Kao Kalia Yang came to America after spending the first six years of her life in Hmong refugee camps in Thailand. Her family’s story is one of love, life, and a deadly war - one rarely taught in history classes. Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong-American writer. Born in the refugee camps of Thailand to a family that had fled the aftermath of America’s secret war in Laos, she came to America at age six. Kao Kalia is a graduate of Carleton College and Columbia University’s MFA Program.

Her books include National Endowment for the Arts Big Read title "The Latehomecomer" and "The Song Poet," which will be the first Hmong story adapted into an opera by the Minnesota Opera in the spring of 2021. Yang's first picture book "A Map Into the World" and an edited collection "What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color" were published in fall of 2019. In spring of 2020, a second children's book "The Shared Room" and a collective memoir of refugee stories "Somewhere in the Unknown World" will be published.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx