I Begin My Life All Over : The Hmong and the American Immigrant Experience

Rating:
Summary: A book that lives up to its title....
Review: This is an astonishing book. The author, working with a Hmong colleague, collected many moving oral histories. She then wove them together into an astonishing tour-de-force.

This book provides a voice to Hmong people, telling their stories in their own words. At the same time, Faderman places the Hmong experience in the larger context of the experience of leaving one's home to come to the United States as an immigrant. Using the particular experiences of her Hmong informants, as well as her own history growing up as the child of an immgrant, she sheds light on the general topic of what it means to be an immigrant in this country.

For most US residents, there is immigration somewhere in our histories; this book speaks to how our families were profoundly affected by the dislocation and courage of these immgrants, whether they are ourselves, our parents, or lurking in the more distant past.

I can't imagine a better book on this topic.

Rating:
Summary: A Must-Read for Multi-Cultural or Ethnic Studies Students
Review: This text was an amazingly comprehensive look at the experiences of Hmong immigrants to the United States during the past three decades. I used this book in my Teacher Education courses at a California State University and found that each of students who read it was moved to a new level of understanding of culture, the challenges of the second language acquisition process, and the complexty of the modern immigrants' acculturation experience. It illustrates the difference in cosmology between immigrants and non-immigrants by examining a variety of real life topics through short vignettes. The range of accounts (from teenagers to the elderly) gives a breadth of perspectives that adds to the value of this text as a classroom resource. I recommend this text to high school and college instructors in reading, writing, history and multi-cultural studies courses as a required text or a supplemental reading assignment for student projects. For others, if you want to expand your mind and look at the world and life through the eyes of others, this is a compelling book that will not quickly be forgotten.