Sept. 4, 2018

Contact Rick Kyte at 608-796-3704 or rlkyte@viterbo.edu or Nicole Van Ert at 608-796-3616 or nmvanert@viterbo.edu

THE LATEHOMECOMER AUTHOR KAO KALIA YANG TO OPEN THE D.B. REINHART INSTITUTE FOR ETHICS IN LEADERSHIP LECTURE SERIES AT VITERBO UNIVERSITY SEPT. 13

LA CROSSE, Wis. – Kao Kalia Yang, educator, filmmaker, and author of the award-winning book The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, will open the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership’s fall 2018 lecture series at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 13 in the Viterbo University Fine Arts Center Main Theatre.

The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir is the story of her and her family’s move from the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand where the author was born in 1980 to Minnesota in 1987. It is the firsthand account of a journey from place to place many Hmong people have had to make to find “home.” The book received a Minnesota Book Award and was a finalist for several other prestigious honors.

“Yang tells her family’s story with grace,” wrote a reviewer with Publishers Weekly. “She narrates their struggles, beautifully weaving in Hmong folklore and culture.” A reviewer with Entertainment Weekly described the book as “a narrative packed with the stuff of life.”

Her latest book, The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father received the 2017 Minnesota Book Award in Creative Nonfiction. Fellow acclaimed author Jane Hamilton-Merritt wrote that Yang’s writing “allows us to hear the whispered sorrows and hopes of those transplanted onto foreign soil among strangers.”

Yang is also the co-founder of Words Wanted, a company dedicated to helping immigrants with writing, translating, and business services. Her writing and speaking is passionate and eloquent as she seeks to deepen the understanding of the human condition in order to garner more compassion in the world. When she’s not in front of an audience inspiring social change and awareness, Yang lives in Minneapolis with her husband and twin sons.

This presentation at Viterbo University is free and open to the public. No tickets are necessary, but seating is limited. For a full schedule of D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership events, visit www.viterbo.edu/ethics.

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