Kao Kalia Yang, Award-winning Memoirist, Visits HVCC on Wednesday, April 9
February 27, 2025
“The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir” chronicles her family’s journey from refugee camps in Thailand to the United States
Kao Kalia Yang, a Hmong-American writer, filmmaker and teacher, will visit Hudson Valley Community College on Wednesday, April 9, to discuss and share her award-winning books during
a program that will include a Q&A and a book signing. The event, scheduled for 11 a.m. in the BTC Auditorium on the Troy campus, is open free to the public. Advance reservations are requested at www.hvcc.edu/culture.
Yang’s work spans multiple audiences and genres, and has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize and Kirkus Best Books, among others. Yang was born in the refugee camps of Thailand; her family had escaped the genocide of the Secret War in Laos. Her first book, “The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir” (2008), chronicles the family’s move to the United States when Yang was 6 years old. The first Hmong-authored book to gain national distribution, it earned two Minnesota Book Awards and was a PEN America Literary Award finalist.
Yang’s other memoirs are “The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father” (2016), “Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir” (2021) and “Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother’s Life” (2024). She also has written several children’s books and co-edited the ground-breaking essay collection, “What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Women of Color” (2019).
Her work has garnered support from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the McKnight Foundation and the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. Yang also is an in-demand speaker who advocates for social awareness and change. She and her husband live in Minneapolis and have twin sons.
This event is co-sponsored by the Cultural Affairs Program and the English, Foreign Languages and English as a Second Language Department at HVCC.
For more information, please contact Debby Gardner at d.gardner@hvcc.edu or (518) 629-8071.