“If the road of life were easy…” (Yog txoj kev ua neeg yooj yim) — from The Diamond Explorer
Readers first meet Malcolm Yang, a young Hmong-American boy, on the back of a John Deere mower with his father.
The Hmong family are living in a white house on the Minnesota prairie. Malcolm is the youngest of four children, to Lue Txiv (father) and Lia Niam (mother). There are True, Fong, Linda, and Malcolm, the surprise child to a mother in her mid-40s.
So begins Kao Kalia Yang’s The Diamond Explorer.
The father-son connection is especially sweet: “We were a song then, the two of us together, caught up in the rhythm and melody of the sky and the earth and all that lived in between them.”
The father uses the love language of sound to connect with his youngest:
“I made noises whenever I was far from Malcolm so that he would know I was around. I hummed when I attended to the chickens in the coop while Malcolm played outside of it. I coughed when I entered a room so he would know I was coming.”
This junior novel is told in the voices of the various members of the “village” around Malcolm. There are teachers, some caring, some cold. Some see Malcolm’s intellect, gentleness, and humanity; others see him as “slow” and “not belonging” and perhaps “without potential.” Some stand as outright barriers against his advancement.
Even though Malcolm was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is an all-American child, he is othered by some adults in authority, even when he was a youngster.
There are the voices of family—his parents, his siblings, and others, who contribute to Malcolm’s life in their own ways. There are voices of the living and the dead. One of the voices is that of Pog, Malcolm’s paternal grandmother.
“It is easier for the living to imagine that there is one place we all return to after death envelops us in its mystery. But this is not the case. We each return to a world of our making and of the people who’ve made us. We are not limited by anything but the force of our memories and our love.”
Each chapter involves a particular individual with their own point of view. Each speaker is situated based on their own perspective but also provide their contribution to the larger narrative of Malcolm’s life as he makes his way into the world.
All see different aspects of Malcolm as he grows and changes. The interactions are between the interacting personalities. The “diamond explorer” of the title relates to an incident with his older sister, Linda, who is intimidated by the idea of loans taken out for her higher education. She is encouraged by her little brother Malcolm’s encouragement for her and his commitment to help her pay back those loans when he is grown up. His understanding is a sophisticated one, that he is part of a family, and he has much to contribute. He is multilingual. He is musical. And he has the gift of shamanism.
The Diamond Explorer transitions from a work focused on a child’s adjustment to elementary school to something focused on other topics and dimensions. The work focuses a fair amount on the spiritual beliefs of the Hmong but much less on perhaps cultural practices and family habits.
The world is shown as not necessarily fair. Authority figures do fall short of their responsibilities. Violence is an ever-present reality in people’s lives. The spirit world is close by.
This junior novel was written by Kao Kalia Yang and illustrated by Camelia Pham.
Shalin Hai-Jew has worked in higher education for many years. She has edited dozens of nonfiction educational books and authored a dozen with a number of publishers.
