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 is nine years old, and she’s thrilled because the family has finally saved enough money for Youa to visit them in Minnesota. Kao thinks that money is monstrous, like a wall, but she’s proud of her family for battling it. The extended family heads to the airport to greet Youa in an excited babble. When Youa doesn’t show up, they grow worried, knowing that Youa doesn’t speak English. Eventually, a flight attendant explains that there was some confusion with Youa’s layover, but she’ll arrive in the evening. The day drags on, and finally, the plane lands. Kao can barely contain her excitement.
Contrary to what Kao’s family believed immigrant life would be like, their scattering around the U.S., and the poverty that keeps them separated, are profoundly restrictive—like the walls that keep refugees fenced in and separated from their loved ones. Youa’s inability to speak English makes her journey a difficult, showing once again how taxing a language barrier can be for adults (who generally don’t pick up new languages as easily as children do). The excitement and anticipation that the family feels about Youa’s arrival show how strongly they value family bonds.
Themes
Kao’s family eagerly watches the passengers disembark—the last passenger is Youa in a wheelchair, looking unrecognizably old. The family crowds around, all trying to hug Youa. Kao cries like she never cried before and hugs Youa desperately through her tears. Youa has a string of index cards with English statements like “please give me some water” written on them, and Kao’s tears stain them—but Youa doesn’t mind. Youa says through her tears that she thought she would never see the family again.
Youa’s index cards highlight how difficult it is for adults to navigate new environments when they can’t speak the language (and are perhaps too old to learn a new language, like Youa may be). Kao’s outpouring of love for Youa emphasizes how strongly she values this bond—it seems to be the most profound forms of love in Kao’s life.
Themes
Youa doesn’t like escalators because her skirt got caught in one once, so they take the elevator to the baggage hall. Kao is proud of Youa for trying new things that are too fast for her, like escalators. Youa stays in Minnesota for the summer, and Kao spends long summer nights holding Youa’s hand and spelling out her name on it. Youa spends many summers in Minnesota. Her parents struggle and try to be American, but Youa only speaks Hmong, and she smells like home. One summer day, the family goes to Bee’s college to see him get his certificate. In the meantime, Kao and Dawb play a game outside, pretending that the Vietnamese soldiers are chasing them.
Youa’s experience shows how difficult it is for the elderly in particular to adapt to new environments and technologies. Youa faces these challenges bravely, showing how strong and adaptable she is. Meanwhile, Kao begins to grapple with juggling her bourgeoning American identity (reflected in her parents’ struggle to fit in) and her Hmong identity (reflected in Youa’s character). Struggling to fit into both cultures will likely become another layer of stress that Kao must cope with. In mentioning the game with Vietnamese soldiers, Yang reminds the reader that the family’s struggles were caused by events that were forced upon them. This encourages the reader to feel compassion for the family’s situation as they weather the ongoing difficulties of assimilating into their new life.
Themes
Chue becomes pregnant, and the whole family hopes for a boy. Kao knows that they long for one, but she doesn’t like talking about it—she remembers all of Chue’s miscarriages in Thailand. Kao is happy to be a girl, and she knows her parents love her just the way she is. Sometimes, though, she aches from wanting to help Bee carry heavy rice bags the way a son would.
Hmong culture has strong patriarchal values that rank sons more highly than daughters, and the whole family struggles with these values. Chue feels pressure to have a son, and Kao feels that having a boy in the family would ease her father’s burden.
Themes
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On September 19, 1989, Chue gives birth to her long-awaited son. That year, Kao gets moved up to a class with mostly American children, though she has to go to a different room with no widows for “ESL” reading each day. Those reading hours feel like being locked in a closet, but Kao tries not make a big deal about them. There’s another, more popular Hmong girl in Kao’s class who’s better at English. They compete often, and they don’t like each other.
Kao begins to adapt at school and make up lost ground in her education—but at the same time, her struggles with English make her feel isolated. She feels jealous and inadequate and compares herself to others (like the Hmong girl) who seem to be coping better with speaking a new language and integrating socially at school.
Themes
On September 19, Kao has a bad day in school. When Kao and Dawb get home, nobody’s there. They know that the government takes children away from their parents if children stay at home alone, so they go to their aunt’s house next door, who explains that Chue is in the hospital. Kao and Dawb wait for hours until their parents call. Dawb excitedly exclaims that they have a brother now. Kao is shocked: she had no idea that her mother was pregnant. Her mind is full of questions—she wonders why a brother would want to join them in such hard lives. She also wonders what having a brother will do to her life.
Kao and Dawb’s fear about staying alone at home indicates that they feel stressed and fearful about breaking rules in their new environment. In this way, they seem to feel like their position is somewhat precarious. They also fear government authorities, which is likely a lasting effect of the trauma they experienced at the hands of various authorities from their time as refugees.
Themes
Kao isn’t sure if she’ll like her brother. Until now, she’s been like the son her father didn’t have. She wants Bee to know that she’s not sure about this idea at all, but he tells her she’s a big sister now, and that this is amazing. Their aunt makes a special Hmong herbal brew for new babies, and Chue and Bee arrive home from the hospital with the baby, named Xue, in tow. Kao wants to hate him, but there’s no hate inside her. Chue treats the baby delicately and fusses over him, but Kao doesn’t feel jealous. Kao concludes that having Xue around won’t affect how much Chue and Bee love her.
Kao worries about the extent to which her parents will favor their new child simply because he’s a boy, which again emphasizes the Hmong’s patriarchal values. Despite longing for a boy, Bee is wary about letting the male superiority in Hmong culture disempower his daughters. Kao instantly feels a familial bond with her brother that helps her overcome her fears, stressing once more that family bonds are powerful and deeply important.
Themes
That year, many of Kao’s aunts and uncles have babies too; they’re proud to have American babies who don’t have to live in refugee camps and are far from the tragedy of war. Kao, like the adults, feels a strong sense of duty to make sure that Xue experiences a better world than what she’s known. Meanwhile, Kao improves at every subject in school, except she still struggles with speaking English because she prefers to listen. Kao feels angry at herself for being embarrassed to speak English—the other Hmong girl doesn’t seem to feel embarrassed.
Amid the hardships of immigrant life, Kao’s extended family is happy that their new babies aren’t stateless, because they’re acutely aware of the needless suffering that such a plight causes. Meanwhile, Yang continues to highlight how limiting a language barrier can be to a person’s progress. She notes that immigrants often feel motivated to make the world better for people in similar situations, which subtly clues the reader in to her own motivations for writing this book.
Themes
Kao and Dawb have to do the talking whenever her parents need to speak to Americans—like when they look for things in Kmart—because it’s harder for their parents to speak English. Dawb usually does the talking, but if she’s not around, Kao has to do it. She does so happily, because she doesn’t want to watch her parents struggle and feel embarrassed like children. Kao realizes that other Hmong kids do the same thing. Kao starts speaking more English whenever she’s angry, because she doesn’t know enough bad words in Hmong to express her anger.
Immigrant children often have to support their parents in a way that non-immigrant children may not—especially when it comes to navigating language barriers. This is an extra burden that immigrant children have to deal with, as it makes them take on somewhat of a parental role in their families. Here, Kao wants to protect her parents from feeling embarrassed or inadequate, a dynamic that one might normally expect to be reversed.
Themes
One day, Bee and Kao are in the grocery store looking for diapers. Kao decides to be brave and ask the sales assistant where they are, but she speaks too quietly for anyone to hear her, so Bee steps in and repeats the brand name loudly. The whole family struggles to trust themselves when they speak English. Some of her older cousins make friends, go out, and start speaking English at home. The adults hold meetings to remind the children to be good Hmong kids, to speak Hmong at home, to speak English outside, to seize opportunities that the adults never had, and to remember how lucky they are to be in the United States, away from the war.
The grocery store incident highlights, as before, how difficult it can be to accomplish ordinary tasks when facing a language barrier, which can profoundly affect a person’s confidence in everyday life. Immigrant children like Kao also feel immense pressure to succeed, and to seize opportunities that their parents didn’t have, which adds to their mental burden.
Themes
Kao knows that American families don’t have family talks about how to be better Americans, but she doesn’t mind the meetings. She likes it when the family is all together. Kao realizes that the adults aren’t sad about their own lives—they’re sad about how hard life is for the children in the United States. The adults praise one cousin who’s graduated from high school and is about to start community college, calling him a role model. Dawb tells Kao to work hard so they can go to the University of Minnesota, where smart Americans go. Kao stays silent—she’s not even in junior high yet, so college is the last thing on her mind.
In mentioning the family meetings, Kao acknowledges that she notices how much extra effort immigrant families put forth to fit in, which seems unfair to her. The adults in Kao’s family feel bad for having to put so much pressure on their children—but at the same time, the children feel the pressure, and it’s often overwhelming. This dynamic creates tension within family units, and it takes a toll on parents and children alike.
Themes
Kao realizes that the family meetings expose the adults’ dreams, and she feels heavy when she has to thank the adults for reminding her to be good. She knows that the meetings are more for the boys than the girls. Bee tells Kao and Dawb that it makes no difference if his children are boys or girls, but Kao wants to protect Xue from the pressure that she knows he’ll face as a boy. Youa visits, and she’s unemotional about meeting Xue. A year later, Chue gives birth to a girl named Sheelue, a name that nobody in Laos or Thailand would give to their child. Youa is also unemotional about meeting Sheelue—Kao wonders if it bothers Youa that she’s not the one naming new babies anymore.
Kao feels “heavy,” which implies that she feels stifled by the pressure her family members put on her to work hard and succeed. The Hmong culture’s patriarchal values also mean that immigrant sons face the most pressure to succeed, an idea that Kao reinforces when she thinks about protecting her brother. In stressing Youa’s unemotional response to her new grandchild, Yang also shows that being separated—as immigrant families often are—weakens family bonds.
Themes
The family has been in the United States for four years. Bee now has his community college certificate in operating machines, and Chue has passed her high school equivalency test. They start looking for jobs, so Dawb helps Chue works on her resume. Chue doesn’t know how to describe her years in Laos and Thailand, where there was no work and no school. Chue and Bee are desperate for any work—the welfare lady makes them feel ashamed that they’re still on welfare. They both get jobs in a factory in St. Paul; the work is tough, long, and loud. They miss working in a garden, and they worry about getting in trouble for leaving young children alone at home.
Chue’s struggles with her resume is an example of how shows that the family’s experiences as refugees continue to have lasting effects on their day-to-day lives. Despite the family’s dogged efforts to overcome their language barrier, gain qualifications, and find work, they also have to deal with people shaming them for their low socioeconomic status. Dawb helping Chue get a job shows how immigrant children often step in to offer support with language and professional issues, which adds to their daily workload on top of school and trying to assimilate and socialize. And after years of effort, the only work that Bee and Chue can find are grim factory jobs, which highlights how grim and demoralizing immigrant life can be.
Themes
Dawb and Kao try hard to help around the house. Kao likes cooking, but she hates bathing Sheelue—she’s always afraid that she’ll drop her. The adults struggle with factory work, especially because many of them have shrapnel in their bodies from the war. They do “under the table” jobs to make ends meet. Meanwhile, they have nightmares about the war and dreams about being in Laos and meeting people they’ve lost. They get stomach ulcers and headaches. Despite all of this, they always say they’re lucky to be in the United States—but Kao isn’t convinced. Nevertheless, she sees how hard her adult family members work, and she can’t bear to tell them that this isn’t the life she wants.
Immigrant parents often have to work exhausting, underpaid jobs, and children often have to step in to support their parents with domestic chores. In addition to the demanding physical labor, many immigrants (particularly those from war-torn countries) have to grapple with the painful traumas of leaving their homeland and losing their loved ones. At the same time, they feel compelled to express gratitude for the opportunities they have, even if their lives are taxing and laborious. All of this adds up to a heavy physical and emotional burden.
Themes
