Recurring nightmares turned out to be reality when I was in college. It was because I finally asked my mother why I woke up in tears about fire ants hurting my scalp, unquenchable hunger and thirst, and thick jungles that I couldn’t walk through. There was a cliff on my left and a man with a sharp knife, who wasn’t my dad, carrying me on his shoulders. In this nightmare, he would always slice a yellow gourd open and give me the refreshing juice inside. The sticky air would suffocate me and I would fall to the ground, and I would crawl flat on my belly to get away from the gunshots. I was never fast enough to get away, and would wake up in tears.
My mom told me that this was part of my actual refugee flight story when I was three. My mind had buried the trauma upon our arrival the United States. I had learned how to silence my tears when danger was close. The man with the knife turned out to be my uncle. He was killed after saving us. My dad had been thrown into a re-education camp and our family was saved by a village of lepers in that failed attempt to reach Thailand.
Genocide for the Hmong had come after the United State’s CIA left Laos, but we could not resettle because my dad had been a teacher and not a soldier. We lived in a refugee camp until I turned four. Growing up, my parents taught us to not let others decide our worth. My dad engraved this in my brain; that knowledge was the only thing others couldn’t take away. The grief and wounds in my childhood heart would not be undone, nor would the scars of hatred when strangers shouted for me to “go back home to your own country” on the sidewalks of St. Paul. But slowly, the love of those in my new country and community healed me.
The path out of poverty was difficult. I had just finished my third year at Brown University, when my mom told me the truth. I realized then that three family members probably died to get me out alive to be there. When college seemed insurmountable, I reminded myself that my older sister, May Song, walked from Laos to Thailand on her own small feet at the age of five. She survived because baby formula was dropped from the sky. My own life was saved by a dropper of expired Tylenol.
Adversity had made me strong. America is a nation of displaced people; and why it is a birthright in the Constitution if a child is born here. If your ancestors weren’t persecuted, indentured, imprisoned, enslaved, and came to this land, then you are likely an Indigenous person – the only real Americans. When I became President of the Wilder Foundation in 2010, I was surprised and humbled. I have incurable optimism, curiosity, and love for humanity. Today, whenever I am introduced as “Dr. MayKao Hang,” I smile because I have fulfilled the dream of my ancestors and my parents. Whenever a life improves, I am happy and satisfied. Whenever I am afraid, I remember that love can swallow fear.
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