there are people that look and feel like my mom and dad. and i think at first everything looks the same, all the clothing and the embroidery. it all looks the same until you find out who made that particular outfit and who created that particular necklace. and it's really like a different country. i think that it is becoming one of the attractions at st. paul. and when people come here to st. paul, more and more people are telling them to come here. every time i come here there is more and more diversity here.

and right now because of the influx of refugees, there are a lot of refugees coming as well because the food is similar in the culture is very similar. and so the place is growing increasingly diverse. i looked up and saw my grandmother in a hospital bed and she looked like she was sleeping. i took off my shoes and a few relatives were over by the window talking quietly. when i saw my grandmother was now sleeping, her hair matted with sweat and her eyes opening and closing and desperation,, i got as close as i could to her nice of the resistance of the

bed rail against my thigh and i put my head on my chest and i did grandma, i am here. and i said, are you okay? i said grandma, i love you. i said grandma don't leave me. and i said grandma, are you okay? and i said grandma, i am here. i said the same things over and over in my heart was heavy in my chest and every breath became harder. i made a lot of noise. she raised her hand to her head and said grandma knows. don't cry, grandma knows. she tried to say more things to me and i try not to cry. but neither of us could do it we wanted. in all the languages of the earth, there is no board or comparison or equivalent for my grandmother trying to be strong for me. and it started very organic way.

i wanted to write my grandmother a love letter because i realized that i was forgetting certain speeches of her. and i didn't want to do that. so i started writing this long love letter and one day my dad asked me what i was doing and i said i was writing down a love letter and he dead you know, dreams don't die. dreams only grow bigger and you don't wake up. as i wanted the world to remember my grandmother with me. my older sister tells me if you're going to be the first one, i'm going to be the second. she knew that columbia was an ivy league and that they had a good program. she pushed me to apply and i did and i got in. so the first draft of the book was written for educated men and

women, but for those who didn't know about us and who didn't know what we were doing in minnesota. because in new york they thought i was wasn't international student because columbia had so many. so whenever i said i was from minnesota, everyone was like, what? and so in the process of this, more and more history entered the book. so my book becomes a history of the people in my family. "the latehomecomer" it for me as my grandmother. because when she was dying, she promised she would never die. when i was growing up. she made it through a refugee camp in all of these people were killing themselves because they were in suffering from depression and all these other things. and i used to cry for the adults

around my life and grandmother promised me she would never die. and i went and i asked her to get up and she looked at me and she said, i am not getting up again. and she said you have to understand that before you there were people that loved me and your grandpa too. and somewhere in my heart i'm going to go back to the house of my youth and everybody will be there and dental will be ready and they will say, where have you been and why are you so late in coming? and this is the story of "the latehomecomer." because the hmong didn't have a story until the late 1950s, it has taken us a long time. so i truly am also "the

latehomecomer." the more i speak in travel and the more i realize that americans are only beginning to come home to each other. wherever i go, i'm home. people are beginning to realize that i belong to them and to this country and that i am an american as well. and there becomes this bigger thing. the book is getting bigger and i'm not waking up and i'm not afraid that the "the latehomecomer" won't happen. i'm not afraid. and so it took four years to write a many year to go to publishing. and which i understand is average for a book in this country. >> what was the toughest part of that? >> for me, the toughest part of writing the book, i began

writing about my grandmother's death and eventually would become the end of the book. so how do you put an end to a book? when i was younger, i used to write all these stories about april would have brown eyes and black hair and she would be that she would want to help her mom and dad pay the bills but she was too young to get a job. and i would say the end and that was the ending. so writing this was hard. but understanding that a book, especially nonfiction book has a photo of the author, in helps me and that's one piece of a big life in one episode of the bigger human experience. but that was hard and challenging for me on many

levels. and so in new york there all these individuals who knew my perspective and who heard me and they would offer me drinks and give me lots of free books and i thought that was wonderful. and i thought they would want to look at the book. i graduated in 2005 and i was happy with it. by the time 2007 came along none of these literary houses were interested in me. i was getting letter saying we don't even know that the hmong was among the vietnam war. and so december 17, 2007, on my birthday, i was feeling very disheartened and so i did it google search because i remember

somewhere reading that minnesota was home to some of the finest independent publishing houses in the nation. and so the first one i came across was coffee house press and i went to their website and they said that we are looking for the underrepresented voices in literature and i knew immediately that that is what i needed to do. so i sent them a letter, they asked for a chapter, and i sent them three chapters and then they asked for the whole book. and that is how it came about into being. and so "the latehomecomer" is that best-selling book. they do a lot of poetry books and more and more literature and it's a surprise to them and to me. the first printing was successive, and i think that they have had 10 or 20 rounds by now.

they are a conservative press and each publishing press runs two or 3000. and so there are many institutions, the minnesota college of education at the university of minnesota, they are one, not so helpful. i think the fact that it is from a student is her a help. and i understand that the book was number 11 of all time for coffee house publishers. and i did it over the period of time since the book came out. barnes & noble, borders, they didn't want to carry the book in stores.

and i would go and ask them if they have "the latehomecomer", but they would say no, a lot of people have been asking for it and a lot of independent reading people have been picking it up. so we are going to offer it. it's about how it came into the mainstream press, that was then. i think i am a very honest writer. i write with my heart. i think if i would have the reader to live on the line with me, i should have a piece of myself right there. and i think that that resonates with people and i think that so many americans are realizing that they also come from somewhere else and call this place home. parents, grandparents and my mom and dad as well. and i think, a lot of people tell me that there is an artistry they are with the language. my father says that flowers

cannot reincarnate so they live in the mountains and beyond. my father and grandfather live within me and my sensibility in the world. a lot of readers are surprised by "the latehomecomer." and i think the courage of my grandmother in the history of my people have been so wonderful in humanity. when i speak, i know that i am writing in the fabric of human beings. i have an opportunity to build understanding one human being to the other. it is what i buy and sell with. the currency of language. and since the book came out, a lot of minnesotans have said welcome home.

they have said welcome. to my mom and dad and to my aunt and uncles and we belong to each other. and here there are a lot of people who i belong to and a lot of people who belong to me. a lot of people emerge from the community and this is a community that tommy that i can be a writer as well. >> for more information on our recent visit to st. paul, minnesota and the other cities but visited by her local content vehicles, go to c-span.org/local content. >> not only did my mother vote but she was a captain of a precinct at one time and she

loved this and she said he can never be as good a man as she thought that it would. she said that he was someone that could speak and that man could talk, she said. but my mother was a yellow dog democrat. that being said, i'm a democrat. she voted through the end of her life. >> which was one? >> she died in the year after obama was elected. because i remember her saying that she was going to stay until that man got elected. >> were she a bit of an activist resolve a. >> now. my mother, let it let's wait. my mother when she was taking care of us and working in white folks is houses to do so, like many white

women like rosa parks, that is common to get into an altercation on a bus because she sat down in his seat and some kids do liberally sat behind her and they did this deliberately to make trouble and then they yelled at at the bus driver that this and, they said, tran-sixes sitting in front of us which was not permitted. and the bus driver came back and said she had to move and she said i was sitting here and they came and sat down. behind me. deliberately. they did it on purpose. and he said that i don't care. so then my mother said she flew in to him and the last thing she remembers was the bus was

stopped and the police officer was getting on the bus and the officer was saying to the driver, what happened two he said she is sitting in front of these children and they asked my mother and she said, well, they got on and sat here do liberally. my mother said she thought she was going to jail and she said i have these two little children a home and they are going to be by themselves because i'm going to be a jail. finally the police officer said to the bus driver, you should've told them not to sit on her. and that was the end of that. so there are exceptions to every rule. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> booktv covers hundreds of other programs throughout the entire year all year long. here are some of the events we will attend this week. look for these programs to air in the near future.

on monday, we are at the carter center in atlanta where it wants right is going to recount the 1978 camp david accords. that same evening, adam tanner talks about the collection and use of personal data by private companies. the following night in las vegas, sylvia longmire, special agent of the united states air force office of special investigations, takes a critical look at america's border security. and on thursday at the university of california berkeley and was in school, tom schroder reports on the use of psychedelic drugs for mental health care. and on friday from new york university, a panel discussion on feminism in the united states in 1920 through today the co-authors of feminism unfinished. that is a look at some of the author programs that we will be covering this upcoming week. go to our website at booktv.org and visit upcoming program. >> live on booktv, meryl comer, president and ceo of the

geoffrey beene foundation alzheimer's initiative reports on the effects of the degenerative brain disease that affects 5.1 million americans and 44 million people globally. this is about one hour. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> hello, everybody. thank you all for coming. my name is andrew and i'm one of the managers here at politics and prose. i'm really delighted to see everyone turning out for such an importansu