After arriving in America as a baby in her mother’s arms, Yia grew up trying to be anything but Hmong. Her mother’s life was measured by recipes, rituals, and sacrifice—Yia wanted possibility, freedom, and her own voice.

Years later, standing beside her mother at the stove, she began to see what she had missed: the grace in her mother’s movements, the language of care spoken through food. One meal at a time, they found their way back to each other.

Told through tender storytelling and vivid scenes from their kitchens in Laos, Thailand, and America, In Yer’s Kitchen is a daughter’s return to her roots and a portrait of a woman who carried her family through war, migration, and silence. It is a story about inheritance, belonging, and the quiet power of seeing one another as mother and daughter, woman to woman.