The Latehomecomer: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

Kao is mesmerized as the bus travels through rice paddies; it’s her first time in a car, and she feels like she’s watching a movie screen through the window. She thinks that they’re on the road to the United States—when they arrive at another camp, fenced in with barbed wire, her heart drops. Everything looks dry and hard. Looking back, Kao imagines the Hmong as fertile and growing people, like the lush jungle. She imagines the Hmong being pushed together and pulled apart in Phanat Nikhom—as if their trees are being cut down and new seedlings are being planted.

The adults at the camp look at one another and at the long cement houses with tin roofs that house multiple families. They’re assigned a room that used to be a toilet—it smells like the dreaded excrement that Kao hated in Ban Vinai Refugee camp. The adults try their best to clean up around their sleeping space. Kao has trouble sleeping that night; she eventually nods off and wakes at dawn, surprised to find herself in the crowded concrete building.

Kao sees that Bee is outside, staring at the mountains in the distance. She skips over to him, noticing that the camp guard with a gun. She wonders if she should wave to him, but she concentrates on skipping towards Bee instead. Bee tells Kao that the mountains look like the ones where his father is buried, and Kao doesn’t know what to say—she’s never seen mountains before. A few days later, Chue wakes Kao up and tells her that she’s going to school—in fact, the whole family is going to school.

Kao doesn’t like school, which is in another cement building; she’s scared. Dawb promises to stay by her side. Kao remembers a violent storm in Ban Vinai when she was nearly washed away by the mud. Dawb had limped over to her and pulled her out. At school, when the teacher starts talking, Kao falls asleep. The next day, Chue tries to get Kao to fall sleep earlier so that she’ll stay awake in school and be ready to go to the United States, but it’s no use. Eventually, the teacher suggests that Kao attend daycare instead, which is also held in a cement building. Kao longs for the bamboo huts in Ban Vinai, and for Youa.

The older children at daycare tell Kao to draw or write to pass the time. She doesn’t know how to write, so she draws endless circles on pieces of paper, imagining all the stories she wants to tell about Ban Vinai. Time passes in a blur of heat and endless cement, and Kao is sad. The only escape from the sweltering heat is the medical building at the camp, which Kao hates even more than the daycare building. Here, nurses stick her with needles full of liquids that look like candy. Bee and Chue keep telling Kao to be good. Kao tries not to look angry so that the nurses won’t hate her and will let her go to the United States.

The camps in Thailand are closing, so the Hmong people must either go to the transition camp or get sent back to Laos to die. Bee studies hard to pass the test that will allow the family to emigrate to the United States. He must memorize the names of many American soldiers; there are no questions about the 30,000 Hmong boys who died in the war for the Americans.

The family conspires to bring a reluctant Youa to the camp, so that she can follow them to the United States with Bee’s cousin. Youa arrives, scowling and hurt, but Kao is thrilled—she runs into Youa’s arms and hugs her belly tight. Youa feels like she turns into a child from the minute she arrives at Phanat Nikhom; there’s nowhere to walk and no way for her to be useful. There are only endless cement buildings.

Kao is happy because she no longer has to go to daycare when she falls asleep in school. On those days, she meets Youa outside the classroom while other children learn to play and nap like American children do. Kao thinks that Youa will be happy to see mountains like the ones where Youa once lived, but they just make Youa sad. To Kao, the mountains seem like a magical, faraway place. Each day, she and Youa walk by the fence, and Kao is careful not to get cut by the barbed wire. Sometimes, Youa trades her coins for noodles with Thai vendors on the other side of the fence, and she and Kao sit and eat them in the hot sun.

Meanwhile, one of Kao’s uncles grows ill. Next to his bed in the medical station is a dying woman whose stomach is covered with plastic and flies; Kao learns that the old lady’s intestines are falling out. Kao hates thinking about death—she doesn’t want anyone in her family to die, and she begs them to live forever. They say that if she’s good, they’ll live with her for a long time. The old woman dies, and Kao’s cousins dare one another to sneak into the funeral hut. Kao doesn’t want to, but she agrees to hold Dawb’s hand and be brave.

The dead woman’s body is unremarkable. Suddenly, Kao hears someone calling her name, and she trips over. The Hmong believe that when a person falls in front of a dead body, the dead body takes their spirit away—indeed, Kao is sure that she can feel something leaving her body. Dawb urges her to get up, and they vow not to tell anyone what happened in the hut. That night, Kao swears that she can see the dead woman in the dark, coming for her spirit; she’s terrified of the dark from that day on. She’s also terrified of dying in Phanat Nikhom and being buried under pebbles next to the cement, stuck behind barbed wire forever, unable to meet her family’s spirits in the mountains.

Each day, Chue and Bee learn about life in the United States; they learn to make chicken sandwiches and practice fastening seat belts. Kao wishes that she could tell Youa about the dead woman, so that Youa can use her shaman skills to fight the dead woman and tell her not to take Kao’s spirit—but Kao is too afraid to tell Youa what happened. Kao stops sleeping at night, and her parents worry. In the afternoons, Youa longs to be free from the barbed wire, and Kao longs to be free from the dead woman’s clutches. Youa and Kao’s spirits are lost, unsure of the way to freedom.

The time Kao spends at Phanat Nikhom is full of fear. The last step to get out is passing the health examination—none of Kao’s family members are worried about this. Kao does exactly as she’s told, and she passes, but Dawb fails the test. The nurses say that Dawb’s eyes are pink and must turn white by the end of the week, or none of them can leave. Dawb’s eyes look white to everyone else, but Bee and Chue come up with a plan: a week later, Kao goes to the health examination Dawb’s place. The nurses don’t notice, and the family gets approved to leave. Kao can’t wait to get out of Phanat Nikhom.

Kao doesn’t remember leaving Phanat Nikhom or saying goodbye to Youa. She thinks that perhaps this is because people don’t remember places that teach them to be afraid. As the bus heads for Bangkok International Airport, Kao is happy that she’s surrounded by other Hmong families. The bus is full of old people trying to blink away the past and focus on an unknown future; the saddest among them are those who have no family but are desperate to find people who care for them.