In her new book, ‘The Rock in My Throat,’ Kao Kalia Yang shares her struggle with selective mutism

Kao Kalia Yang spent much of her young life in silence. Decades ago, when she was in second grade, the award-winning author of “The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir” decided to stop speaking in English. She’d seen strangers be rude and impatient when her refugee parents struggled to find the correct words, and she’d had enough: she stopped speaking outside of her home.

“It was my rebellion,” Yang, 43, said, but before long this act of resistance snowballed, and she began to struggle with selective mutism, an anxiety disorder where a person is unable to speak in certain social situations while remaining comfortable speaking around family at home. The disorder, which usually effects young children, and sometimes extends to adolescents, is experienced by a disproportionate number of English-language learners.

For years, Yang considered her silent childhood just a part of her personal history, but when her editor and agent asked if she’d ever thought of writing a children’s book about selective mutism, the words came tumbling out. “Within the hour I had a draft of the book,” Yang said. “It was right there. All this time it was living right there.”

That nearly flawless first draft turned out to be Yang’s latest book, the richly illustrated “The Rock in my Throat,” a book for young readers published by Carolrhoda Books, an imprint of Minneapolis-based Lerner Publishing Group, about the years she spent with her words locked inside. Yang envisions the book as a source of support and hope for young people who struggle to find words — as well for the parents and educators who care about them. 

“For me the hope is always that this book, particularly because it is a children’s book, will make some other child feel less lonely,” she said. Recently Yang and I spoke about her childhood, her writing and the mental health impact of selective mutism. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

MinnPost: When you decided to stop speaking outside of your home, how well did you speak and understand English?

Kao Kalia Yang: My English was actually fine by then. I was communicating well in English when I decided to stop talking. It just happened. Eventually I could  no longer control it. I was 6 years old on July 27, 1987, when I came to Minnesota from a refugee camp in Thailand. When I got here, I tested at first-grade level, so that’s where I started when I went to school.

MP: Do you remember the exact moment when you stopped talking?

KKY: My mom and I went to the store. We were at Kmart. We went up to the counter. My mom didn’t know where the light bulbs were and she didn’t know the words for light bulb. So she said to the clerk, “I am looking for the thing that makes the world shiny.” The clerk started tapping on the counter and then she finally just walked away. We thought she was going to come back and tell us where the light bulbs were. We waited, but 15 minutes passed. The clerk never came back.

Growing up, my dad used to tell me that my mom was the bravest person he knew. In Laos, when the bombs fell, he said that she would not bow her head. That was why he wanted to be with her because my mom was so brave. In the refugee camps of Thailand my mom had six miscarriages. There was so much blood loss each time that they worried she would die. So I had this idea that my mom was incredibly brave and incredibly beautiful. That day at Kmart I can still remember that my mom bowed her head. When I looked up at her I was amazed. I’d seen the whole thing.

In the other spaces of our life I had already seen how when my mom and dad tried to talk in English, other people would walk away or get inpatient. I decided if people in this new world we lived in did not listen to my mother or my father, they did not need to hear me. I became a selective mute the next day. At first it was a great revelation. But slowly the words built up inside of me. Every time I began to talk it felt like my voice would trigger stares. By second grade I was no longer talking at school.

MP: In your book, you write that your selective mutism eventually got to the point where you wanted to speak but just felt like you couldn’t, like you had a rock stuck in your throat whenever you left your house. What did that feel like?

KKY: By second grade I lost all control. When I tried to talk, my face would get red and I couldn’t make a sound. I was talking all the time at home. I was writing so much. I became a much stronger writer than a speaker. But in the outside world, I just couldn’t talk.

I was so lonely. I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t talk to my teachers, so school was a really lonely place. My mom would say things to me like, “I don’t know why you don’t talk at school.” She understood my loneliness. She was trying to get me to talk but she didn’t know the cause of my silence. I couldn’t talk. So I just looked at the world and looked at other kids and tried to be kind. If someone needed a pencil, I’d lend it to them. If I had gum, I would share it.

MP: Despite the fact that you didn’t speak, you excelled in school. How did you manage that when you weren’t talking to anyone? 

KKY: I spent a lot of years just listening. Teachers were always like, “Can you speak louder?” I learned to control the volume of my listening. There are some kids who talk all the time. I could just look at them and not hear them. There were other kids who never talked. I would listen very hard and hear what they wanted to share with the world. I could decide to listen or not listen.

In middle school I sat in the front of the classroom. I followed the teacher with my eyes and then they could tell if I wasn’t understanding them. If I sat in the back of the room, I would fall asleep, so I sat in the front to stay awake. I went to Harding High School where 51% of the student population was Hmong. I was in the IB track there. At first I got pretty good grades. I was tied for second place in the class rankings.

MP: You eventually graduated from Carleton College. Were you speaking more by then?

KKY: I still didn’t talk much at Carleton. There was a professor there named Rich Keiser. He said to me, “Do you know it is selfish to just absorb knowledge? You are here because you are going to become a producer of knowledge.” It was then that I realized that my silence could be read as selfishness. I thought at the beginning, when I stopped speaking, that the world wanted me to not talk. Then I realized that the people in my life needed me to talk.

MP: Have you met other people who are selectively mute? What have your interactions been like with them?

KKY: As an adult I know that there are selective mutes everywhere. I teach classes and I have had students who don’t speak. There are so many reasons why they don’t talk. Last week I did a reading at a school. After I read the book aloud this little girl raised her hand and said, “My mother doesn’t speak English well. She speaks Spanish. Other people get frustrated when she speaks Spanish.”

The girl saw how the world treated her mother. This hurt her. Because of that, I gave her a [pre-publication copy] of the new book. She said she was going to give it to her mother so she knows that she isn’t the only person who struggles with this.

MP: These days, you’ve given speeches around the country. How did you get more comfortable with talking in front of others?

KKY: I’m never comfortable with public speaking. The launch of “The Latehomecomer” happened in 2008. That was the first night I really spoke to be heard, but it wasn’t easy. When I got up to speak, I couldn’t talk; the room was full of 300 people. Many of them were the teachers who had taught me in the public schools. I didn’t expect so many people would be there. I tried several times to speak, but I couldn’t. Then my dad walked up to me and said, “If Hmong tears could reincarnate then they would rain the world with our sorrow, but they can only green the mountains of Phou Bia. But if you speak, the winds of humanity will blow and then maybe our lives were not lost in vain.” After he said that, I got up and I spoke with the intention of being heard. You whisper to get by. You speak to be heard. That night I spoke to be heard.

After that, I thought maybe I’d speak a few more times and write my next book. What happened was I realized that when I spoke at a reading the books were selling. In those first three years after publication, I gave over 365 talks a year.

MP: Why do you think selective mutism is more common among kids who are English-language learners?

KKY: Teachers tell me all the time that they have kids who are new to the language or the country and they don’t talk in school. These are kids who have experienced a lot of trauma. In the refugee camp, I saw a lot of terrible things. Not speaking is a way of coping.

MP: When you weren’t speaking, were there any ways that other people could help and support you?

KKY: My third-grade teacher was named Miss Swanson. I never talked to her out loud, but Miss Swanson would ask me questions even if I wouldn’t answer. One day she asked me, “Why are you wearing such a big blue t-shirt?” My mom had gotten it for me from the thrift shop. My answer was, “I’ve never been to the ocean. I want to swim in a sea of blue,” but I couldn’t tell her that.

Years later, I gave a reading for the St. Paul Public Schools. Miss Swanson was there. She was crying. She said she was afraid that she’d failed me. I said she hadn’t. So many teachers feel like they failed because a kid didn’t talk to them. But the truth is the kid just needs time.

What felt like support to me was someone making it clear that they knew I was there even if I couldn’t talk to them. Selective mutism is a disability. I think of all these different moments when I could have spoken back and supported my mom or my dad or my sister. On those occasions I wanted to speak, but I just couldn’t. My books are a way that I can finally speak up.