An Analysis Of The Family In Kao Kalia Yang's The Latehomecomer

In Kao Kalia Yang’s memoir, The Latehomecomer, moving to America from a war torn country is not as easy, shown by the transition Yang’s family had to make. Racism, no money, and barely being able to survive doesn’t help the families cause. To make matters worse, Grandma, who has been with the family since the beginning, is now not with them, but hundreds of miles away in California, the opposite side of America where Yang’s family is staying. The separation of the family brings sense into the title, Latehomecomer, as well as the Hmong belief that the soul always finds its way back home.
With Grandma hundreds of miles away, she is the only member of the family who is not staying in St. Paul MN. Grandma is left out of the family “get-together”

enforcing a variation of the title “Latehomecomer”, she is late, (or the only one left out), of the families successful migration from Vietnam to America. Yang and the rest of her family know this and strives to see their Grandmother one more time. As Mother and Father take up multiple jobs to try and make as much money as they can, Dwab and Yang are sent to school, “The Hmong had traveled farther to America than we had to any other land. We would live here longer than we’ve ever lived in another country. The only way to live in America was to learn of its possibilities, and the way to do that was school (Kalia Yang 139).” As skeptical as the two girls were, they were very smart, as mentioned by Mother, and that they would succeed in their academic careers.