The Latehomecomer, Finale

I finished The Latehomecomer. I really enjoyed this book. Sometimes it's easy to think that someone as young as Lang Yang - 28 - doesn't have enough to say for a memoir. But, I think she fills the pages well. I don't think we always understand what a struggle immigration is for groups of people like the Hmong (or Somali, etc.). All they're looking for is a better life than the one they came from, but imagine moving to a country with a different language and completely different customs and trying to fit in. I don't know if I could do it. Which makes books like this one all the more powerful for me. Her family is very strong and she and her siblings went on to do great things (Yang and her sister co-founder Words Wanted, an agency dedicated to helping immigrants with writing, translating and business services.)

Here is one of my favorite passages from the book. When she sees her mother crying because her grandmother in Laos passed away (the last time Lang's Yang's mother saw her was during the war), Lang Yang describes her feelings:

I realized then that my mother had left her mother, the woman who had loved her best in the entire world, to walk with my father toward this life with us. I felt worried that perhaps I'd been selfish. I felt sorry for the decisions a Hmong woman faced, the decisions that this Hmong woman - who I had never seen as such, simply because she was my mother - had made. Why does love in a war always mean choosing? Her mother or my father? The country that gave birth to her or the one that would give birth to me? The little girl she had been or the woman she would become? For the first time, I knew the sadness of choice in my mother's life. I had a glimpse of the world she was working hard to protect me from, to keep me young in, this education and pursuit of a life she never had a chance at. I have the freedom to stand strong in the wake of love and to perhaps choose my own mother - instead of a man.

The Latehomecomer, Part II

I'm really enjoying the book so far. Lang Yang starts by telling the history of her parents, who meet in the Laotian jungle as their separate families hid for their lives from enemy soldiers. They marry amongst the bombs and the fighting, and even still certain traditions remained. A dowry is a must, even if they barely had enough food to last the day.

The family (a daughter, Dawb, is born on the jungle floor) eventually makes it across to Thailand where they spend several years in different refugee camps. Lang Yang is born here and her story begins. The following stories come from her memory (and probably some things her mother, father and grandmother told her about), and it's amazing how much she remembers, particularly smells and sounds. She's actually pretty happy in the camp (that's all she knows), but she can tell her parents yearn for a better life.

Soon the Thai government doesn't want the Hmong anymore and slowly over several years the U.S. government offers them homes here. We're the cause for why they're refugees of war anyway. (We convinced them to fight the "Secret War" against the Vietnamese and now they've been run out of their country for helping us.) Lang Yang and her family traveled here when she's six years old.

Her stories of the airplane ride and her first month in America, St. Paul to be specific, are extremely interesting. Americans didn't know what to think about these people entering our country, and Lang Yang and her family could tell. But her parents always stressed that their lives would be better here. Lang Yang spends several different moments throughout the book discussing whether this is really true. With all the struggling to learn the language, the customs, living on welfare, etc., is life really better?

As Lang Yang and her siblings grow up, it's very interesting to read about the pressure put on them by their parents (as with all the Hmong families she knew). Hmong children have to become adults quicker - their parents need them to translate. If they're ever ungrateful or distant (typical teenagers - at least typical American teenagers), the parents' disappointment is overwhelming. The pressure to do well, to go to college, to become successful is preceded with [me paraphrasing] "We traveled all the way here to give you a better life - don't go wasting it."

I'm glad I'm reading this book, especially since Lang Yang is near my age. She was right on the cusp of the immigration. She was born elsewhere, but spent a majority of her life here. Her younger brothers and sisters were born Americans. They'll never have those memories of Laos or Thailand. They'll never know personally the way it was - they only know the way life is now or the way it could be. I think this is a major reason why she wrote this book. Maybe she felt a sense of duty?

The Latehomecomer

I've just started The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, a story about a Hmong family's journey from Laos to Thailand to America. It's written by Kao Kalia Yang, a new Minnesota author. Several years ago, Yang, who is not even 30 years old, began writing down her grandmother's memories. Those memories turned into this book.

For the few pages I've read, I'm enjoying it. The book got high praise from Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, another book about Hmong culture and history that I really enjoyed. For more information on Yang, you can go to her Web site, or you can read this article on MNArtists.org. One quote from this article is just so heartbreaking and also so amazing that it comes out of someone's mouth who is just my age - though obviously much more worldly than me:

“There were lots of defeats,” remembers Yang. “One day, I was reading on the Vietnam War and noticed that the Hmong weren’t anywhere [in the account]. Just like the American history books I read all through college and all through high school – "Hmong" wasn’t mentioned anywhere. And yet, I knew that war was responsible for us being here, and that it killed two-thirds of the people I belong to. People are still dying in the jungles of Laos, remnants of this fight. In the process of writing this book, I learned that that wars don’t end." She pauses then says, "There were so many lessons. What happened to old men and women during and after the war? I looked for the answer to this question everywhere, but no one answered it satisfactorily. So, I faced the problem: how could I begin to tackle this question, especially as it concerned my grandmother, who was already old by the time this war had come?"

I also enjoyed this paragraph on her experience in grad school. As a writer, it hit home, because I've always questioned my experiences and wondered if they're worth applying to my writing (maybe it's an American thing?):

Yang adds that her singular purpose and passion for these stories gave her an advantage over some of the very talented writers she studied with in the MFA program at Columbia University. “They were writing about drugs, or about other things that I knew were part of the contemporary American landscape. But I never got the feeling that they were really quite convinced that that was their story to tell yet," she reflects. "But in my heart, I was already burning with a story."

I'll keep you posted as I read more.