The Latehomecomer

While Kao Yang's narration of her memoir is a bit flat, there's still something spellbinding about hearing her describe in her own voice how her family, like many other Hmong people, faced persecution and displacement following the Vietnam War. The family endured a harrowing escape from the jungles of Laos to a refugee camp in Thailand and ultimately settled in St. Paul, Minnesota, where their struggles were far from over. Yang has chronicled their experiences in a poignant memoir that provides a glimpse of Hmong history and culture and ultimately pays homage to her beloved grandmother, the family matriarch. It's a remarkable story of Hmong endurance and family love. In the end, she needs no narrative embellishments to hold the listener rapt. S.E.G. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Starred review from January 21, 2008
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.