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by Tom Keener

Kao Kalia Yang, author of The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, appears at the Allen Public Library, 300 N. Allen Dr., 2 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 20. Publishers Weekly gave this account of a Hmong family’s immigration to the United States a starred review.

In search of a place to call home, thousands of Hmong families made the arduous journey from the war-torn jungles of Laos to the overcrowded refugee camps of Thailand and onward to America. Despite their tenacity, they remain largely unfamiliar to most cultures. Driven to share her family’s story after her grandmother’s death, Kao Kalia Yang’s memoir is a wonderful tribute to a remarkable woman whose spirit held them all together.

Yang was born in a Hmong refugee camp in Thailand in 1980. Although her grandmother desired to remain in the camp to make it easier for her spirit to migrate back to her birthplace when she died, the camp was to be liquidated and America looked promising. Yang and her family, along with scores of other Hmong, fled the jungles of Thailand to fly to California, eventually settling in St. Paul, Minnesota.

These hardworking refugees followed the classic immigrant story, with adults working double jobs so their children could receive an education and be an asset 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 and 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 along side 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 mysterious culture.

This free program is co-sponsored by the library’s Genre Book Club and the Twin Creeks Thursday Book Club. The Genre Book Club reviews The Latehomecomer at their regular meeting 7 p.m., Monday September 15, library conference room.

Copies of the The Latehomecomer are available for purchase at the library for $14.95. After her discussion on September 20, an autograph party will be held with The Twin Creeks Book Club serving refreshments. Proceeds of book sales benefit the Bach to Books cultural arts series. Please call Tom Keener at 214-509-4911 for information.