I Begin My Life All Over The Hmong and the American Immigrant Experience

I Begin My Life All Over records the story of thirty-six Hmong immigrants to California, tracing their journey from the subsistence farms of Laos, through their harrowing escape into the camps of Thailand, and to relocation to a new continent, and to a new century. Interspersed throughout these first-person narratives, Lillian Faderman provides historical and cultural context, and draws rich comparisons between the experience of the Hmong in the 1990s and her mother's immigration from Eastern European shtetls in the 1930s.

Lillian Faderman is the author of such acclaimed works as To Believe in Women, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, and Surpassing the Love of Men. Among the many honors her work has received are the Yale University James Brudner Award for Exemplary Scholarship in Lesbian/Gay Studies, three Lambda Literary Awards, and the Paul Monette Award. She teaches literature and creative writing at California State University at Fresno.