The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down | Anne Fadiman

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down | Anne Fadiman | The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

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The Spirit Catches...

	The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Anne Fadiman Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 215 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for NonfictionWhen three-month-old Lia Lee Arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos. The Hmong, traditionally a close-knit and fiercely people, have been less amenable to assimilation than most immigrants, adhering steadfastly to the rituals and beliefs of their ancestors. Lia's pediatricians, Neil Ernst and his wife, Peggy Philip, cleaved just as strongly to another tradition: that of Western medicine. When Lia Lee Entered the American medical system, diagnosed as an epileptic, her story became a tragic case history of cultural miscommunication.Parents and doctors both wanted the best for Lia, but their ideas about the causes of her illness and its treatment could hardly have been more different. The Hmong see illness aand healing as spiritual matters linked to virtually everything in the universe, while medical community marks a division between body and soul, and concerns itself almost exclusively with the former. Lia's doctors ascribed her seizures to the misfiring of her cerebral neurons; her parents called her illness, qaug dab peg--the spirit catches you and you fall down--and ascribed it to the wandering of her soul. The doctors prescribed anticonvulsants; her parents preferred animal sacrifices.

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Great read and hard to put down!

I bought this book as part of my coursework in Public Health Nursing. It is a wonderful book. It speaks to our general lack of cultural awareness from the medical community standpoint. It also opened my eyes to a strong and brilliant culture (Hmong). I am glad that my instructor recommended this book.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

This was an wonderfully written nonfiction book that offers insight for helping professionals working with the Hmong population. The author gives a detailed account of how cultural and communication barriers affected medical treatment for a Hmong child. The outcome for this child and family could likely have been different had the professionals understood more about the Hmong culture and had been able to communicate with the family, incorporating their beliefs and understanding of the child's diagnosis. This book reminds helping professionals that utilizing an interpreter with cultural brokering skills is beneficial for everyone involved.

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Eye Opening

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down chronicles the story of a little epileptic Hmong girl whose family does not accept the ways of the Western world and Western medicine. After reading this book, I find that I am more understanding to other cultures and ways of life. I too held almost an elitist opinion of the "American Way". This book gives a glimpse into the other side of the story. Good parenting is subjective and cultural. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who would like to become more open-minded and accepting.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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