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A TRIBUTE TO FAMILY, HMONG HISTORY, AND UNTOLD STORIES

Told with the immediacy of the author as a young girl, Kao Kalia Yang arrives in Saint Paul when she is six years old after spending the first years of her life in a Ban Vinai refugee camp in Thailand. This story, which is produced by Literature to Life, follows her journey from a reticent student struggling to speak English and facing racial discrimination, to a self-empowered young woman claiming her voice to tell the untold story of her people.

In the wake of the Laotian Civil War (1959-1975), also known as the Secret War, thousands of Hmong families made the journey from the war-torn jungles of Laos to the overcrowded refugee camps of Thailand and, finally, to America. When they arrived, though, they lacked a written language of their own. After her grandmother’s death, Kao Kalia felt driven to tell her family’s story as the Hmong experience has been primarily recorded by others. The Latehomecomer is her tribute to her remarkable grandmother whose spirit held them all together. It is also an eloquent, firsthand account of a people who have worked hard to make their voices heard.

This on-demand stream for schools takes Kao Kalia’s story and adapts it into a one-person play.

• Recommended grade levels: fourth through 12th

• Suggested discussion topics: American history, current events, immigration, Hmong culture, memoir, theater

• Performance length: 60 minutes

• Still not sure? Check out an excerpt of Literature to Life’s performance.

GENERAL INFORMATION

DATES

Available for schools to stream from Apr 18-24, 2022. Educators will receive a link to the film on Monday, Apr 18.

PRICE

School access to The Latehomecomer is $150, with no student or classroom limit. A recorded post-show talk-back with performer Gaosong Heu is included. Other supplemental workshops are available for an additional cost; contact Amanda Hestwood at hestwood@parksquaretheatre.org for more information.

CO-PRESENTERS

The Latehomecomer is co-presented by Theater Mu and Park Square Theatre.

CAST

GAOSONG V. HEU (she/her) is a Hmong American performance artist, musician, vocalist, published writer, educator, arts administrator, and entrepreneur based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Gaosong has over 15 years of training in Western Classical music, as well as training in traditional styles of Hmong folk music. As a lover of all art and advocate for diversity, access and inclusion within the cultural sector, Gaosong received her BA in theater arts from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and her master’s of arts in arts administration from Columbia University, class of 2020. Gaosong is currently starring in The Latehomecomer, a solo production based on the award-winning novel by beloved Hmong author, Kao Kalia Yang. This show is being produced by Literature to Life based in New York City. The Latehomecomer had its virtual premiere in the spring of 2021 as part of the NEA’s Big Read program and is currently available for national tours across the United States. When Gaosong is not performing or working as an arts administrator and educator, she is the chief operating officer of Marc Heu Patisserie Paris, Saint Paul’s premier destination for French desserts and pastries.

Creative Team

Literature to Life’s production is based on the novel The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang, © 2008, published by Coffee House Press.

MEET THE AUTHOR

KAO KALIA YANG (she/her) is a Hmong-American writer. She is the author of the memoirs The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, The Song Poet, and Somewhere in the Unknown World. Yang is also the author of the children’s books A Map Into the World, The Shared Room, The Most Beautiful Thing, and Yang Warriors, as well as the co-editor of the ground-breaking collection What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color.

Kao Kalia’s work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN USA literary awards, the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize, as Notable Books by the American Library Association, Kirkus Best Books of the Year, the Heartland Bookseller’s Award, and garnered four Minnesota Book Awards. Yang lives in Minnesota with her family, and teaches and speaks across the nation. |  kaokaliayang.com

MEET THE PRODUCER

LITERATURE TO LIFE (LTL) is a performance-based literacy program that presents professionally staged verbatim adaptations of American literary classics. LTL’s mission is to perform great books that inspire young people to read and become authors of their own lives. LTL was founded more than three decades ago as the educational program of the American Place Theatre. Now an independent organization, this mighty collective of artists and educators brings the voices of diverse authors to thousands of students and audiences nationwide, giving them the tools to become the empowered “voices worth hearing” of our future. | literaturetolife.org

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