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.
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Product Details
Author:
Kao Kalia Yang
Paperback:
277 pages
Publisher:
Coffee House Press
Publication Date:
April 01, 2008
Language:
English
ISBN:
1566892082
Product Length:
8.86 inches
Product Width:
6.06 inches
Product Height:
0.85 inches
Product Weight:
0.93 pounds
Package Length:
8.8 inches
Package Width:
5.9 inches
Package Height:
0.7 inches
Package Weight:
0.9 pounds
Average Customer Rating:
based on 48 reviews
Features
Hmong American
Family Memoir-Hmong
Culture
Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review: ( 48 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 36 found the following review helpful:
A Stirring, Poignant, Evocative Masterpiece Mar 09, 2008
By West Wing junkie I had the privilege of reading a pre-publication manuscript of this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Kao Kalia Yang tells the story of her family--which in Hmong culture extends far beyond one's parents and siblings. From the jungles of Laos, where her family lived before she was born, across the treacherous Mekong River, into Thailand's Ban Vinai refugee camp, and ultimately here to the United States, Yang tells us of the alliance her Hmong people made with the US, the dangers they experienced as a result of America's withdrawal from Southeast Asia, their harrowing flight from the only country they had ever known, and the indignities suffered and hopes and dreams shared while living an uncertain life in a refugee camp. At the center of this unforgettable tale is Yang's grandmother, who struggles to keep her family together in the camp, but must ultimately surrender to the inevitability of their parting. Through Yang and her family we are connected to the challenges, pains, joys, and triumphs of the refugee/immigrant experience and the love and dedication of a family unlike any we have met before, yet as familiar and comfortable as any we are likely to know. We are drawn into Yang's seductive prose, the poignancy of her family's and her own circumstances, and the hope that their suffering, including that of her grandmother, who ultimately comes to America, will somehow be redeemed in this new country that in many ways necessitated their flight from Laos. This irresistable and moving debut--and its author--deserve a wide and appreciative audience.
14 of 15 found the following review helpful:
Well said! Apr 27, 2008
By Pakou Vang What a beautiful book. Although the emotional experience may be felt among many Hmongs who endured the Secret War and migration era, each detail and descriptor of the author's experience is raw, fresh, and beautiful. One of a kind and completely respectful and true to the Hmong. I would recommend this book for everybody and especially those who had forgotten or suppressed the Hmong in them. Great preservation of Hmong culture and experience post Secret War for future generations.
12 of 13 found the following review helpful:
Stunningly beautiful memoir Jul 28, 2008
By Jenny Shanahan Living as a young child in a Hmong refugee camp in Thailand in the 1980s, Kao Kalia Yang says she "discovered the shapes of stories, how to remember them, and how to tell them." Her memoir, The Latehomecomer, is a heartrending account of those stories, from her parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and siblings--a chronicle of a people who "had not had the opportunity to write their stories down" and whose history is shamefully absent from American accounts of the Vietnam War. The Latehomecomer is also an insightful narrative of Yang's own formation: an émigré becoming an American and a sad, silent child becoming a writer of remarkable wisdom.
The Latehomecomer is a triumph--a testimony to the most beautiful and the most terrible of our humanity. Yang writes with the confidence of one who knows that her family's story is one worth telling. Her story is compelling in its scope of historical events alone. It is a must-read for its lucid portrayal of Hmong immigrants, the lasting effects of the Vietnam War, and the struggles of a people betrayed by our nation's failures during and after that war. But what makes Yang's memoir astonishingly beautiful is the rendering of those events by someone who has been learning from her first years of life how to be a truly gifted storyteller.
7 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Profound and Necessary Apr 22, 2008
By AvidRead
"AvidRead"
I would like to thank the author for writing such a lyrically beautiful book about our human experiences. This is a necessary reading for those of us who care about each other--through this book, we learn about cultural beliefs of the Hmong, their political experience, and spiritual beings. This book will find its place next to the great literature of this country and will be read for generations to come. It is truly a gift.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Few Complaints Mar 12, 2009
By Brenda So I really loved The Latehomecomer, more than I thought I would in fact. I was really captivated by the author's tone. I love the lyrical quality of it - it seems to me she is telling us the story of her family in the same ways that her relatives probably told each other verbally. I was also just amazed with the story of the Hmong. I could've used some more background and facts, but I suppose that's not what the book is about and the reader can always do their own research on such things.
One thing that I did find myself discontent with was that we sort of lost the thoughts and feelings of the parents once the narration started coming from Kao Kalia Yang. I like how in the beginning, she included the thoughts and trials of her parents, and I found the growing love story there to be one of the most fascinating parts of the book. Then, however, once Yang was old enough the narration begun from her point of view, and we never really were able to get inside the parents heads again. I know she must have interviewed them about the things that happened before she was born, in order to write the story. I wish she would have continued with this tactic, maybe intertwining it with her own experiences as the book went on. I desired the thoughts and feelings of the parents especially when the son was born, I wish I could've had their side of the story, in addition to Yang's, there in particular.
I do think it's kind of odd that the author concentrates so much on making it clear she's telling her grandmother's story, because up until the last part, it seems more her story. I don't mind the change, but it's interesting. I guess it does span the grandmother's life, not hers. I did find one thing interesting, how the grandmother always carries everything with her at the end, and has no place she resides permanently, and how that parallels the Hmong having no homeland.
Overall though, I have no huge complaints about this wonderful book. I really enjoyed it.
based on 48 reviews
Few Complaints Mar 12, 2009
By Brenda
