I Begin My Life All Over : The Hmong and the American Immigrant Experience

Records the stories of thirty-six Hmong immigrants who came to California, showing how their traditional ways have been replaced by the American way of life

Faderman (Speaking for Ourselves) offers a perspective on immigration to this country that artfully combines the personal and the universal. By linking together 35 narratives from Hmong immigrants displaced from their native Laos by the war in Vietnam, she uncovers their common concerns, such as gender relations, parental control and assimilation to technology. Many first-generation Hmong came to the U.S. from relocation camps in Thailand, after escaping the Communists, and those experiences have shaped their interaction within the technology-based American culture. However, second-generation Hmong straddle the demands of their birthplace with the expectations of their parents. The differences between these generations offer a clear picture of what the Hmong and other immigrant groups face when confronted by societal change. Faderman's inclusion of the Hmong's history in Laos and China provides a context for the first-person accounts and deepens our awareness of the obstacles they've overcome in adjusting to their new country. This enriching book fulfills the author's aim "to capture [the Hmongs'] living voices, and to make those voices resound in the reader's ears." Photos.
- living voices, and to make those voices resound in the reader's ears." Photos.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An oral history that strongly conveys the searing social and emotional upheavals faced by tens of thousands of Hmong people who have fled communist Laos to live in this country. Faderman (English and Lesbian Studies/California State Univ., Fresno; Surpassing the Love of Men, 1981, etc.) and her translator and intermediary, Ghia Xiong, interviewed 53 Hmong immigrants, ranging in age from 11 to 66, over a two-year period, beginning in 1994. The words of 33 of the Hmongmost of them residents of central Californiaappear here in edited form. Faderman uses the testimony effectively to tell representative stories that shed light on the experiences of the some 130,000 Hmong who have come here since the American war in Indochina ended in 1975. Many fought for this country in the so-called ``secret war'' in Laos. Faderman's goal is to use the Hmong expatriates' words to represent the entire immigrant experience in the US. The Hmong story, Faderman says, reveals ``the fabric that has gone into the making of Americans.'' Faderman's Hmong tell sorrowful tales of a nomadic tribal people forced from their homeland into horrific detention camps in Thailand, only to struggle in every imaginable fashion once they reached the US. Most of the Hmong speak of severe social dislocation and generational confrontations between traditional elders and rebellious young people. Many of the stories, though, contain some positive news, usually involving the younger generation. In her chapter introductions Faderman weaves in stories about her immigrant mother that often abruptly interrupt the otherwise smooth narratives. She also includes intimate details of her own life that seem decidedly out of place in this otherwise enlightening book. These often painful stories expand on the cultural collision described by Anne Fadiman in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (1997). -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"I'm just stuck in between, jumping back and forth." Based on detailed interviews with 35 Hmong immigrants to California, this tightly edited collection captures the particulars of the personal narratives and also their connections with the common American immigrant experience. These are not sprawling oral histories. With the help of Hmong immigrant Ghia Xiong, who served as translator and intermediary, Faderman conducted the interviews and then arranged the material chronologically: first, the refugee experience of leaving Laos and the years in the transit camps, then the bitter struggle in the "American jungle" for children and parents caught between two very different cultures. Faderman provides a useful introduction to Hmong history, and she comments at length on each narrative and how it fits with the others, especially in the areas of work, gender roles, family, gang behavior, and religion. Just as revealing are the personal connections she finds with her own life as the child of Jewish immigrants from the shtetls in Eastern Europe. This is heartfelt, illuminating social history. Hazel Rochman