The Latehomecomer

Yang and her family are sitting on the cold airport floor in Tokyo, waiting for the plane that will take them to America. Yang has to pee, and her father walks around the airport trying to ask for directions to the bathroom in English. Yang notices how everyone, even the women, are taller than her father, who had always seemed like a tall man in the refugee camps.

The family board another, much bigger plane. Yang’s parents are worried because they don’t know what they will do when they get to America, and they don’t know how they will pay back the expensive cost of their plane tickets. Yang falls asleep. When she wakes up the plane has landed at San Francisco International Airport. Yang stares at two American adults kissing, an act Yang has never seen any Hmong adult do.

Once off the plane, the Hmong refugees are divided into different groups and put on different planes. Yang’s plane takes them to Minnesota. It is July 27, 1987. Once the plane lands, Yang’s family reunites with long lost relatives, including Uncle Chue and his family, and Uncle Nhia and his family. It is decided that Yang and her family will temporarily stay with Uncle Nhia’s eldest son.