I Begin My Life All Over records the story of thirty-six Hmong immigrants to California, tracing their journey from the subsistence farms of Laos, through their harrowing escape into the camps of Thailand, and to relocation to a new continent, and to a new century. Interspersed throughout these first-person narratives, Lillian Faderman provides historical and cultural context, and draws rich comparisons between the experience of the Hmong in the 1990s and her mother's immigration from Eastern European shtetls in the 1930s.

pt. 1.End of a way of life -- Village -- Escape -- Camp -- pt. 2. Becoming American -- To a promised land -- Shamanism, Christianity, and modern medicine -- Women and men -- Battles between the generations -- Gangs -- Being American.