Letter to Chinese readers of The Latehomecomer

Today it is cold in Minnesota. There is snow on the ground up to my knees. The world outside my window is white. Tomorrow more snow will fall and the temperatures will continue to drop. Along the edges of the houses, there are icicles that dangle sharp and shiny in the clear air.

There is a place on the other side of the world where flowers are still blooming and the trees are heavy with green leaves. There, the birds are singing their songs and the butterflies are spreading their wings. The warmth of a different season is upon them.

It is this vision of a flowering place full of the animals of summer that help me through the harsh Minnesota winter. I can close my eyes and feel the heat of the sun on my bare skin, breathe deep.

This year my first book The Latehomecomer enters into a new language, Chinese, for my brothers and sisters across the far ocean. I am humbled that my words have inspired Wang Wei to translate the story of my grandmother and the Hmong people into her home language so we can build stronger bridges of understanding across the wide distance of time and geography.

The history books trace the Hmong to the lowlands of China. Once upon a time, farfar away, we lived together beneath the same great sun. It is my hope and my dream to one day return to China and share our stories of how we have not only survived but flourished.

Until that day, I hope that you will find in the pages of The Latehome-comer a story that will make you feel and help you remember the love of your grandmothers, the hopes that make possible homes to shelter the young ones. This book is very personal to me. It began as a love letter to my grandmother after she died. Her big fear was that she would be forgotten. I wanted to tell her all the things I would never forget, only to realize in the process how much I had forgotten already. Was her single tooth on the right or on the left? Which side of her ear was the one with the torn lobe? It is my effort to write the life of Youa Lee down. My grandmother never went to school. She never learned how to read or write. All my life with her, she signed her name with a shaky“X”that stood in for Youa Lee. I hope you will remember my grandmother's name with me and take from these pages some of the lessons that a hard life has taught.

Thank you so much.

Kao Kalia Yang

St. Paul, Minnesota

USA

12/15/2016

孩子们在出生之前是住在天上的。在那儿，他们自由地翱翔于云间。天上是一个令人快乐的地方，想把他们唤到人世间来可不是件容易的事儿。孩子们从天上能看到人的一生。

这就是我们这代苗族孩子的祖父母和父母们讲给我们听的故事。

他们说，我们已经选择了自己的人生。自打一开始，我们就知道我们将成为怎样的人，我们将和谁分享这个世界，我们将会有怎样刻骨铭心的回忆，这些我们一直都知道。

我会从天上再来的。