The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father

This track alternates between Kalia speaking in her own voice and then speaking for Bee in the first-person. It begins with Kalia’s description of her father’s desire to return to Laos. Her mother, however, has no such desire. In fact, she “was afraid of returning to the country of her birth in the absence of her mother” (240). Dawb and her husband, who have moved to Cambodia, are expecting their first child, and they arrange for Bee, Chue, and Max to come visit them; Kalia pays for her younger sister, Hlub, to accompany them as well.

Bee is not as excited as Kalia thought he would be, and he instead worries about a variety of issues. For example, he knows that there is still tension between the Laotian government and the Hmong. He also “grew morose with thoughts of missing” his “children in America” (242). Chue, on the other hand, is much less nervous and “lost herself to imagined reunions” (242).

In Bee’s section of this track, he explains how his memories of his losses in his homeland accompany him on this trip. However, when he arrives in Bangkok, he is delighted at the familiarity and realizes that he has missed hearing his language and seeing people who look like him.