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Kao Kalia Yang

The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir Paperback – April 1, 2008

by Kao Kalia Yang (Author)

483 ratings

4.2 on Goodreads

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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 lacking a written language of their own, the Hmong experience has been primarily recorded by others. Driven to tell her family’s story after her grandmother’s death, The Latehomecomer is Kao Kalia Yang’s tribute to the remarkable woman whose spirit held them all together. It is also an eloquent, firsthand account of a people who have worked hard to make their voices heard.

Beginning in the 1970s, as the Hmong were being massacred for their collaboration with the United States during the Vietnam War, Yang recounts the harrowing story of her family’s captivity, the daring rescue undertaken by her father and uncles, and their narrow escape into Thailand where Yang was born in the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp.

When she was six years old, Yang’s family immigrated to America, and she evocatively captures the challenges of adapting to a new place and a new language. Through her words, the dreams, wisdom, and traditions passed down from her grandmother and shared by an entire community have finally found a voice.

Together with her sister, Kao Kalia Yang is the founder of a company dedicated to helping immigrants with writing, translating, and business services. A graduate of Carleton College and Columbia University, Yang has recently screened The Place Where We Were Born, a film documenting the experiences of Hmong American refugees. Visit her website at www.kaokaliayang.com.

Print length

277 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Coffee House Press
Publication date

April 1, 2008
Dimensions

5.9 x 0.8 x 8.8 inches
ISBN-10

1566892082
ISBN-13

978-1566892087
Lexile measure

890L
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. 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 © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Most Americans are relatively ignorant of Hmong history and culture. In fact, many have a negative perception of this immigrant group. For example, few are aware of the fact that the Hmong fought on the American side during the Vietnam War. In this beautiful memoir, Yang recounts the harrowing journey of her family from Laos to a refugee camp in Thailand to the U.S. Eventually settling in St. Paul, Minnesota, their struggle was not over. Adapting to a new community that often did not understand nor want them was difficult. This difficulty was compounded by the fact that the Hmong, despite possessing a rich folkloric tradition, have no written language of their own. Determined to tell the story of both her family and her people, Yang intimately chronicles the immigrant experience from the Hmong perspective, providing a long-overdue contribution to the history and literature of ethnic America. --Margaret Flanagan

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Coffee House Press; 1st edition (April 1, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 277 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1566892082
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1566892087
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 890L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.9 x 0.8 x 8.8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #789,562 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #401 in Emigrants & Immigrants Biographies
- #704 in Emigration & Immigration Studies (Books)
- #23,168 in Memoirs (Books)

Customer Reviews:
483 ratings

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Kao Kalia Yang

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Kao Kalia Yang is an award-winning Hmong American author for both children and adults. Yang came to America at the age of six from the refugee camps in Thailand. Her family was resettled in Minnesota where Yang still lives and works from.

Customer reviews

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3 star		3%
2 star		2%
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Top reviews from the United States

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Kelly Nelson

Wonderful book that really helped me understand more about the Hmong people

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 29, 2022

Verified Purchase

I have read quite a few books about people immigrating to America, but this one was special because it explained more about the family's experiences and history in Laos and the refugee camps in Thailand as well as life in Minnesota. I really liked reading some more of the Hmong stories (like the one about the tiger bride) and hearing stories from her grandmother and other family members. Wonderful book!

One person found this helpful

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Marty

Incredible Family Saga from Laos to America

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 18, 2022

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"The Hmong came to America without a homeland. We were looking for a home. Our chance was here. Our dreams are coming." Incredible writing as the author shares her family's long saga from war, genocide, starvation and chemical rains in Laos to escape and refugee camps in Thailand and then emigration and the challenge of being foreigners in their American refuge. The story is filled with struggle, hardship, danger and hard work, but also with peace, love and hope. The book is an outstanding introduction to a culture, people and life about which most of us know nothing.

One person found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Excellent Overview of the US Immigrant Experience

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 26, 2010

Verified Purchase

As an American who grew up during the Vietnam War era, who has traveled in hills of Northern Thailand, and who moved to St. Paul, MN about the same time as Kao Kalia Yang, I found her narrative particularly compelling. The experiences she describes, the emotions, the insights into the Hmong culture and the description of a powerful family connection, all ring particularly true. It is a love story - about the love of a family that has crossed generations and thousands of miles to nurture its newest members in the land we call America. It is a view into the crushing collision of cultures - from Hmong to Vietnamese to Thai to American - that threatens to kill the spirit of millions of refugees all over the world, and that in spite of these obstacles, love persists.

Kao Kalia Yang tells the story of her family over several generations. We see glimpses of pre-war Laos and the Hmong cultural connections at that time. We see the desperate attempts for survival, and the genocidal destruction, following the US exodus from the war in 1975. From the dense jungles of Laos, across the perilous Mekong River, into Thailand's less than hospitable refugee camps, Yang describes her family's intense connectedness that enables them to endure the unyielding assaults on their pride and dignity. She also paints an amazingly colorful child's-view picture of her own early childhood growing up within the confines of refugee camps - and the intense connections to her Hmong heritage that were forged there.

In her US experience we see the naive hopes and expectations that define most immigrant experiences - and how these eventually give way to the harsh realities of an impoverished, language-challenged minority population that becomes sidelined by the robust but insensitive majority culture. Yang's writing is intensely personal. I almost felt guilty at times looking this deeply into a family's most intimate and traumatic experiences. But it is the intimacy that makes The Latehomecomer so compelling. Yang is also artfully poetic in her writing, passing seamlessly between her own inner struggles and the broader experiences of the family around her. And, even throughout the darkest memories, the book is a beautiful, uplifting celebration of the power of love to conquer the inner demons.

4 people found this helpful

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Stephanie G.

A powerful story of love, survival, and persistence

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 19, 2021

Verified Purchase

This book had me in tears several times. As a Caucasian American with many of the classic "First World problems," it is so easy to complain of financial woes and persistent small irritations, instead of being thankful that I have never gone hungry; my life has never been seriously threatened; and my children have never lacked access to education and social structures. I can imagine myself in a past life as a refugee, pleading with the Divine to grant me just one life of safety, of not having to fear for my children's lives and futures. And here I am in just such a life, complaining routinely of all the myriad inconveniences that come along with having conveniences in the first place. This book made me feel embarrassed for my complaints.

2 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

An exceptional person and an excellent book.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 6, 2022

Verified Purchase

After reading this book, I have a more insightful understanding of the Hmong people. The journey to America was wrought with danger and fear. But after getting here, their trials were only beginning. They couldn't speak English. They didn't understand our laws or customs. They were afraid of being sent back where they would have surely been killed. I salute them!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Kindle Customer

Beautiful story

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 16, 2021

Verified Purchase

I have been fascinated by the Hmong people for many years. About 25 - 30 years ago I read a story about their moving to this country, the hardships they endured, the difficulties they encountered. But what struck me most about the article was how the neighborhoods they moved into improved due to their care and hard work. They were beyond poor, the neighborhoods they moved into were poor; yet they always improved their neighborhoods and living conditions. I was so happy to find this book, to learn first hand about the family. The writing was poetic, the story well told. A story of immigrants from the heart.

5 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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MollieCoddling

Unexpected

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 9, 2014

Verified Purchase

I bought this on the recommendation of Rhoda Janzten (Mennonite in a little black dress) but it has really nothing in common with it. A fabulous memoir of someone from a totally different culture assimilating into the USA as a child, but maintaining the perspective of previous generations.

Janet Boynton Runeson

A Heartfelt Historical Memoir

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 30, 2017

Verified Purchase

Excellent inside description of the fate of the Hmong after the US left Vietnam.

Maria

Eye-Opening Memoir

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 27, 2012

Verified Purchase

This story about the Hmong people, of whom I knew nothing, is both moving and heart-warming.I read it on Kindle. At first I thought it was going to be dull and dry but within two or three chapters it had me gripped.I strongly recommend it.

Fernando

Diversidad de ideas

Reviewed in Mexico 🇲🇽 on December 24, 2019

Verified Purchase

Super libro

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