The Latehomecomer

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2008

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-11

Chapters 12-15

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 10-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 10 Summary: “The Haunted Section-8 House”

Yang’s large family moves to a small two-bedroom, one-and-a-half story house on a hill in St. Paul. When they first move in, they find a hundred-dollar bill under the carpet near the stairs. Thinking that someone probably left the money by accident, they use it to buy pizza. Yang’s grandma comes to visit for the summer and to meet baby Shoually, who is named after her. After her grandma leaves, Yang sees the boy in the striped pajamas for the first time. Dawb sees him next, running into the dark of their parents’ room. He is a ghost, and eventually everyone in the family sees him, even Yang’s father, who is initially skeptical. The ghost grabs Yang’s fathers arm one night, almost breaking it.

The neighbors tell the Yangs that a little boy had fallen down the attic stairs and didn’t survive. The money under the carpet was meant to appease his spirit. After a series of encounters with the ghost, Yang’s father searches for a new apartment. Before they move, Yang’s mother finds out that her mother, who was still living in Laos, has died. Yang’s mom becomes pregnant with baby Taylor.

Chapter 11 Summary: “Our Moldy House”

It is 1995, and Yang and her family have been in America for nearly ten years. The children are growing up, and Yang’s parents decide that they have outgrown their small apartment. After looking at various houses, most beyond their price range, they find a two-and-a-half-bedroom house in a poor neighborhood that they can afford.

Yang is a freshman in high school and is doing better in school. Although she still doesn’t speak much, she has a teacher, Mrs. Gallentin, that encourages her abilities as a writer after Yang turns in an articulate and provocative essay on Romeo and Juliet.

By 1996, the welfare program that so many Hmong people had relied on is ending. As a result, many Hmong are in danger of being deported if they can’t pass the citizenship test. Yang’s grandma doesn’t speak or write any English, so this is a big concern for the family. Since California is stricter with the new welfare policy, many Hmong in California flock to Minnesota, since Minnesota isn’t terminating the welfare program as quickly. Yang’s grandma and Aunt and Uncle Chue come to stay with them, and many Hmong begin to fill Yang’s neighborhood.

One night Yang becomes very ill and feels like she is dying. After going to various doctors and missing a lot of school, she is diagnosed with lupus. Her grandma buys her a special bracelet comprised of little elephant figures and says, “Elephants protect their babies by forming a circle around them. You are sick, and I cannot protect you. I bought this for you so that the power of the elephants will protect you and make you well again” (206). Yang wears this bracelet every day, takes her medicine, and eventually she begins to feel better.

The chapter ends with Yang remembering that her grandma was chased by a tiger in the mountains of Laos. After running through the foliage, her face is wet with blood and sweat. During the run, her earring had gotten caught on a tree branch, ripping her ear in two.

Chapters 10-11 Analysis

Although the Hmong were initially placed into low-income housing projects, many Hmong quickly outgrew the apartments. This is the case for Yang’s family. Chapters 11 and 12 focus on the different houses that Yang’s family lives in, and both are demonstrative of the poverty that many Hmong people faced. Despite that Yang’s mother and father work night shifts and receive welfare, they are only able to afford two-bedroom homes for themselves and their five children. In Chapter 10, the house that the Yang family moves into is haunted by a little boy. This haunting, while presented literally, can also be representative of the importance the Hmong place on spirituality. The Hmong are considered to have multiple belief systems that revolve around the spiritual practices of shamanism, or the belief that physical health is directly linked to spiritual health. They also believe that they are deeply linked to the spirits of their ancestors, and that those spirits influence their daily lives. This belief in spirits is amplified in Chapter 11, when each member of Yang’s family clearly sees the spirit of a boy that died in the home. The sight of the spirit is so bothersome that Yang’s family moves out of the home to escape the spirit’s clutches.

Chapter 12 focuses on the first home that her family is able to buy, and it is demonstrative of the condition of poverty that many Hmong people faced. The home is in a poor neighborhood in St. Paul, and while the outside of the home appears pleasant, the inside of the home seems to be perpetually falling apart and is constantly moldy.