Acclaimed author Kao Kalia Yang inspires at Summer Institute in Adolescent Health

The Summer Institute in Adolescent Health Shaping Healthy Communities: Unleashing the Power of Youth, held July 29-31, explored how to strengthen relationships and civic action with young people to build strong communities.

Kao Kalia Yang, MFA, the author of The Latehomecomer and other biographical books about her family’s experience as Hmong refugees, discussed how youth flourish when they are given the tools to express themselves, affirmed in their identities, and supported by caring and inclusive institutions. 

She read from The Rock in My Throat, which chronicles her experience as a selective mute in English throughout her childhood and college. While she spoke Hmong at home, she didn’t speak in English after seeing the poor treatment her parents received when speaking English as best as they could.

“I didn’t talk growing up. In schools, I would meet with the nurses and they would say, ‘What’s wrong, what’s wrong. What’s going on at home?’ The question was never, ‘What is happening in the world, why aren’t you talking?’ It was always, ‘What’s wrong at home?’ At home there wasn’t anything wrong. I belonged to a refugee mom and a dad who worked in the factories on the late shift, who gave us everything they had so we wouldn’t be hungry,” said Yang.

At the book launch for The Latehomecomer, which was the first memoir by a Hmong American to be nationally distributed, her dad told her in Hmong, “If you speak, if the winds of humanity blow, then maybe our lives were not lost.” The day, April 10, 2008, she spoke to the crowd of 300 through tears.

“When I opened up my mouth to speak, it was a pleading voice that entered into the world, a yearning voice, a shaky voice, and I knew it came from the softest part of who I am, the part that was kept fertile by the tears and the heartache,” she said.

She encouraged the audience of public health nurses, health educators and youth workers to remember the people who have no voice.

“I came today because I think the work that you do and the work that I do has something in common. We all know we can journey to the future by ourselves, but that’s not what a community is. That’s not how progress happens. We journey there together. The going is slower, the going is rough but that’s the point of everything,” she said.

Additional speakers at the Summer Institute, which was sponsored by the School of Nursing Center for Adolescent Nursing, included Marc A. Zimmerman, PhD, a psychology professor at University of Michigan School of Public Health, who discussed his research on community-based strategies for promoting positive adolescent development and the application of resiliency and empowerment theory. The work of Irreducible Grace Foundation and Black Youth Healing Arts Center in creating safe spaces for healing was shared.

The second day of the institute examined the Radical Healing framework to support youth wellbeing. Maria Veronica Svetaz, MD, MPH, FSAHM, FAAFP, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota, discussed the launch of the Radical Healing Initiative at Hennepin Healthcare, where she served as a physician. Mariah Geiger-Williams, MPH, the state adolescent health coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health, talked about the Minnesota Partnership for Adolescent and Young Adult Health.

The third day focused on authentic youth-adult partnerships by exploring core elements and applying frameworks that support youth engagement and leadership. The work of Providers and Teens Communicating for Health (PATCH) an innovative, youth-driven program working to improve adolescents' health and wellbeing across the nation, was shared. Erica Koepsel, MS, director of Youth Engagement at PATCH, discussed how she cultivates impactful adolescent health and wellbeing programs. Ross VeLure Roholt, PhD, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota School of Social Work, discussed his research on youth engagement and youth involvement in democratic and social development.

In addition to the Center for Adolescent Nursing, Summer Institute sponsors include the School of Public Health Center for Leadership Education in Maternal and Child Public Health, Minnesota Department of Health Child and Adolescent Health Unit, Medical School Leadership Education in Adolescent Health, and Saint Paul Ramsey County Public Health Department.