The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father

Kalia is Bee’s second daughter, the one he wanted to be a doctor. Instead, Kalia becomes a writer and college professor. Interestingly, though Kalia is the author of the text, the reader doesn’t gain a clear picture of Kalia as a person. She does reveal that, as a child, she suffered from selective mutism. Selective mutism is a psychological condition in which a child refuses to speak even though they are capable of doing so. Sometimes, these children will speak at home or to a certain family member, but almost always, they remain silent when out in public.

Kalia’s experience of selective mutism indicates the psychological turmoil she experienced transitioning from the refugee camp to her life as an immigrant in the United States. Part of her reason for not speaking may have been her fear of saying the wrong thing. There are at least two instances in which Kalia describes her fear of embarrassment: first, when her father prepared to perform his song poetry at the Hmong celebration of the New Year, and second, when her sister won the spelling bee and told everyone that she would use “the money to buy [their] father a pair of shoes that fit” (133).