I Begin My Life All Over : The Hmong and the American Immigrant Experience [Hardcover]

Lillian Faderman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 1998

I Begin My Life All Over is an oral history of 36 real-life strangers in a strange land, an intimate study of the immigrant experience in contemporary America.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This book,a mostly-oral history of Hmong refugees from the country of Laos, is a must-read for anyone interested the immigrant experience, or in the implications of U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia.

Lillian Faderman, award-winning author of books on lesbian history and multiethnic studies, collaborates with a Hmong assistant, Ghia Xiong, to collect refugee stories of passage into American life. The book, divided between tales of survival and escape from the old world, and disorientation and upset in the new, is in turns harrowing and inspiring. Elder immigrants speak of the erosion of their traditions in the face of American culture, while the young talk of being pulled between love for their parents and a need to assimilate for their own survival. Here and there Faderman effectively draws parallels between the Hmong experience and the history of her own mother, a Jew who emigrated from Eastern Europe to America in the 1930s, and encourages readers to consider the story of their own ancestors' arrival into this country.

Several photos in the book express the spirit of Hmong people and offer visual evidence of the conflicts they face. But it is Ghia Xiong, himself a Hmong refugee, who most eloquently speaks for the immigrant experience in his own brief afterword. Of the book's subjects, he says, "I felt that they also were lost in this enormous American jungle. As wise and determined as many of them were, they could not see their way to the light." Perhaps this book will inspire readers to help illuminate the path. --Maria Dolan

From Publishers Weekly

Faderman (Speaking for Ourselves) offers a perspective on immigration to this country that artfully combines the personal and the universal. By linking together 35 narratives from Hmong immigrants displaced from their native Laos by the war in Vietnam, she uncovers their common concerns, such as gender relations, parental control and assimilation to technology. Many first-generation Hmong came to the U.S. from relocation camps in Thailand, after escaping the Communists, and those experiences have shaped their interaction within the technology-based American culture. However, second-generation Hmong straddle the demands of their birthplace with the expectations of their parents. The differences between these generations offer a clear picture of what the Hmong and other immigrant groups face when confronted by societal change. Faderman's inclusion of the Hmong's history in Laos and China provides a context for the first-person accounts and deepens our awareness of the obstacles they've overcome in adjusting to their new country. This enriching book fulfills the author's aim "to capture [the Hmongs'] living voices, and to make those voices resound in the reader's ears." Photos.
- living voices, and to make those voices resound in the reader's ears." Photos.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press; 1St Edition edition (March 20, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807072346
• ISBN-13: 978-0807072349
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #724,841 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read for Multi-Cultural or Ethnic Studies Students, July 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: I Begin My Life All Over: The Hmong and the American Immigrant Experience (Paperback)

This text was an amazingly comprehensive look at the experiences of Hmong immigrants to the United States during the past three decades. I used this book in my Teacher Education courses at a California State University and found that each of students who read it was moved to a new level of understanding of culture, the challenges of the second language acquisition process, and the complexty of the modern immigrants' acculturation experience. It illustrates the difference in cosmology between immigrants and non-immigrants by examining a variety of real life topics through short vignettes. The range of accounts (from teenagers to the elderly) gives a breadth of perspectives that adds to the value of this text as a classroom resource. I recommend this text to high school and college instructors in reading, writing, history and multi-cultural studies courses as a required text or a supplemental reading assignment for student projects. For others, if you want to expand your mind and look at the world and life through the eyes of others, this is a compelling book that will not quickly be forgotten.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that lives up to its title...., January 25, 2004

By 

Marcy L. Thompson (Sammamish, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: I Begin My Life All Over: The Hmong and the American Immigrant Experience (Paperback)

This is an astonishing book. The author, working with a Hmong colleague, collected many moving oral histories. She then wove them together into an astonishing tour-de-force.

This book provides a voice to Hmong people, telling their stories in their own words. At the same time, Faderman places the Hmong experience in the larger context of the experience of leaving one's home to come to the United States as an immigrant. Using the particular experiences of her Hmong informants, as well as her own history growing up as the child of an immgrant, she sheds light on the general topic of what it means to be an immigrant in this country.

For most US residents, there is immigration somewhere in our histories; this book speaks to how our families were profoundly affected by the dislocation and courage of these immgrants, whether they are ourselves, our parents, or lurking in the more distant past.

I can't imagine a better book on this topic.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great book, June 1, 2005

By 

Veesath - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Begin My Life All Over : The Hmong and the American Immigrant Experience (Hardcover)

This book is a great way for people to see how Hmong people see their life coming to America, and life before they came here. While reading the book I learned a lot, even though I am Hmong. The writers go into really deep details how living was and also how hard it was to adjust to America. Faderman also talks about how it was to be an immigrant, too. She compares most of the stuff Hmong people went through to her life as a child.

This book really gives you an understanding of being Hmong. You'll learn how they lived before they came over to the United States. Then it'll talk about how hard it was to change their lives to live in the U.S. Who thought that someone would explain how Hmong people came here and how they lived? After reading this book, you'll be able to open your mind to other cultures. They did a great job of opening Hmong people to the whole world.