The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir

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The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir

4.04 of 5 stars 4.04 · rating details · 1,396 ratings · 328 reviews

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 Ka...more

Paperback, 274 pages

Published April 1st 2008 by Coffee House Press

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Feb 06, 2009 Rock rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've been flagellating trying to write a review of this story, I think because I want so badly to relate it to the multitude of political cultural historical events that it skirts, always affected by them but rarely addressing them. That is a credit to Ms. Yang, who establishes herself here as a powerfully lyrical writer, with both feet firm in what I (as an ignoramus) imagine to be the Hmong oral tradition. Though these pages together are a memoir, the Latehomecomer is not Ms. Yang but rather h...more

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Feb 13, 2009 Claudia rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone!

Recommended to Claudia by: Kao Kalia Yang

Kao Kalia Yang's written words read just like her spoken words sound - eloquent, sparse, and powerful in their own quiet, poetic way. Kalia's book is the first novel published by a Hmong American woman, and as a creative non-fiction memoir of her family's migration from the hills of Laos to refugee camps in Thailand to the cities of Minnesota, it makes a beautiful addition to the long history of Hmong storytelling as well as a promising start to what is likely to be an incredible career for Kali...more

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May 31, 2008 Jane rated it 5 of 5 stars

Minnesota author, Kao Kalia Yang, wrotes a beautiful, deeply moving memoir of her family's journey from Laos to America. She captures the essence of their struggles leaving Laos, in the refugee camp (where she is born) and assimilating to an American-Hmong lifestyle. She laces their story with the thread of the elders unending hope that their offspring would have better opportunities making their sacrifices worthwhile. There are many inspirational and tear jerking passages that touched me deeply...more

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Jan 15, 2011 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. Growing up around several Hmong people, I was shocked that I did not know the Hmong story. I read this book and it whetted my appetite to learn more about the Hmong people. Next, I read "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down." This book explains the Hmong plight very well, and helped me understand The Late Homecomer more. My favorite part in this book was when the family came to the United States and she writes how they took a bath with a strange smelling soap and...more

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Oct 03, 2012 Aaron rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was a great, great book about what happened to the Hmong after the Vietnam War. Very lyrically written, and heartbreaking in the raw emotion it conveys. Tells the true story of her family who had to hide for four years in the jungles of Laos while being hunted by Vietnamese soldiers. After one too many close calls with death, the dad decides to swim across the 1/2 mile wide Mekong River while towing his daughter, wife, and mom even though he didn't know how to swim, just so they can reach t...more This was a great, great book about what happened to the Hmong after the Vietnam War. Very lyrically written, and heartbreaking in the raw emotion it conveys. Tells the true story of her family who had to hide for four years in the jungles of Laos while being hunted by Vietnamese soldiers. After one too many close calls with death, the dad decides to swim across the 1/2 mile wide Mekong River while towing his daughter, wife, and mom even though he didn't know how to swim, just so they can reach the refugee camps in Thailand. They stayed in one refugee camp for a month where “The dominant feature of the camp was the stench of feces” until they were shuttled to another one called the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp. It was in this camp that Kao Yang was born, where most of what she remembers was dust everywhere; that gets in her throat, her nostrils, makes it difficult to breathe. Finally, when she's six years old, her family is able to move to America, where they have to figure out how to live when they don't know much English, and don't have any money.

I feel ashamed that I don't know more about the plight of the Hmong seeing as I live in one of the three states where Hmong are most prevalent, and especially because my faith is Lutheran, who played a major role in getting the Hmong to America. The CIA from the United States recruited Hmong to help fight in the Vietnam War, and then mercilessly abandoned them and ignored the other countries that forsook the peace treaty. I would almost cry that there is a conspiracy that we don't cover the history of the Hmong and the Vietnam War in school, except that I also don't think I've ever learned about WWII, as the teachers always run out of time before we reach that far in the textbook. However, people need to be learning about the Hmong, as they are still being killed in Laos right now, even as you are reading this. The atrocities have not finished occurring. I hope that every high school student spends a unit learning about the Vietnam War, and what happened to the Hmong. The Latehomecomer is a powerful, moving book that everyone has to read.(less)

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Jun 05, 2012 Jenny rated it 5 of 5 stars

My mom gave me this book after meeting Kao Kalia Yang at an in-person event. I had heard of the Hmong people but knew nothing of their story. I found the account of the author's family's struggle during the Vietnam War to be so sad and heart-wrenching... no one should have to endure the fear and danger that they lived through. There is a quote attributed to Mark Twain that goes, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness." In this book, I traveled with Yang's family to Laos, th...more

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Apr 10, 2012 Bree rated it 3 of 5 stars

Kao Kalia Yang’s personal history began long before her birth. As traced in The Latehomecomer, her history begins with her Grandmother Youa Lee as a young woman, harvesting bamboo shoots in Laos, and continues into the Vietnam War. Before and after her birth, Kalia’s life and the life of those around her was married by tragedy but also filled with love and hope.

The Yang clan originated from the wild and beautiful Laos. When the Vietnam War began in 1963, it didn’t take long for the U.S. to co-op...more Kao Kalia Yang’s personal history began long before her birth. As traced in The Latehomecomer, her history begins with her Grandmother Youa Lee as a young woman, harvesting bamboo shoots in Laos, and continues into the Vietnam War. Before and after her birth, Kalia’s life and the life of those around her was married by tragedy but also filled with love and hope.

The Yang clan originated from the wild and beautiful Laos. When the Vietnam War began in 1963, it didn’t take long for the U.S. to co-opt the manpower of the Hmong in Laos to fight on their side against the Vietnamese. Largely due to this cooperation, the Hmong were seen as an enemy to the Vietnamese troops, and were routinely hunted down and enslaved or murdered during, and even after, the war. Yang’s family at the time of the conflict consisted of her father and her mother, newly married, and her older sister Dawb - Yang herself was not yet born. Yang’s father had 8 brothers and sisters that also had families, including their grandmother – the matriarch of the family. For years the family hid from the violence of the war in the jungle, living hand-to-mouth with no home to call their own. They could not stay hidden forever, and eventually many of them were taken by the combatants. Yang’s mother, grandmother, and older sister gave themselves up to the soldiers in an attempt to save all of their lives. It was by the dark of night that the family was rescued from the camp and they carefully swam their way across the treacherous Mekong River to Thailand.

In Thailand, the family lived briefly in So Kow Toe in Nan Province before being transported to Ban Vinai Refugee Camp where the author was born in 1980. Ban Vinai Refugee Camp was a place of both renewed hope and despair. Yang’s family was blessed with many new lives during their years in the camp, but the family was also destitute. Living in a dirty camp area that was shared with thousands of other refugees, no family owned much and no one still had a real place to call home. For years family members talked of leaving, of going to America or France, but their Grandmother kept them all together for as long as possible. By the time rumors spread that the camp would eventually be closed, the family knew they had to leave and registered to move to America.

The journey to America for Yang’s family was not short. Before they could cross the ocean, the family had to spend six months in Phanat Nikhom Transition Camp to America. The transition camp was just as dirty as Ban Vinai Refugee Camp, but the children were introduced to schooling, the adults learned basic information they required to get by in America and all of them received medical attention and checks to make sure they were physically prepared for the trip. A feeling of dread hung over the family the closer the time came to leave. Not all members of the family were going to the same place. Some were registered to go to Minnesota, some to California, and a few cousins ended up going to France. The emotional heartbreak of separation for the family is one that had happened before, and this would definitely not be the last time.(less)

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May 14, 2011 Terry rated it 4 of 5 stars

This memoir of a young woman's experiences in Thailand after her family's escape from war-torn Laos and their subsequent immigration to America is very touching. Kao Kalia Yang has an amazing memory and deftly writes about her family's experiences on 2 continents. The struggles of her family are difficult but the family members are able to remain full of hope. One comes away from this book with a deep admiration for the Hmong people who made it to this country. They were willing to give up every...more

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Sep 19, 2010 Mike rated it 3 of 5 stars

Calls or visits home often turn into strange, strangled conversations between me--booknerd, liberal, English prof, atheist, movie nut--and various family members--some Palindrones, a bedlam of evangelicals, quite a few People junkies, a couple of other teachers (primary special ed; secondary math and social studies), and one or two other stray booknerds. Before travel, I bone up on the Gosselins, tamp down my smartassholishness. Etc. I've only once--just once, in 43 years--said anything about la...more Calls or visits home often turn into strange, strangled conversations between me--booknerd, liberal, English prof, atheist, movie nut--and various family members--some Palindrones, a bedlam of evangelicals, quite a few People junkies, a couple of other teachers (primary special ed; secondary math and social studies), and one or two other stray booknerds. Before travel, I bone up on the Gosselins, tamp down my smartassholishness. Etc. I've only once--just once, in 43 years--said anything about language to any relative (and this to my mom, and I blame it less on being a know-it-all and more on being 14--or is that redundant?). But I've had about 5,000 conversations where some family member chuckles awkwardly that she's going to watch her grammar. And 'though there are just a few readers in the batch, I seem to always end up talking about inspiring stories they've read.

Some few years ago, most of these stories were about plucky real-life heroines. Mary Lou Retton still looms large in the pantheon, tumbling off the vaults and into our hearts, with a big smile, and a tiny fireplug body. But more recently-- perhaps a shift in publishing and the popstream, perhaps real effort on the part of my family to meet me partway--the plucky heroines & heroes are less apple-pie, more EXOTIC. A couple Christmases ago, it was all Kite Runner. (I almost preferred gymnastic come-from-behind miracles.) But the last two years, it's memoirs. I The Woman Warrior for a couple folks--I adore that ... memoir? novel? gorgeous Book. Some appreciations, but also a lot of apprehension. It was a bit weird.

All this is preparatory to saying that I actually look forward to conversations in the next few visits, 'cause many of my family members will love Kao Kalia Yang's memoir. And I liked it. Which is to say that it isn't quite Kingston, but it has a blend of pluck and real poetry; the sentimental allure of Exotic Pain somewhat too common in recent years is there but offset by a more stringent lyricism, and she's willing to veer off the beaten chronological path into stories, images, asides that resist neat aphorisms or lessons or conventional narrative arcs.

There are passages--particularly in the camps in Thailand--where her narration is impressionist perfection. And she captures the way history washes over a family and a people by focusing on the local: her family, her own experiences, but avoiding the cheap synecdoche where the narrator's I is Representative.

Still, there are stray moments of information dump, a confusion that is understandable--but lacks a sharper aesthetic focus--around the ambiguity of memory and not-remembering in a memoir of a family (much of which takes place prior to the narrator's fifth birthday).

This is a first work, by a very young writer, and it's pretty impressive. Maybe not all that I'd hope for, but more than I'd expected -- and I'm excited to pass on a book that might spark some real conversation at home.(less)

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Jun 28, 2010 Carmella rated it 5 of 5 stars

Our book group recently read this book....then we learned that the author would have come to our meeting. We all gave it very high marks. I copied this short synopsis from coffeehouse.com

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 their history remains largely unknown. Driven to share her family’s story after her grandmother’s death, Kao Kalia Yang’s memoi...more

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Apr 08, 2010 Niagmiv rated it 4 of 5 stars

It is a book like this that gives hope to the hundreds of thousands of us that are 'refugees' within the United States and strive for that American Dream. However, the reason why I enjoyed this book is because Kao Kalia Yang thoroughly explored the heart and soul of her loved ones and shared it with all of us through her poetic language. For one, the Hmong people are not so open with their feelings and thoughts. Secondly, there were multiple generations who were all in different stages of life....more

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Mar 22, 2010 Zoe Zolbrod rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: travel-related

In this artful and heart-wrenching memoir, Yang tells the story of her Hmong family, who escaped Laos to find themselves in a series of refugee camps in Thailand before eventually moving to the United States. Yang depicts clearly and tenderly life in Hmong villages before, during, and after the Vietnam war; life in the refugee camps where she spent her first seven years; and life as an immigrant. The description of her family crossing the Mae Kong river was particularly harrowing for me. I read...more

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Nov 28, 2009 Sharon rated it 4 of 5 stars

The author was born in a refugee camp in Thailand after her family left Laos. With almost poetic language, she tells the story of her family particularly her paternal grandmother and her parents. After the Vietnam War the Hmong, who had been US allies in the "Secret War" in Cambodia and Laos, were massacred and survivors were driven from their homeland across the Mekong River into refugee camps in Thailand. Interweaving the legends and spiritual beliefs of the Hmong into her tale of the family,...more

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Nov 19, 2009 Rach rated it 5 of 5 stars

Halfway through this book I decided that it should be required reading for any non-Hmong person who lives in the Twin Cities/western Wisconsin or in California's central valley--any place where the large numbers of Hmong families have resettled. I later found out it is required reading this year for the incoming class at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. I learned a lot about the incredible struggles faced by the Hmong during and after the Secret War in Laos. The writer's voice is clear a...more

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Jul 10, 2009 Catherine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, 50books_poc, nonwhite_us, thailand, laos

This is a beautiful memoir, deftly written, and the arc of three generations of women's lives gives a wonderful resiliency to the text. There are repeated images - walking; typing; struggling to speak - but within the disparate worlds of Laos, Thailand, and the United States each theme takes on a different resonance. The author's focus on words - spoken, then written, and the relationship between the two in more than one language - is haunting, and I got chills when she wrote an essay in high sc...more

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Mar 02, 2013 Christina G rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobios

3.5 stars. I've had a few conversations this past year with Hmong and non-Hmong Minnesotans that have driven home how little I know about Hmong culture, and so I'm gonna try to self-educate a little better. I wanted to read this before the perhaps more well-known book written by a white woman - The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. Plus, Kao Kalia Yang is a fellow Carleton alum, and I was curious to see if she talked abo...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Shomeret rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, my-reviews

The only book I'd read about the Hmong previously was The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Culturesby Anne Fadiman. I felt that Fadiman was portraying the Hmong as a mysterious puzzle to be solved. This is the first book I have read from a Hmong perspective It humanizes the Hmong and gives them more of a context. I place the Hmong in the context of other independent spirited mountain peoples with distinctive cultures such as the...more

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Jan 21, 2010 Eli rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, 2010, local

Yang has a beautiful, lyrical writing style that sucked me in from page one. Unfortunately, I never felt like truly I connected to her as a "character" or with the story she was telling.

Some of it was inter-cultural friction: as an environmental activist and a by-choice childless person, I slammed again and again against Yang's assertion that "the only way to live life is to give life" (i.e. if you don't have at least 6 kids, you're doing something hideously wrong) and the idea that the way to...more

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Aug 24, 2010 Ryan Madland rated it 4 of 5 stars

I had been meaning to read "The Latehomecomer" by Kao Kalia Yang for some time now, as I had heard great things about it. Recently my Grandma was given a copy and allowed me to borrow it, which I'm glad she did.

I've always heard bits and pieces of stories of what the Hmong people had to endure while in the jungles of Laos, but I've never read it from beginning to end. In the Latehomecomer, I felt like I was put in the middle of it all and was able to see for myself just some of the tragic things...more

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May 13, 2012 Randy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was recommended by quite a number of people from church. In the past number of years we had sponsored or otherwise helped immigrants to St. Paul to get established. There always seemed to be several mysteries to me, how the refugees survived in their home country, how they escaped and survived in refugee camps, and how they got to St. Paul, Minnesota, land of lakes, harsh changing seasons, flat lands, and wind. Placing anyone in big city America, whether it's farm kid from southwest Mi...more

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Jan 11, 2010 Gretchen rated it 4 of 5 stars

This, again, was maybe a little closer to 3.5. The writing was a little scattered, but the story was very strong. I read it for a book club, and hadn't heard of it before. What made it even more interesting to me is that the story took place in my immediate neighborhood of St. Paul (after the family made it to the United States, that is). Yang mentioned a house her family lived in within a few blocks of my house, and described a supernatural experience there ... it creeped me out, and I had to l...more

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Mar 26, 2012 Rebecca rated it 4 of 5 stars

A beautifully written memoir of the author's family's journey from Laos to Minnesota, via Thai refugee camps. I particularly appreciated her interweaving of Hmong folktales, which at times give the story a sort of magical realism feel, and which made me feel I had learned something new about Hmong culture. My only criticism of the book is that the author jumps very quickly from her arrival in the United States at age seven to her senior year in college, touching only briefly on what seems to hav...more

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May 17, 2008 Betsy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I found this book fascinating for the first 2/3 and then when the family arrived in America, I felt that the pace slowed somewhat. It's a great study of one extended Hmong family and how they cope with adversity in Laos, Thailand and the U.S. and also overcome it. I liked some of the images that Yang expressed such as the babies waiting in the clouds to be born.

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Jun 24, 2009 Laura C. rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book, Kao Kalia Yang’s telling of her own families story form the jungles of Cambodia to her success as an author, reminds me of how lucky I really am to have been born in the United State. It is also a cautionary tale of the human cost of America’s foreign policy. The Hmong were our allies in the Viet Nam War, but many were abandoned when the US pulled out of Southeast Asia. They were hunted by the Khmer régime and nearly exterminated. In 1979, while I greeted the guests at my wedding rece...more

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Jul 07, 2010 Sophie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, macalester, memoir

This was an excellent, excellent memoir. I loved the poignancy of Yang's writing, especially near the end of the novel. I wasn't thrilled with the writing at the beginning, but it quickly developed and became better as the book continued. Although I was aware of the large numbers of Hmong immigrants in the United States, I was unaware of the vast majority of the circumstances surrounding their arrival and their situation back in Asia. It was heart-breaking.

I liked the inclusion of the photograp...more

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Sep 12, 2010 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book hit home for me, literally. Yang and her family move to Minnesota and settle into a housing project very near where I lived when I was in elementary school. Due to the high Hmong population in St. Paul, I went to school with a handful of Hmong kids and reading this memoir makes me realize that although I was in classes with these kids, even had desks adjacent to some of them, I definitely did not appreciate who they were and what some of them were going through at the time. I have no d...more

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May 23, 2011 Linda rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: early-first-reads

I had the privilege of receiving an early reviewer audio of this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. The story is written and read by Kao Kalia Yang. I was so pleased to be chosen to review this book as I was a teacher in Monterey during the early eighties and had the amazing and humbling experience of working with children newly off the boat from Laos, Viet Nam and Cambodia as they were brought through the Travis intake center to Monterey during the aftermath of Viet Nam War. As the chil...more I had the privilege of receiving an early reviewer audio of this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. The story is written and read by Kao Kalia Yang. I was so pleased to be chosen to review this book as I was a teacher in Monterey during the early eighties and had the amazing and humbling experience of working with children newly off the boat from Laos, Viet Nam and Cambodia as they were brought through the Travis intake center to Monterey during the aftermath of Viet Nam War. As the children began to learn the English language I was able to hear firsthand many of the stories of these Hmong families, including the crossing of the Mekong River into Thailand which is a part of Yang’s family story. It was a year of teaching in which I learned much more that I was able to teach. That was the year I truly understood what it was to love America and this story is one that everyone should hear.

In this book, Yang tells the family story of her Hmong Grandmother which begins in the jungles of Laos and travel to crowed and strange Vanai Refugee Camp in Thailand and eventually to America and her new homeland. They were told you are going to America as a refugee form a land that no longer wants you. The unforgettable and compelling story is told in a gentle and heartfelt voice which draws you into the sadness and hardships that were endured by the Hmong families. This story tells shares the folklore, the culture and the very difficult stories of the Hmong people. This is not only the story of immigration and the safe haven of America but that of loss and pain and a war that still brings pain today even though the war was over in 1975 for the death warrant that was issued for the Hmong people that fought in “the secret war,” for it was not safe to stay in their homeland or safe to move to a new country.

Thank you again to Kao Kalia Yang for allowing me to hear this very private story. I have pictures in my mind that I will not soon forget. I give this an unconditional 5 star review and may be one of the most moving stories I have heard. (less)

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Oct 27, 2011 Elizabeth is currently reading it

September 1, 2011 The meeting was at the home of Elizabeth & Mark. We discussed the nonfiction book:
The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang. We discussed the extraordinary transition that the Hmong people had in coming to our country and, more importantly, coming to the Green Bay area--wow! How difficult and challenging that must have been! This book gave us some meaningful insights into the Hmong culture. Our culture is so opposed to theirs in some ways. There was a comme...more

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Feb 18, 2009 Shana rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: for-bookclub

Kao Kalia Yang tells her family's story from the jungles of Laos to the projects of St. Paul and beyond with grace, humor, compassion and wonder. She retells her grandmother's stories with a respect that leads one to truly appreciate the ease of our lives.

Yang struggled as a child with English, school, and double expectations. She has overcome obstacles most of us couldn't and has become a gifted storyteller, just like her grandmother.

As I drive around St. Paul after finishing the book, I find m...more

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Jul 11, 2009 Barbara Mader rated it 3 of 5 stars

The prologue nearly put me off right away--the author referred to herself in third person, which felt contrived and amateurish and phony. I pushed on, however, and am glad I did. Some of this book was really lovely--that is, the very powerful material was often heart-breaking, but some of the writing was lovely, and her portrayal of tenacity, family ties, and honest, unflinchingly realistic love was often beautifully done. I did see her youth in her writing at times; maybe it would have been an...more

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“Love is the reason why my mother and father stick together in a hard life when they might each have an easier one apart; love is the reason why you choose a life with someone, and you don't turn back although your heart cries sometimes and your children see you cry and you wish out loud that things were easier. Love is getting up each day and fighting the same fight only to sleep that night in the same bed beside the same person because long ago, when you were younger and you did not see so clearly, you had chosen them.” — 6 people liked it

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