Previous
Chapter 4
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
Youa is angry when Bee wants to leave the camp for the United States. Bee thinks that there’s no future for him in Thailand—the Thai people don’t want the Hmong there, and they have no home to go back to. Bee’s brother Nhia left for the United States already, and Youa cried at her family being separated. Youa pleads with Bee to stay; she worked hard to keep their family together, through the jungle years and the war. Youa doesn’t want to leave Thailand and start a new life—she’d rather die. She doesn’t think that her spirit will be able to unite with her children after death if they live so far away.
The immigrant experience will shape Kao’s family’s experiences and hardships for the rest of the story. Already, it’s clear that immigrant life entails separating families, which causes emotional suffering—Youa’s anger and grief, in particular, show how troubled she is by her family separating, underscoring the importance of family in Hmong culture. Family separation causes the Hmong spiritual worries as well: they believe that they need to remain physically close in life to stay connected in the afterlife.
Themes
Youa grows depressed and walks aimlessly around the camp. She’s spent her life keeping the family together—if they separate, her life has no meaning. Bee feels that the Hmong people are frozen in time in the camp; they can’t even bury their dead properly to ensure their spirits return to their ancestral lands. He knows that the Thai people want to shut down the camp and send the Hmong back to Laos, which means death. Bee tells Kao that she can become educated in the United States, and he imagines Chue birthing brothers for Kao and Dawb. So far, Chue has had six miscarriages. Kao thinks of them as babies who fell from the clouds too soon.
Youa’s depression at the thought of her family separating continues to emphasize the importance of family connection in Hmong culture: it’s been Youa’s life’s work to keep her family intact through war, genocide, and exile. This also reveals how much of a leader Youa is for her family, despite the Hmong’s patriarchal values (as evidence by Bee’s desire to bear sons rather than daughters). The Hmong’s anxieties about burials emphasize that being separated from their ancestral lands makes them worry about suffering after death. Meanwhile, Kao invokes the metaphor of clouds once more, in reference to the babies that Chue has lost. To Kao, clouds represent a kind of spiritual paradise where unborn children are free, in stark contrast to life in the refugee camps.
Themes
The miscarriages have made Chue thin and pale. Kao has no memories of Chue smiling in the camp—she only remembers Chue taking care of her and Dawb, washing them with soap. One night, Bee has a nightmare that he and Chue are old in the United States. In his dream, Chue hasn’t birthed any sons; when Chue and Bee die alone, their spirits wander through endless American highways, unable to return to their homeland in Laos. Kao doesn’t like that Youa has been pushing Bee to find a second wife so that he can have sons.
The poor sanitation, malnutrition, and stress of life in the camp likely contribute to Chue’s miscarriages. Meanwhile, this passage hints at an undercurrent of patriarchy that runs through Hmong culture: Chue feels excessive pressure to bear a son, which makes her unhappy and stressed. Bee also feels anxious about not having a son. Bee’s dream expresses this fear, and it also explains why the Hmong are hesitant to emigrate: they worry about dying far away from their ancestral lands and their spirits being lost forever.
Themes
Sometimes, while Chue gathers onions to sell from her small plot in the camp, Bee dresses in his best clothes and takes Kao with him to court other women, so that he can have a son. There aren’t many men in the camp, so there are many eager candidates. Kao thinks that the women are loud, and she hates them. Chue is smart, so she knows what Bee’s up to—she warns that she’ll leave him if he takes another wife. She loves him dearly, but she learned how to survive without him in the jungle.
Bee’s and Chue’s relationship is tested when Bee caves in to the patriarchal values of his culture—he feels such strong pressure to have a son that he’s considering finding a second wife. Despite this undercurrent of male-centric culture, Chue reveals herself to be strong, intelligent, and pragmatic, and she’s not afraid to leave Bee and she knows she can survive without him. By sharing this anecdote, Yang is perhaps hinting that she thinks Hmong women often handle pressure and stress better than the men do.
Themes
Get the entire The Latehomecomer LitChart as a printable PDF.
Kao knows that Chue and Bee love each other, and she hopes that they feel happy having two daughters even though they long for sons. But she also understands that the family draws strength in numbers—the Hmong people believe that a large family team helps survive hardships like war, and four is a small number for them. Kao doesn’t mind though; she thinks four people make a nice family photo. In 1987, they leave the camp for the United States. All Kao remembers is Youa crying.
Yang continues highlighting that Hmong society is patriarchal: families favor having sons over having daughters. Family bonds in general are also important in Hmong culture, because they give people strength and support in hard times. In celebrating familial love (just after describing Chue and Bee’s marital problems), Yang again underscores that familial love is more important than romantic love.
Themes
Kao’s family knows that they all have to leave the camp eventually. When Bee, Chue, Dawb, and Kao board the bus to leave the camp for the United States, Youa cries and cries. She tries to sound strong as she tells Kao that she’s prayed to the spirits to let them return to her—if not in this life, then in the next. The Hmong people in the camp sing a song that wishes for them to be reunited. Chue is calm, but Bee is agitated; he promises Youa that he’ll see her again. When the bus takes off, Kao feels hot, but no tears come.
Youa’s crying in this passage highlights the mental suffering that refugees experience when they’re separated from their loved ones. Kao’s parents are forced to make a difficult decision here: they’re choosing to give their kids a safer and healthier life in the U.S. at the expense of being far away from their extended family and their ancestral homeland. The Hmong people’s songs center on reunions, reinforcing the idea that close-knit family units are cherished and deeply valued in Hmong culture—both in life and after death.
Themes
