Thinking About Emigrants and Immigration

    Writing the introduction to a book of emigrant stories produced by the St. Paul Council of Churches, author Keo Kalia Yang, an emigrant from Laos, concluded by saying about emigrants
",,.we have traveled far in hopes that we will belong."  So different from the hateful, fearful rhetoric of so much of our current public discourse.    Since when have we become so fearful that we imagine that emigrants are out to get us? a threat? and not our brothers and sisters.  What have we become?  I'm committed to giving space for the emigrant to belong.
   Yang is the author of two books; The Late Homecomer, written about her grandmother, and, The Song Poet, about her father.  Yang, who is Hmong, writes beautifully and I highly recommend both books.  If you are to read them perhaps it's best to begin with The Late Homecomer which was written first.