Writing Citizenship: Flexible Forms of Belonging in Kao Kalia Yang’s The Latehomecomer

Abstract

This article draws on the idea of a more flexible category of citizenship from Michel Laguerre and Bonnie Honig, arguing that Kao Kalia Yang’s The Latehomecomer presents readers with a displacement narrative that negates national belonging and the traditional myth of immigrant America, and, instead, upholds an idea of self-identification that is based not on the nation-state, but on family continuity and finding refuge in writing.

Keywords

• hmong
• literature
• late homecomer