The Latehomecomer Synopsis and Critique

The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir. ISBN 978-1-56689-208-7. Kao Kalia Yang. 2008. Minnesota Book Awards- Memoir & Creative Nonfiction and Reader’s Choice. Ages 13-up. Non-fiction memoir.  New American Hmong Immigrants.

Synopsis
This book follows the story of one family as it begins in war-torn Laos, make a dangerous journey to find refuge in Thailand, and eventually decides to begin a new life in America during the 1970s to the present.  The story is narrated by Kao Kalia Yang who begins her story with her parents and extended family members as they live in the forests of Laos.  She is born in a refugee camp in Thailand. She writes to remember her grandma and to keep the her ancestry alive.  It is a story of courage, tragedy, unconditional love, and the bonds of family.

This book is an excellent source to use in a unit about immigrant or foreign-nationals literature.  In today's world, many students might be able to identify with the travels and tragedy that the Yang family underwent to get where they are today.  Especially living in Minnesota, there is a high Hmong population that could probably relate to it.  It would also be a great book to introduce memoir writing, and it would help the students explore their own experiences.


Critique
I was pleasantly surprised by this book.  I thought that I would be terribly bored reading it, however Yang's writing is almost magical.  I was amazed at how she was able to transport me to the humid and rainy jungles of Laos, to the dry, arid, desolate camps in Thailand, and to the beautifully frightening frozen world of Minnesota (granted, I live here, so that wasn't too much of a stretch).  Her words roll of your tongue and it is almost as if she has written an extended prose poem.  The language is beautifully lyrical and her story telling is steeped in mythology and folk-lore.  All of these elements come together to tell her love story of a young girl and her grandmother.

Yang's characters are well written and she shows their development over time.  Their development is also very true to life since she is writing about real people.  As the main character and narrator, it is engaging to watch Yang grow up.  She is brutally honest about her own faults, especially when it comes to her spoken English, and throughout the book the reader gets the sense of her creative and imaginative side through her lyric writing.  The book itself is a testament to her command of the written English language, but also to her creative and carefree spirit.

Her grandma is a main character and the main theme of the book.  She is the binding force of her family, and Kalia writes about her honest and true love and respect for her in such a beautiful way that anyone with a grandma would be able to identify with that strong love and bond that is unique to a grandmother and her grandchild. 

The struggle of the family, as a whole, is also very prominently displayed in this novel.  Being Hmong, Yang lives in a culture that believes in the good of the many over the good of the one.  In their world, you work together to raise your siblings and cousins, and Kalia even mentions that your aunts are your mother and your uncles your fathers, and even your cousins are your siblings.  It is a wonderful way for students to understand another culture, especially one that is so drastically different from the American culture.  It would be interesting to see if students notice this different and what they have to say about a collectivist, foreign family assimilating to the American way of life.  In America, it is every man, woman, and child for himself, we pride uniqueness and competition.  Everyone wants to be number one, but this book is a glimpse inside a life where what you want isn't always what you are going to get.  In one word this book shows sacrifice; sacrifice in the face of adversity and survival.

Overall, this book amazed me, and left me examining my own life and how different the life I have lived is from hers.  However, even though Kalia's family faced hardship, I'm sure if asked she would say she wouldn't have changed a thing about it.