About the Book

From the Publisher:

ONE HMONG FAMILY’S HARROWING ESCAPE FROM WAR IN LAOS TO THE UNCERTAINTY OF A NEW HOME AS REFUGEES IN MINNESOTA.

A narrative packed with the stuff of life.” —Entertainment Weekly

This is the best account of the Hmong experience I’ve ever read—powerful, heartbreaking, and unforgettable.” —Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down 

Yang’s award-winning memoir of her family’s harrowing escape from war in Laos is a love letter to her grandmother, a troubling portrait of the consequences of us intervention in Southeast Asia, and a glimpse into the little-seen exodus of the Hmong people, first to refugee camps in Thailand and then, for many, to new homes in Minnesota. Kao Kalia Yang is a teacher, public speaker, and writer. She is a graduate of Carleton College and Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Yang lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her family.”

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