Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir

"The people in this book are people from your lives," Kao Kalia Yang writes to her three sleeping children in the final chapter of her affecting hybrid nonfiction collection, Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir. Minnesota--where Yang has lived for more than 32 years, since landing as a six-year-old Hmong refugee via Thailand--is the state with the most refugees per capita, with significant populations of Hmong, Tibetan, Somali, Karen, Burmese, Eritrean and Liberian transplants. "This much is known, but few know who we are or how we live."

In response, Yang presents 14 individuals' stories here. Irina, for example, escaped Belarus. Majra, from Bosnia, grows up to work with the American Refugee Committee to "help rebuild what wars had broken." As refugee families settle, generations pass and begin anew: Saymoukda examines her relationship with her dying Laotian mother; Mr. Truong enables his son Hai to reinvent the family's Vietnamese restaurant.

Following the award-winning success of Yang's memoirs, The Latehomecomer and The Song Poet, "Other refugees asked me to tell their stories, but I wasn't ready." The past few years changed that: "I could not fail to see an America... that seeks to define itself by casting its vulnerable immigrants and incoming refugees to the margins of society." An epilogue would have strengthened the work, providing a fuller overview for readers to invest further in each of the family and friends Yang introduces. That said, these voices are here, their stories are here, to provide an intimate window into once faraway lives, now intertwined together in a community they call home. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon

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