Born in 1987: The Dial-Up Discoverer
Hearing the Future Connect
Born in 1987? Then you remember the screech of the dial-up modem, typing a/s/l to a stranger, and the whole family waiting to use the only phone line in the house.
The story
The first time Pao Xiong heard the internet, he thought it was broken. It was two days before Christmas in 1997, and a computer in a spotted cow-print box sat on the living-room carpet while his father watched with his arms crossed.
Born in 1987: The Dial-Up Discoverer is a first-person life story of a boy born in Oroville, California, to a Hmong refugee family. His father worked in a mill and fought in the Secret War in Laos. His mother farms and sells long beans. Pao grows up between two languages and two worlds, and the book is told in the language of the searches he typed along the way, from how do i get on the internet to hmong new year oroville.
There is the first chat room in 1999, with a girl named Bree who lives in Paradise. There is a Butte College football program signed by Aaron Rodgers and kept in a Ziploc bag. There are emails from a best friend deployed overseas, an interest-rate letter that puts the family's yellow house in danger, and a drive to Fresno for a funeral that matters to an entire people.
The years carry him on: a Hmong wedding with a non-Hmong bride, a newborn at the time the Oroville Dam evacuation is ordered, and the day in 2018 when Paradise, the safest town in California, burns. After that he checks the smoke forecast every morning, and the book is told by its colors. It ends at a Hmong New Year in 2026, where a daughter throws a tennis ball and says, Dad, you're supposed to catch it.
The story is warm, honest, and often funny, with real pain and a lot of love. A timeline of 1987, famous people born that year, and a look at what the year means in other cultures appear at the back.
It is a lovely birthday gift for a husband, brother, or friend of the dial-up generation,.
A few things that happened in 1987
- 1987-02-23 — Astronomers see Supernova 1987A, the brightest exploding star seen from Earth in nearly 400 years
- 1987-03-09 — U2 releases The Joshua Tree
- 1987-04-19 — The Simpsons first appear, in short cartoons on The Tracey Ullman Show
- 1987-06-12 — In West Berlin, President Reagan says, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
- 1987-07-07 — Oliver North begins testifying in the Iran-Contra hearings
Also born in 1987
- Novak Djokovic — Tennis player; won a record 24 Grand Slam men's singles titles and the 2024 Olympic gold medal. Widely considered one of the greatest players of all time
- Lionel Messi — Soccer forward; won a record eight Ballon d'Or awards and led Argentina to the 2022 World Cup title. Often called the greatest soccer player of all time
- Karim Benzema — Soccer striker; Real Madrid's all-time great forward and winner of the 2022 Ballon d'Or
- Cesc Fàbregas — Soccer midfielder; set up the winning goal in the 2010 World Cup final for Spain
- Andy Murray — Tennis player; won three Grand Slam titles, including Wimbledon in 2013 (the first British man to win it in 77 years), and two Olympic golds in singles