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 tries to prepare for Youa’s death—she’s never lost anyone she loved before, and death scares her. She’s still haunted by the cries of people grieving the camps. Youa is afraid of dying in the United States, as she worries that her spirit will not be able to find its way back to her ancestors’ spirits in Laos. Kao worries about this too. She lays awake at night, listening to Youa breathe, to reassure herself that Youa is still alive. Kao knows that things will never be the same after Youa dies.
Kao’s fear of Youa dying emphasizes how much she loves her grandmother. Furthermore, Youa’s fears about death highlight that the Hmong people’s belief that their spirits need to travel back to their ancestral homes to unite with their ancestors’ spirits. With this in mind, being so far away from the places where their ancestors are buried causes them spiritual anxiety about failing in this post-death journey and suffering after death.
Themes
One night, Kao sneaks into Youa’s bedroom and creeps up close; she can’t hear Youa breathing. Eventually, Youa exhales, and Kao sighs in relief. Kao wants Youa to see her graduate in a few months—Kao imagines Youa at graduation saying that Kao is making Bee proud. Kao imagines asking if Youa is proud, and then she pictures Youa smiling and saying women can do anything in the United States—they can even be more powerful than men. Meanwhile, Kao can tell that Youa is getting weak. Her appetite is waning, and her skin has grown translucent in her old age.
Kao’s anxiety over Youa’s worsening health emphasizes the importance of familial bonds in Hmong culture and in Kao’s life more personally. In caring more about whether Youa is proud of her than whether Bee is, Kao shows that she thinks of Youa as the family’s true leader. In this way, she implicitly questions Hmong’s culture’s emphasis on viewing men as the authority figures in family units.
Themes
Youa tries to prepare the family for her death. She talks calmly with Kao and Dawb about how she doesn’t want a big fuss after she dies: no animal sacrifices and no big funeral. She just wants a good bed to sleep in, because she never had one in life. Kao wishes that she could buy Youa a new bed. Youa has dreams about waking up in Laos, where her husband’s spirit waits for her; she always tells him that she can’t go with him yet, because she has to look after her sons. Kao and Dawb just tell Youa that they love her. Kao wishes that she could protect Youa the way Youa always protected her.
Youa’s preoccupation with death centers on her belief that her spirit needs to travel very far to reunite with her relatives’ spirits in Laos. This suggests that living so far away from her homeland causes her spiritual anxiety. Even when Youa is about to die, she still thinks about protecting her children, reinforcing the idea that she’s the actual head of the family—even though she has adult sons who would normally assume that role in Hmong culture.
Themes
