Want some just-for-fun reading to take a break from school?
Like to talk about books?
Then come join our student book club! Discussion meetings will be Tuesday, April 6, 13, and 27, at 2-3:00, via Webex. Sign up to join here. Books are distributed free in mid-March, and it’s OK if you can’t make every meeting!
The book (part of the Big Read, which will include multiple events in the campus and community, and online performances via live stream) is The Latehomecomer: A Hmong family memoir, by Kao Kalia Yang.
The author was born in 1980 while her family lived in refugee camps in Thailand after the Laotian “secret war.” This memoir tells the story of her family’s travails and eventual move to the Minneapolis area. The Hmong are an ethnic people-group originally from areas of China and Laos, who fought with the U.S.A., against the communists, during the Vietnam War of the 1960s and ’70s. After the war’s end, the communists targeted the Hmong for elimination. Some fled and eventually were able to come to America.
Minneapolis, MN contains the largest Hmong urban population in the U.S., but many have settled in and enriched Wisconsin too. Come enjoy a multicultural read, learn about a culture and history that may be new to you, and indulge your love of talking about a good book!
