Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Latehomecomer, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Politics, Refugee Camps, and Inhumanity
The Immigrant Experience
Death, Spirituality, and Home
Love and Family
Gender
Summary
Analysis
Kao’s family has moved to a small, government-subsidized house in St. Paul, in an English-speaking neighborhood. Kao has another sister now, named Shoually (an Americanized version of Youa). She came down from the clouds later than expected, on July 16, 1993. Dawb and Kao pay for their school lunches now, and Chue and Bee are paying off their debt to the airlines. When Youa visits that summer. Kao helps her with new things that she’s not used to, like turning on the hot water and reaching for things on high shelves. Youa is happier to meet Shoually because this baby is named after her.
Although Yang has spent much of the book describing the hardships of immigrant life, she starts this chapter on a more optimistic note: the family is beginning to find their footing, though it’s taken several years, and they’re still in debt. Having recognized that life in the United States is harder than she imagined, Kao no longer equates her current life with “the clouds,” which represent happiness, perfection, and empowerment. Instead, she imagines her baby sister falling from the clouds—from a place of perfection—to the reality of life in the United States.
Themes
Before the family moved into the house, Chue and Bee found an envelope under the attic stairs with a $100 bill inside. They didn’t know why it’s there. Kao isn’t superstitious because she doesn’t think are any ghosts in the United States like there were in Thailand—there’s only church and science. But one day, she sees a little boy in her parents’ room, running after her in a blur. Soon after, Dawb sees him too, and she chases him into a closet—but he disappears. Chue and Bee tell the girls that there’s nothing to worry about—the ancestor’s spirits are protecting them, and they’re not intruders in this house. But then, Uncle Chue and Bee see him standing in the shadows. The boy grabs Bee and disappears; pain shoots through Bee’s arm, and it feels like it’ll break.
The fact that the family moves into a haunted house to reinforces the idea that Hmong people believe their ancestors’ spirits protect them. In their belief system, their ancestors’ spirits act like deities or gods—and this spiritual protection is strongest where their ancestors are buried, in Laos’s mountains. Since Kao’s family is far away from their ancestral lands, they assume that their ancestors’ spirits can’t protect them as effectively against the ghost.
Themes
Kao’s family learns that a little boy died in the house. He didn’t show up when Youa was there because her spirit had kept him away—now that Youa is gone, the family leaves money out to appease his spirit and burn incense. The next few months are uneventful, except for Dawb becoming a teenager and getting pimples. She tries to go out with friends and gets angry when she has to stay home and look after her siblings. Chue learns that her mother has died in Laos, and the stressful energy in the home is replaced by grief.
Yang’s family believes that as the eldest family member and a shaman, Youa has the closest connection to their ancestral home and traditions, which makes them feel protected in her presence.
Themes
Dawb is the one who answers the phone when a family member phones to tell them that Chue’s mother died. Dawb and Kao worry about how Chue will react, so they don’t tell her. Later that night, Dawb whispers the news to Bee, who tells Chue. Chue tries to call her family in Laos but can’t get through, so she just cries and screams for her mother into the telephone’s dial tone. Kao feels sorry for the tough decisions that Chue had to make in wartime—loving Bee meant leaving her own family. Kao starts to understand why Chue and Bee work so hard to give them this life and its freedoms.
Chue’s has an emotional crisis in the wake of her mother’s death—she even questions why she left her mother to be with her husband, suggesting that familial love (and maternal love in particular) is much deeper and stronger than romantic love. Meanwhile, Kao still feels a lot of pressure to succeed, knowing that her parents sacrifice a lot as immigrants. She also suggests that her parents make these sacrifices out of love for their children, reinforcing the idea that familial love is incredibly powerful.
Themes
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Chue cries every day, thinking about the last time she saw her mother, walking away into the jungle in Laos to fetch water. Chue feels that she has nothing left in Laos now. Eventually, another pregnancy distracts her from her loss. One night, while Chue and Bee are at work, the dead little boy emerges again. Dawb and Kao don’t know what to do, so they bundle up the family and head outside into the snow until Chue and Bee come home to find them shivering outside. That night, Bee starts looking for another place to live.
Chue’s profound anguish underscores how deep her love for her mother is—and her grief for her mother is also mixed up with grieving her homeland, which she feels more separated from every day. In this way, difficult experiences like grief are amplified for immigrants who live in exile, because they already feel a sense of loss in their day-to-day lives.
Themes
The family leaves the house without looking back. For Chue, it’s a place of sadness, wrapped up in her mother’s death. The others just want to get away from the dead boy. Kao tries to forget the haunted house, but she realizes that leaving doesn’t mean forgetting—memories always live on in people’s dreams.
Chue’s grief is so profound that she wants to leave the place where she heard the news about her mother’s death—again underscoring how strongly she feels familial love.
Themes
