Dia's Story Cloth: The Hmong People's Journey of Freedom - Softcover

Dia Cha; Chue Cha; Nhia Thao Cha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1880000636 ISBN 13: 9781880000632

Publisher: Lee & Low Books, 1996

Synopsis

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. The story cloth made for her by her aunt and uncle chronicles the life of the author and her family in their native Laos and their eventual emigration to the United States.

About this title

About the Author:

Dia, Chue, and Nhia Thao Cha were born in Laos. In 1975, Dia fled with her family to Thailand, where they spent over four years in the Ban Vinai refugee camp before gaining entry to the United States. Her uncle and aunt, Chue and Nhia Thao Cha (not pictured), made this story cloth in 1990 in the Chiang Kham refugee camp in Thailand. They have since returned to Laos. Dia works as a cultural anthropologist in Boulder, Colorado.

From Publishers Weekly:

A folk art masterpiece from a Southeast Asian culture stands at the center of this thoughtful book. Intricately composed, painstakingly stitched by hand, the "story cloth" of the title was created by the author's aunt and uncle, Hmong who fled their native Laos for a refugee camp in Thailand. The story cloth records their experiences-which are also the author's own. Using details from the cloth as illustrations, Cha retells her life story, a meeting of Hmong history and a classic American immigration tale. Now an anthropologist in Colorado, Cha spent her early years during the 1960s in a Hmong village in Laos, where her family worked long days growing rice and corn. War tore the country apart; Cha's father was killed and she and her mother made a dangerous escape to Thailand, emigrating to the United States in 1979. The text is subdued; it is the needlework that drives home the poignancy of this cataclysmic account. For advanced readers, a lengthy afterword, by Joyce Herold, Denver Museum of Natural History's curator of ethnology, sets out historical background and assesses the story cloth as an art form. Ages 6-up.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Lee & Low Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 1880000636
• ISBN 13: 9781880000632
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 24