About this title: The author tells the story of the Lees, a family of Hmong refugees in California whose epileptic baby daughter, Lia, is taken in hand by the Western medical establishment. The Lees believe that Lia's condition is caused by spirits called dabs, who had caught her and made her fall down. Her doctors want to treat her condition with sophisticated drugs, which her parents refuse to give her. In this sad tale of cultural misunderstanding, two incompatible worlds collide, with heart-wrenching consequences. Nominated for the 1998 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.
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Your search:Books»The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures(155 available copies)
Description: Good. 1998-Paperback----Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Noonday Press
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780374525644ISBN:0374525641
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Clean inside out, tight binding, very good cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 341 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: PAPERBACK
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN-13:9780374525644ISBN:0374525641
Description: Good. 0374525641 26099 PB: spine smooth, pages clean, cover has slight shelf wear-allow up to 21 business days for standard USPS media m ai l. wt1lbpf. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780374525644ISBN:0374525641
Description: Very Good. 0374525641. Markings in text; wear to edges; cover shows gentle rubbing. Still a solid reading copy, clean and tightly bound. Cultural Studies. Pasadena's finest independent new and used bookstore.; 1.2 x 8.2 x 5.5 Inches; 352 pages. read more
Description: Fine; Collectible. First paperback edition. No writings/underlines/highlights. Pages are very nice and clean. Free track. Fast! Satisfaction guaranteed! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date Published: 1998-09-28
ISBN-13:9780374525644ISBN:0374525641
Description: Very good. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Paperback. Pages are clean and free from markings and/or highlighting, with tight binding. Light crease to bottom corner of front cover; crease to upper corner of front free end page. 1/8" tear to front cover at base of spine. 327. read more
"This book was required reading for a linguistic anthropology course, but I wound up thoroughly enjoying it. The book draws you in without you realizing it."
"Anne Fadiman addresses a number of difficult topics in her depiction of a Hmong couple's quest to restore the soul to their child. While I consider myself a culturally sensitive individual, having been raised in a family of doctors and nurses, I have long held the conviction that the world's best doctors (whether imported or native) tread on American soil. Reading Fadiman's account (which sometimes includes actual excerpts from the patient's charts), I was forced to take a hard look at my assumptions. In the course of reading this book, I have redefined my idea of what constitutes a good doctor.
Fadiman spent hundreds of hours interviewing doctors, social workers, members of the Hmong community--anyone who was somehow involved in Lia Lee's medical nightmare. She pored over years of medical records, trying to make sense of the events that caused a spirited, loving toddler to slowly devolve into a vegetative state. What she found was that the doctors' orders, prescribed medications, hospital care, etc., were all based on a number of Western assumptions that did not take the family's (and child's) best interests into consideration. No attempt was made to understand how the family saw the disease or what efforts they were making on their own to address the situation. More than a translator, what doctors and other professionals involved in Lia's case needed was a "cultural broker" who could have stepped in and possibly saved Lia's brain from further deterioration.
Fadiman's book is a difficult read, not because of specialized vocabulary or lofty philosophical concepts, but because there comes a point when the reader realizes that the barriers faced by those involved were much more cultural than they were linguistic. In a very real way, the Lees inhabited a different world than the doctors, and vice-versa. Each assumed that their way was best, and neither made a genuine effort to understand the other's motivations, much less their logic. In the end, there was no simple solution to their plight, but more mutual respect and understanding of the differences between the cultures would have benefitted everyone involved.
If there is a moral to Fadiman's work, it may be this: The best doctors are not those who know the most, but rather those who admit what they do not know, and try to understand the full picture. Good doctors may treat the disease, but the best doctors treat the individual."
"Amazing book. In my work with people with developmental disabilities and epilepsy, I've seen a lot of examples of the disconnect between doctor and patient -- and that's even when both speak a common language and have a common cultural understanding of their roles. This book tells the story of an extreme example, in which the patient's parents neither understood the doctors nor trusted them, and the medical system held a reciprocal inability to understand where the family was coming from. In telling this one story, the author also goes into the history and culture of the Hmong people both in Laos and the US. It is both riveting and devastating.
My one initial irritation was with the author's continual use of the term "epileptic", which is very much out of favor right now, but wasn't at the time that she wrote the book. The preferred term is "people with epilepsy", in order to stress that individuals with the disorder are not identified solely by their symptoms. I got used to her archaic terminology over the course of the book, and I'm sure the author would be the first to agree with the spirit behind the change."
"This is a fabulous book. I read it several years ago when we were beginning to learn about the Hmong people coming to California and to our schools. I reread it last week after reading Fieldwork (and finding out the the tribe of people he writes about is made up) in order to get a better sense of what people from the hill tribes in Southeast Asia believe, think, and experience. In the case of this book, those thoughts and experiences are in direct conflict with the new country of residence for the Hmong. This is a true story about a young Hmong girl, living in Fresno, who has epilepsy (as diagnosed by western doctors) and something very spiritual (as believed by her parents). The book describes the frustrations on the parts of both the American doctors and the Hmong family and community in dealing with western medicine + gives some important information about the history of the Hmong and why they have moved to the U.S. This book is a MUST for anyone working with Hmong children, and I also think would be fascinating to anyone interested in learning more about people who are different than they are in beliefs and attitudes."
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