I wish every daughter adored and admired her father as much as Minnesota author Kao Kalia Yang. Her new book, “The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father,” is, in brief, one of the most moving, disturbing and, ultimately, hopeful books I’ve ever read. As with previous generations of immigrants, there is so much to learn from and honor about what Hmong in general, and this family in particular, have experienced and bring to Minnesota.
This is Yang’s second book. Her first book, “The Latehomecomer,” was about her grandmother. It won both statewide and national recognition.broadstreet.zone(48036);
“Song Poet” begins with people at a Hmong New Year celebration in St. Paul asking her father, Bee Yang, to share one of his song poems. These are something like a Hmong version of blues music and poetry.
Kao Kalia Yang had not realized how eloquent her father was. People asked him to make a recording, which

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