Kao Kalia Yang
This artwork is a digital painting by Annie Quynh Nguyen. It depicts a landscape of mountains as a backdrop for three quotes from Kao Kalia Yang's The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, 2008. The mountains represent a home that Yang's family and other Hmong constantly yearn for as violence constantly leaves the Hmong searching for a place to call theirs.
Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong-American writer. Yang was born in Ban Vinai refugee camp in Thailand and immigrated to Minnesota when she was six. She has written multiple children's books, nonfiction works, and memoirs such as The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, The Song Poet, and Somewhere in the Unknown World. She also teaches and gives talks as a public speaker across the nation. Read more about Kao Kalia Yang here.
The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir in particular details Kao Kalia Yang's family's harrowing journey in Laos in the aftermaths of the Vietnam War, their subsequent escape to the refugee camps Ban Vinai and Phanat Nikhom in Thailand, and their eventual immigration to America after, where Yang depicts the challenges of adapting to a new place and language. This section of the exhibit centers around Yang and her family's life as told in The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, but their journey is also reflective of what thousands of Hmong underwent after the Vietnam War.
A map of Thailand showing the different refugee camps after the Vietnam War from the Marshall (Brigitte) Files on Southeast Asian Refugees collection.
ms.sea013.b001.f035.0001
A photo of Ban Vinai refugee camp in Thailand with Hmong text underneath from the Marshall (Brigitte) Files on Southeast Asian Refugees collection.
ms.sea013.b001.f001.0001
The back and front of a Ban Vinai Bulletin newspaper that details the lives of refugees in the camp from the Marshall (Brigitte) Files on Southeast Asian Refugees collection.
ms.sea013.b001.f003.0001
Hmong are a people with no country of their own, and Yang tells us that Hmong have been violently driven out of every place that they have considered to be "home"— first the lands in China, then the mountains in Laos where they had lived for hundreds of years. In the refugee camps in Thailand, the Hmong tried to rebuild anew, shaping a home out of dust clouds, rickety rooms, and rations. They built families and communities, yet many longed for the mountains in Laos, a place to definitively call theirs. These refugee camps were not truly "home," so many could not settle into them. For Kao Kalia Yang and many others born during this time, though, these refugee camps were "home." These rations and dusty buildings, constant dangers of dysentery and surrounding threats of violence, were all they knew; there are no mountains or forests or hills to yearn for when you have never experienced their freedom for yourself.
Two pencils and two lined notebooks that refugees would practice their English and complete assignments in, from the Marshall (Brigitte) Files on Southeast Asian Refugees collection.
ms.sea008.b008.0001.english practice books
ms.sea008.b008.0002.english practice books
A student's performance evaluation for her understanding of English as a part of the PASS (Preparation for American Secondary Schools) program at Phanat Processing Center, from the Marshall (Brigitte) Files on Southeast Asian Refugees collection.
ms.sea013.b001.f037.0001
As time marches on, "home" continues to be a fleeting thing for the Hmong— what is "home" to a people who have constantly been pushed out of different lands? What are the places that have meaning for those whose lives have been shaped by refugee camps that have now been torn down?
For those displaced by war, home is ever moving. The Hmong move forward, move westward, looking for yet another place to rebuild their lives from scratch again. In Phanat Nikhom Processing Center, a transition camp to America, thousands of Hmong (among other ethnic groups) attend daily classes to learn English in hopes of resettling in the United States. Their home was now a time of preparation, waiting out and counting down the time in cement buildings surrounded by barbed wire fences and guards.
Hmong woman's embroidered costume, front piece
ms.sea008.b016.0001.costume
Hmong jacket
ms.sea008.b014.0001.jacket
Hmong pants
ms.sea008.b014.0002.pants
A newspaper clipping from the Marshall (Brigitte) Files on Southeast Asian Refugees collection detailing how Hmong begin to move eastward from California towards states such as Minnesota and Wisconsin to find jobs and more stable lives, as well as pictures showcasing how Hmong adapt to living in America.
ms.sea013.b001.f018.0001
ms.sea013.b001.f018.0002
ms.sea013.b001.f018.0003
All textiles are from the Cleary (Guire) and Jade B. Ngoc Le Collection of Hmong and Iu Mien Refugee Artifacts.
"Instead of colorful skirts, my mother wore solid-colored pants, and instead of soft-fabric pants, my father wore jeans. My fingers crumpled the fabric of their changing wardrobe, and my eyes noted the absence of color."
~The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, 2008
Yang's dislike of seeing American clothes draped over her parents' bodies gives us a glimpse into the struggles many people displaced by war undergo not only to survive, but to find a place to rebuild and thrive. The Hmong immigrated to the United States in hopes of a better, permanent life. Eager to finally find a place to settle into, many of these refugees shed parts of their culture to fit in— sometimes literally. The Hmong either left behind their traditional clothing at transit centers once they arrived in America or, similar to Yang's family, eventually replaced them for American clothing.
In the Hmong's case, they do not just lose their traditional clothes, but also a language, a history. The Hmong do not have a written language; it was lost to them while they lived in China, but in its place bloomed a narrative sewn in flowery symbols and squares connected on their clothing.
No one understands or knows the cost of a home quite like people displaced by a war do.
Home is a sacrifice. Home is a place where you have to give up parts of yourself. The Hmong lived in China, but lost their written language. The Hmong lived in Laos, but lost their families. The Hmong now live in the United States (among other countries), but lose parts of their culture and history to assimilation. To have a home to return to, must you lose something in exchange?
But home is not always so bleak. After settling into America, many Hmong built their own communities and tried to preserve their culture, upholding and celebrating traditions. To the Hmong who came to America with no homeland, this is their home— a chance to finally sink their roots deep into a land that cannot be taken away.
Kao Kalia Yang was interviewed about her life and novel The Latehomecomer while she was in HighBridge Audio's studio recording the audiobook for The Latehomecomer in 2011.
The impossible happens every day in the life of the refugee: Kao Kalia Yang's TEDtalk in 2019 about The Latehomecomer and her experiences.
So what is a "home" to a people who have constantly been chased out of different lands? Those who have lived in refugee camps that have now been torn down?
Kao Kalia Yang offers an answer in The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir: "We didn't come all the way from the clouds just to go back, without a trace. We, seekers of refuge, will find it: if not in the world, then in each other. If not in life, then surely in books."