Somewhere in the Unknown World
A Collective Refugee Memoir
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From “an exceptional storyteller,” Somewhere in the Unknown World is a collection of powerful stories of refugees who have found new lives in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, told by the award-winning author of The Latehomecomer and The Song Poet.
All over this country, there are refugees. But beyond the headlines, few know who they are, how they live, or what they have lost. Although Minnesota is not known for its diversity, the state has welcomed more refugees per capita than any other, from Syria to Bosnia, Thailand to Liberia. Now, with nativism on the rise, Kao Kalia Yang—herself a Hmong refugee—has gathered stories of the stateless who today call the Twin Cities home.
Here are people who found the strength and courage to rebuild after leaving all they hold dear. Awo and her mother, who escaped from Somalia, reunite with her father on the phone every Saturday, across the span of continents and decades. Tommy, born in Minneapolis to refugees from Cambodia, cannot escape the war that his parents carry inside. As Afghani flees the reach of the Taliban, he seeks at every stop what he calls a certificate of his humanity. Mr. Truong brings pho from Vietnam to Frogtown in St. Paul, reviving a crumbling block as well as his own family.
In Yang’s exquisite, necessary telling, these fourteen stories for refugee journeys restore history and humanity to America's strangers and redeem its long tradition of welcome.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hmong-American memoirist Yang (The Latehomecomer) tells the stories of fellow refugees who have ended up in Minnesota in this lyrical and frequently harrowing account. Her profile subjects include her uncle, who fought for the CIA in Laos only to be left behind when the U.S. pulled out of the country; a Bosnian war survivor who worked for an American aid organization at a refugee camp in Sudan; a young Karen man who fled Burma as his people were systematically murdered by the government; and an Iraqi woman whose grandfather was killed by Saddam Hussein's soldiers. Through the story of a Vietnamese-American chef restoring his family's restaurant, Yang also offers a moving portrait of University Ave. in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Once anchored by Henry Ford's manufacturing plants, by the 1970s University Ave. had been left behind to drug dealers, gangs, and "immigrants and refugees." Yang details how a wave of "small mom and pop businesses" began opening along the avenue, transforming it "from an abandoned, dying street into a vibrant enclave of diverse businesses." This heartfelt and exquisitely written account shines a poignant light on the immigration debate.
