Ann Arbor : California State University, Fresno, 1999.
Pages:
54
Language:
English
Abstract:
Identity is something elusive and delusive that I've been trying to put into form all my life, especially since coming to the United States. Like an adopted child, I have been looking outside and asking if there is something I am missing, looking inside asking if this is all I am. Poetry, for me, has been a form of questioning who I am. It is my tool in shaping the child that I was, the man that I am, and the elder that I will become out of the malleable clay of memory, history, and imagination. “The Hmong, The American” traces the shape of my life, gives form to who I am, and points the direction that I will go.