The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir
The Latehomecomer Book Club Discussion Questions available!
Publication date/ Length: 2010 / 274 pages 
Synopsis (from the jacket cover): In search of a place to call home, thousands of Hmong families made the journey from teh 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.
First line: “From the day that she was born, she was taught that she was Hmong by the adults around her.”
Review: This memoir was destined to become a part of my life… After it was recommended a number of times from a variety of sources, I requested it from the library and the very day it arrived a friend asked my opinion on a selection of summer books her son had been assigned — and The Latehomecomer was on the list! I have no question why this memoir is receiving so much attention and praise. It is truly exquisite… suspenseful, thoughtful, intimate, painful, yet reassuringly hopeful!
Yang begins before she begins — with the story of her parents’ lives before she was born — before the Vietnam war. Her description of their experiences during the war and journey to Thailand immediately following the war had me walking around the house with my nose in the book, doing laundry, making lunch, walking my dog, unable to put it down.
Since I taught high school just outside St. Paul for many years, I know quite a bit about the history of the Hmong and their involvement with the C.I.A.’s secret war. For years I taught a play about the Vietnam ”conflict” and the aftermath, written by a Hmong playwright. But while this history was known to me already, viewing those years through the eyes of Yang’s parents — and then Yang herself — was more educational than any history book could hope to be.
Yang’s earliest memories are of her childhood in the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand, and her memories are so fresh and young — so curious and untainted by history — and so much more poignant for this. Once Thailand announces the closing of the camp, her family’s journey then leads them to St. Paul and, by the end, Yang had allowed me to get to know her family so well that I was quite honestly sobbing at the end when her 90-something-year-old grandmother’s long, full life comes to an end.
This memoir is truly a gift. It is purely pleasureable to read, yet educational and heartfelt. I looked at so many aspects of my own life differently when I finished — what love looks like, what identity means, and how important finding our voice is… Truly a gift and I strongly recommend this memoir to anyone!
If you think your book club might be interested, I have written The Latehomecomer Book Club Discussion Questions, too!
It sure sounds good!
Here is my TSS/Weekly Geeks post!
This memoir sounds very appealing…I have had personal connections with some of the immigrants, many of whom settled in the Central Valley of California where I live. As a retired social worker, when I was still working,I had firsthand experience with some of their issues for awhile.
Here’s my salon:
http://laurel-rainsnowsaccidentallife.blogspot.com/2010/07/sunday-salon-july-11.html