A HOME ON THE PAGE

After a shattering racist incident, a Hmong American girl defines her own sense of home.

A vicious message scrawled on the mailbox, “ASIANS GO HOME,” understandably upends Nou’s sense of safety. She watches her mother’s failed attempts to wash off the angry words; her father then covers the letters with white paint. Nou longs to go to “a place where people want us,” but Dad quietly reminds her that “America is your home.” Their people, the Hmong, “have no country,” Nou knows. Dad finds home in his songs, Mom in her garden, big sister Houa in her Fourth of July soccer tournament and in Hmong New Year, and Pog Pog (Grandmother) in the traditional story cloths she sews. Microaggressions at school further alienate Nou: “The words people say weigh me down,” particularly the “Eeewww. Gross” reaction to the delicious zaub nyoj she brings in for lunch. Her own search for home takes shape on the page, “a place where I am accepted.” In filling her notebooks, “little by little, I create a place where I belong.” Yang and Kim have reunited after collaborating on A Map Into the World (2019), the book visible on Nou and Houa’s nightstand. Kim’s zoomed-above perspectives for numerous spreads are clever reminders to take a wider view beyond difficulties. Her artful adaptations of the “fantastical things” Nou depicts in her notebook release wondrous swirls of healing energy. Nou’s community is diverse.

A resonating, inspiring story that encourages creative resilience and strength.