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Born in a Thailand refugee camp in 1980, Kao Kalia Yang is one of almost 190,000 Hmong people living in the U.S.
The Minnesota author was in Iowa City on Monday to read from her new book, “The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir.”Background: A so-called “Secret War” was being waged by the CIA in Laos and Cambodia during the more public Vietnam War. In 1975, when the U.S. withdrew its military forces from Vietnam, the “Secret War” in Laos was also abandoned.
Why the secret? In 1962, a Geneva Accord was signed that forbade U.S. troop presence in Laos. To circumvent the agreement, the CIA was ordered to train and support an army of people known as the Hmong.
The secret Hmong army in Laos has since been largely forgotten by the U.S. government, but more than 100,000 Hmong people were killed. Their systematic persecution continues today in Laos.
Originally they lived in the mountainous jungles of Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. After the war, many fled to refugee camps and eventually made their way to the U.S., France and Australia.
Today about half of Hmong immigrants in the U.S. live in the Midwest.
Before Kao Kalia Yang was born, her family crossed the Mekong River to the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp. At age 6, Yang and her immediate family immigrated to St. Paul, Minn.
By age 12, Yang was teaching English as a second language to adults. She continues to teach at colleges and universities. With her mother and sister, she runs a writing and translation business, Words Wanted, in St. Paul.
“The Latehomecomer” started as a series of love letters to her grandmother, who was the family leader and a shamanistic healer. Her spirit permeates much of Yang’s writing.
The book is filled with her family’s stories, scenes from the refugee camp where she was born, the move to America and growing up in Minnesota.
She said she began her life in English “on the page,” meaning that her first storytelling wasn’t spoken, but written.
In this video, Yang talks about her grandmother and writing her first book:
Yang was at Prairie Lights Bookstore for a reading on Monday night. Her book is available from Coffee House Press.
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