Also, although the great majority of the letters I've received from Hmong readers have been positive, most of the negative ones have criticized me for telling a story that was not mine to tell. I am no lover of identity politics; I believe that anyone should be allowed to write about anyone. Still, I would have harbored the same proprietary resentment had I been they. It was exactly how I felt thirty years ago, when women's voices were harder to hear because men were drowning them out. Now that young Hmong writers are starting to publish--including Mai Neng Moua, who edited a landmark literary anthology called , and Kao Kalia Yang, who wrote a fierce, sad memoir called --I am happy to shut up and listen. I hope is settling into its proper place not as the book about the Hmong but as a book about communication and miscommunication across cultures.