Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir

Sanouthith Vongsay enters into hospice care at the home of her daughter, Saymoukda. In the days before her death, Sanouthith’s memories take her across time and space. The daughter of a provincial governor, she had grown up wealthy in Laos, but had worked hard on pine farms and in vegetable fields to provide for their growing family in America. The narrative voice changes to first-person, and Sanouthith remembers how she had remained in Laos after her father fled the country. After the revolution in 1975, family members of the old regime were persecuted, and she was forced to flee with her husband and new baby. Saymoukda was born in a refugee camp in Thailand in 1981. Sanouthith also had a son, Nok, who died at just six months old.

The narrative voice shifts again to Saymoukda’s first-person perspective. Her primary memory of childhood is her mother’s sadness. In one memory, Sanouthith runs to the top of a hill and makes Saymoukda promise to bury her there. Another time, she threatens to leave Saymoukda’s father in the middle of the night. Saymoukda had been a good student, and attended the University of Minnesota, where she got involved in Southeast Asian student politics.