved grandmother, readers will delight at how intimately they have become part of this formerly strange culture. (Apr.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationPatti C. McCall - Library Journal
Yang (cofounder, Words Wanted), of the Southeast Asian Hmong people, was born in a refugee camp in Thailand in 1980. Her family was forced to flee the Pathet Lao, of Laos, who singled out the Hmong in retribution for their aiding the Americans during the Vietnam War. With no homeland to return to and not necessarily welcome in Thailand, Yang's family took the opportunity to come to the United States and make a new life. Through all the tumult, Yang's grandmother was a particularly loving influence, providing strength and the stories that molded Yang's identity as a Hmong woman as her family settled in St. Paul, MN. Unable to trust her "voice" in English, Yang struggled in school until an English teacher recognized her talent and encouraged her writing. She is indeed a natural storyteller. Yang chronicles her family's journey and draws the reader into the Hmong culture with the stories she shares along the way. Most powerfully rendered is her relationship with her grandmother. Highly recommended for both public libraries and academic libraries with Asia collections.
Kirkus Reviews
An uneven but inspiring memoir of the Hmong author's flight from post-Vietnam terror in Laos and Thailand to the United States. Expelled from China centuries ago, the Hmong people lived in the mountains of Laos, where the CIA recruited them during the Vietnam War. When the Americans left, the Hmong fled to the jungles as their vindictive former enemies hunted and slaughtered them relentlessly. A fortunate few-Yang's family included-escaped across the Mekong River into Thailand, after which, eventually, they found their way to America. The strongest parts of Yang's memoir deal with these early years, most occurring before her birth in 1980 in a Thai refugee camp. Delivering her was her paternal grandmother, who emerges as a figure of towering importance to the author. The survival of the family was nearly miraculous; flood, disease, poverty, hunger, violence and despair all threatened them continually. In 1987 they finally arrived in Minnesota, where they faced new struggles. During the ensuing 20 years, the parents worked ferociously, the children succeeded academically (the author graduated from Carleton College) and the American Dream, in many tangible ways, was realized. As such, it's unfortunate that the final two-thirds of the text is unbalanced and vitiated by cliche. The grandmother's illness, death and funeral consume nearly 40 pages, testing the resolve of even the most lachrymose reader. The freshness of the language-so evident in early chapters-grows ever more stale, and skeptics may roll their eyes at accounts of ghosts, witches and shamanic miracles. The prose needs serious tightening and burnishing, but Yang has performed an important service in bringing readers the storiesof a people whose history has been shamefully neglected.
Table of Contents:
Seeking Refuge 1People of the Sky
A Walk in the Jungle 7
Enemy Camp 20
Refugees 39
The Little Girl With the Dimples
Ban Vinai Refugee Camp 55
The Second Leaving 78
Phanat Nikhom Transition Camp to America 91
A Return to the Clouds 115
The American Years
Before the Babies 131
Coming of the Son 152
The Haunted Section-8 House 180
Our Moldy House 193
The Latehomecomer
When the Tiger Comes 213
Preparations 232
Good-bye to Grandma 239
Walking Back Alone 249
Epilogue
Homong in America 271
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