Heavy story fills book for youths

By ANNE KAZMIERCZAK
Register Reporter
Writers are always told to “write what you know.” Laura Manivong decided to write what she married.
After all, she knows her husband, Anousone “Troy” Manivong well. It is his story, fictionalized and written for young readers, that Manivong tells in “Escaping the Tiger.”
The tale chronicles the escape of a Laotian family into neighboring Thailand in the early 1980’s. Laos, at that time, had been under the control of communists since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
The main character, Vonlai, was a young boy when his country’s government was altered. “Life under communist control was all he remembered,” Manivong states.
Across the broad Mekong River, though, Laotian youths watched as Thai citizens “went about their business freely.” Laotians trying to cross the river were shot dead by communist guards.
One dark night, Vonlai’s family attempts to escape by crossing the Mekong in a leaky canoe.
In Thailand, instead of being free, the family is relegated to life in a squalid refugee camp.
For Vonlai and his family, life was shattered from normalcy to constant strain.
Trapped in the camp, his family knew hunger, crowding and privation.
Born of necessity, a closeness springs between Vonlai and his teenaged sister. They must rely on one another to stay safe in an environment that hints of evil behind every dirty latrine or dark corner of camp, and danger that comes at the hands of camp guards.
Vonlai, 12, meets other youths in the camp who share his love of playing soccer. Through the game, they try to regain some sense of self.
At the camp school, Vonlai learns English and about American culture. His sister, at 14, is too old for school, and spends days attending their mother in the tiny room the family calls home.
The boy even befriends an elderly man in camp, who, in telling tales of the war that tore their country, reminds them that “History doesn’t change just because we fear the truth.”
Vonlai most mourns the loss of his parents’ humor. At one point, though, his father tells him to retain his memories of better times.
“They can’t burn what’s in your mind, Vonlai,” his Pah tells him. “You can’t let them steal your hope.”
Through four long years in camp, Vonlai’s only hope is in dreams of the place called America, a place so strange that buildings touch the sky and there is even special food just for dogs.
Though the details of “Escaping the Tiger” are specific to Thailand and Laos, the refugees’ situation is replicated daily across the globe as families seek better lives on every continent.

AS PART of the Iola Public Library’s Family Reading Festival at Allen County Community College, the author reads from her book at 10 a.m. in room A-24; she signs books at 11 in the library.