A HMONG FAMILY MEMOIR by KAO KALIA YANG
Appropriate for: elementary / middle / high school, college, and community audiences. Available for pre-recorded, remote, or LIVE! performances
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, finally emigrating to America; but lacking a written language of their own. Driven to tell her family’s story after her grandmother’s death – the Hmong experience has been primarily recorded by others – The Latehomecomer is Kao Kalia Yang’s tribute to her remarkable grandmother whose spirit held them all together. It is also an eloquent, firsthand account of a people who have worked hard to make their voices heard.
The Story
Told with the immediacy of the author as a young girl, born in the Ban Vinai Refugee camp in Thailand, Kao Kalia arrives in the United States when she is six. The story follows her journey from a quiet, reticent student struggling to speak English while facing racial discrimination, to a self-empowered young woman claiming her voice to tell the untold story of her people.
In Performance
Accomplished Hmong actress and traditional Flower Singer, Gaosong Heu, brings this powerful, personal story to life, with her musical talent and knowledge of Hmong culture. The performance tells a universal story of immigration, through the specific lens of this ancient culture inextricably bound to the history of the war in Vietnam.
