The Latehomecomer

Yang’s mother is seventeen years old and three months pregnant when the group is ambushed by North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao soldiers. In the middle of preparing a breakfast, the confusion of sudden gunshots, smoke, and bombs separates each family. Little children are screaming for their mothers as bodies fall to the ground around them. The survivors retreat to a cave hoping to find lost family members. Here, the men decide the women and children have a better chance of survival if they surrender without the men, since women and children are viewed as helpless while the men would be perceived as a threat.

The men walk their mothers, wives, and children to the ridge of a hill, promising that they will return for them if they can. In this moment, after only six months of marriage, Yang’s mother realizes that she truly loves Yang’s father. The two say goodbye, and Yang’s father’s mother leads the remaining group of six women and twenty children down the hill. The women surrender to the soldiers by waving a scrap of white cloth. Since the soldiers don’t see any men, they accept the women without harming them. The soldiers poke guns into the sides of the women, ordering them to march in a line. Despite that their feet are bleeding and they are starving, the women and children walk for many hours before arriving at an occupied village, where they are allowed to briefly sleep in an empty hut.

The group is awakened in the early morning by the sound of gunshots and are told to walk. Yang’s mother’s mother-in-law is in the front of the line, having taken unofficial charge of the women. As they walk, a Vietnamese soldier offers to carry Yang’s mother’s heavy backpack. She tries to refuse, but he pulls it off of her back. She feels bad letting him carry her backpack because she is a married woman, and she knows what the soldier might want in return for the favor. She is also afraid that the soldier won’t return the backpack, which carries important supplies. However, by the time they arrive at the camp, the soldier returns the backpack and laughs.

The camp where the women and children will spend the next seven months is a remote enemy village near the edge of the forest. Surrounded by two rivers and unable to swim, the group is allowed to search the jungle to find food and firewood because the soldiers know they can’t escape. While venturing into the jungle, Yang’s mother stumbles upon a clearing with thousands, of freshly dug graves. While they didn’t know it then, chemical warfare was being used to kill the Hmong.

Yang’s mother gives birth to Yang’s older sister, Dawb, which means “white” in Hmong. The soldiers allow the women and children to move into a brand-new hut and allow them to watch Vietnamese movies. The soldiers tell the women their husbands are likely dead and that the women should marry communist men. However, two fishermen enter the camp one night and tell the women to pack because their men are nearby. The women and children reunite with the men and run through the dark jungle to escape the soldiers. After running up the mountain all night long, they are finally safe enough to have a proper reunion. Yang’s father holds Dawb for the first time.

Yang’s father’s family decides to leave Laos and seek the refugee camps in Thailand. They start a ten-day-long journey towards the river, during which time Yang’s mother’s milk dries up due to a breast infection, and Dawb grows sick and listless. The family must first cross the Mekong River, even though they can’t swim. Once they reach the river, Yang’s father’s brothers buy bamboo rafts from Laotian men, but Yang’s father can’t afford one. Instead, he ties bamboo around his mother and wife, and he pulls them across the river. They finally make it across, but Dawb is pale and gulping for air. Guns are being fired from across the bank.

Safe on the Thailand side of the Mekong River, in Nong Khai, Yang’s mother, father, and grandmother walk along the riverbank to find the other members of their family. However, Uncle Chue and his family didn’t make it because they were picked up by Pathet Lao soldiers while attempting to cross the river. Yang’s grandma is devastated and asks her deceased husband to bring her son back to her. The family decides first to forage for food, and then to devise a plan to save Uncle Chue.

After walking for a short distance, the group is spotted by farmers. Yang’s father is nearly naked, and a farmer throws an old t-shirt and shorts at him. Yang’s mother can’t stand to watch because it is too shameful. The group is then met by Thai soldiers who speak to them in Laotian, calling them “opoyop, or people fleeing for a home” (43). The soldiers tell them that they can register as refugees with the United Nations, but that the closest refugee camp is currently full. As a result, instead of resting, the group must continue walking towards the UN compound for registration. 

During the short walk, farmers stare at the group as they pass and make Yang’s mother feel ashamed of her obvious poverty.The soldiers stop the group in front of a beautiful home and offer them plates of rice and dried fish. They then take a bus for the rest of the journey.

The UN compound is surrounded by a tall wire fence. The soldiers tell Yang’s family to leave the bus and enter the gate of the compound, but Yang’s father resists. A soldier punches him in the stomach, and then kicks him. Instead of hitting the soldier back, Yang’s father gets up quickly because he doesn’t want his wife and mother to see him on the ground. Yang’s father recalls how his “heart hurt more than my body—the flesh can take blows, the heart suffers them. It was the first time I felt that there would be no other place like Phu Khao, the village where I was born” (44).

The UN workers are gone for the day, so the group is locked into the compound for safety. Without food or warm clothing, the group sits along the wall of the building overnight, in heavy rain. The air is thick with mosquitos that keep swarming baby Dawb. Yang’s mother drinks rain water so that her milk supply will increase.

In the morning, a group of Thai villagers peek at Yang’s family from beyond the fence. The villagers point and poke at Yang’s family, but the family is too tired and weary to respond. The UN workers arrive, and Yang’s family members stood in a line “while the UN people, all Thai, wrote their names on paper, gave them numbers that would replace their names, and asked for their birthdays” (45). Since the Hmong don’t keep written records, each family member estimates a birth date for themselves.

The group then takes a bus to So Kow Toe, a camp that temporarily houses refugees until they are permanently placed. So Kow Toe is cramped and smells like feces. The white Hmong and the green Hmong, people who previously lived in separate enclaves, are now living together for the first time. Yang’s family stays in this camp for one week, sleeping on the hard ground and drinking one ladle of watery soup a day.

Before being moved to a more permanent refugee camp, Yang’s family is temporarily moved to the Nong Khai refugee camp. This camp is cleaner, and they are able to stay with a relative in his hut. Before moving to the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp, their final destination, the group goes back to So Kow Toe, where they are reunited with Uncle Chue.

Uncle Chue tells the story that soldiers had captured him and his family, but that he made them think that he could be reformed as a communist. As a result, they let him and his family live. After reuniting with their children, Uncle Chue and his wife talk a Thai man into taking them across the Mekong River. After spending two days in joyous reunion with Uncle Chue, the family takes a bus to Ban Vinai Refugee Camp.