Typescript Form for Miscue Analysis
Book Title: Dia’s Story Cloth
Author: Dia Cha
1._______
1. Along time ago, my ancestors lived in China.
2. The ancient Chinese government wanted to change the way the
2._______
Hmong lived.
3. But my people would not give up their culture, and fled on foot
3._______
across the river and through jungles to southeast Asia.
4._______
4. Some went to Burma; some went to Thailand.
5. Like many Hmong, my ancestors migrated to Laos.
6. When they arrived in Laos, the Hmong settled in the tropical
5._______
6._______
highlands where no one had lived before.
7. They had to clear forests to build their villages and plant their
crops.
7._______
8. They grew corn and rice.
8._______
9. The daily life in the Hong villages included working in the fields
9._______
from morning to night.
10. Both men and women tended the crops.
10._______
11. Everything from tools to food was carried in different kinds of
11._______
baskets on their backs.
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12. In Laos, the Hmong were able to farm as they wished and lived in
12._______
peace for many years.
13. When I was a child, in the 1960s, my family lived in a wood and
13._______
bamboo house with a thatched roof made of palm leaves.
14. Every morning I helped my mother and sisters pound rice.
14._______
15. After breakfast, my family walked for almost two hours to our
15._______
mountainside fields, where we worked all day.
16. Every evening we walked back home.
16._______
17. At harvest time we each carried a backpack basket filled with rice
17._______
or corn.
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18. But as I was growing up, the peaceful life of my village was
18._______
disappearing.
19. Laos was caught in warfare.
19._______
20. My country was divided in two: On one side, many Hmong men
20._______
joined the loyalist army, which was supported by the American
government.
21. On the other side was the communist regime, which also recruited
21._______
many Hmong men.
22. My father left to fight with the loyalist troops.
22._______
23. My family began to move from village to village to escape the
23._______
communist soldiers.
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24. Communist soldiers came to the Hmong villages and captured the
24._______
men.
25. They tied the Hmong’s hands behind their backs and took them
25._______
away.
26. The Hmong men kneeled down and begged fro their lives, but the
26._______
soldiers didn’t listen.
27. The Hmong women couldn’t do anything to help.
27._______
28. They cried and cried because they knew they might never see t
28._______
heir husbands and sons again.
29. My father was sent to fight in Xieng Khuang province.
29._______
30. He never came back.
30._______
31. We don’t know whether he was killed or captured.
31._______
________________________________________________________
32. Airplanes dropped bombs on the Hmong villages.
32._______
33. Many houses were destroyed by flames.
33._______
34. Women and children fled into the jungle and lived in huts made
34._______
from banana leaves.
35. I remember having to get up in the middle of the night, feeling so
35._______
afraid because we had to flee our hiding place.
36. Sometimes we hid in the forest, or in caves until the communist
36._______
soldiers left.
37. The communist soldiers shot at the Hmong men.
37._______
38. The guerrilla soldiers came from their camps in the jungle and
38._______
shot at the communists.
39. Many people died.
39._______
________________________________________________________
40. In 1975 the Americans pulled out of Laos and the communist
regime took over.
40._______
41. My mother was determined to get us out of Laos.
41._______
42. I was 10 years old when we fled.
42._______
43. Escaping meant we had to cross the Mekong River.
43._______
44. But the river was dangerous.
44._______
45. People who didn’t have boats had to cross by swimming or using
45._______
inner tubes and bamboo poles to stay afloat.
46. Many people died trying to cross this river.
46._______
________________________________________________________
47. Like other escaping Hmong, we lived in a refugee camp when we
47._______
arrived in Thailand.
48. We lived in barracks.
48._______
49. Some families planted small gardens.
49._______
50. All the Hmong were very homesick.
50._______
51. Earlier in Laos, my mother had destroyed all the documents we
51._______
had relating to my father and the war.
52. So we didn’t have anything to prove my father was actually
52._______
fighting on the side of the Americans.
53. But when we got to the camp, one of my father’s friends gave us
53._______
a photo of my father taken at the front lines.
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54. The U.S. government sent staff to interview the Hmong refugees
54._______
to determine who would be able to emigrate to America.
55. When the American lady came to interview us, the photo of my
55._______
father was our proof that we were qualified as political refugees.
56. In 1979, after four and a half years in the camp, we left Thailand
56._______
for America.
57. As the buses left the camp, we said goodbye to all the people we
knew.
57._______
58. In some families there were members who had to stay behind in
58._______
Thailand, while their relatives were allowed to go to America.
59. Many people cried.
59._______
________________________________________________________
60. When my people first arrived in America, most didn’t speak or
60._______
write English.
61. Many families had sponsors, who picked us up at the airport.
61._______
62. Everything about life in America was different for the Hmong.
62._______
63. I was 15 years old when I came to this country.
63._______
64. I’d never been to school, so I had to start everything from scratch.
64._______
65. They wanted to put me in high school, but I didn’t know
65._______
anything.
66. Then they wanted to put me in an adult school, but the teachers
said I was too young.
66._______
67. Finally, I started high school.
67._______
68. Thirteen years later, I received my master’s degree from Northern
68._______
Arizona University.
69. I went back to Laos as an anthropologist in 1992 to work with
69._______
Hmong and Lao women in the refugee camps in Thailand.
________________________________________________________
70. This story cloth reminds me of the history of my family and of
70._______
my people.
71. Some of the memories it brings are good, and some are bad.
71._______
72. But it is important for me to remember everything the Hmong
72._______
have been through.
73. Hmong women in America continue to stitch new story cloths.
73._______
74. We all have vivid memories about our lives and culture and
74._______
history.
75. The story cloth is a bridge to all the generations before us.
75._______
76. When I show the story cloth to my niece and nephew, who were
76._______
both born here in the United States, I point to different pictures and
tell them that this is what it was like.