Assimilation: The Drawbacks of Cross-Cultural Misunderstandings

In Hmong’s, they have their own traditional beliefs in which they hardly ever alter due to a different atmosphere. Some of the Hmong beliefs are they prefer traditional medicine, are culturally active, host ritual ceremonies, and are spirituality influenced. In the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, refers to the Hmong culture and their beliefs on medicine while their baby Lia Lee, is suffering from epilepsy in which they have a hard decision. Traditional Hmong’s have their own medicinal beliefs which they obey prior to obtaining Western medicine. The gulf between Western medicine and Hmong health beliefs is an impossible abyss. Also, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down describes the life of Hmong refugees assimilating to

Lia is born of a loving Hmong family, and just three months into her life, begins to reveal epileptic symptoms. According to the Hmong community, the condition is curable, and the presence of spirits in such a patient’s soul is considered a blessing. However, American doctors in a community medical center fail to understand and appreciate Lia’s parents’ approach to the child’s disease, and are only interested in saving this child’s life. As the conflict develops, it becomes apparent that the child will not be healed; but this is not without the doctors realizing the importance of compromise. In this book, Anne Fadiman claims, “I have come to believe that her [Lia’s] life

1. The client system, in this case the Lee family, defines Lia’s seizures as both a spiritual and physical ailment. According to Fadiman (1997), “…the noise of the door had been so profoundly frightening that her soul had fled her body and become lost. They recognized the resulting symptoms as qaug dab peg, which means ‘the spirit catches you and you fall down’”(p.20). To the Lee family, Lia’s condition was as revered as it was frightening. While a person with qaug dab peg was traditionally held in high esteem in the Hmong culture, it was also terrifying enough that the Lee’s rushed Lia to the emergency room more than once in the first few months

In the book “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down,” author Anne Fadiman presents a character who suffered from epilepsy as a Hmong child who born on July 19, 1982, in Merced, California. Being the fourteenth child of Foua Yang and Nao Kao Lee, Lia Lee was their favorite daughter. They spoiled her and treated her like a princess; believed that her epilepsy marked her as special; and that she might someday become a shaman, which is a person regards as having access to. Because of their belief, the Lees were both concerned and proud of Lia. They brought her to the Merced Community Medical Center (MCMC) for treatment, Meanwhile, they also practiced traditional healing that involved call back her soul using tvic neeb.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman is about the cross-cultural ethics in medicine. The book is about a small Hmong child named Lia Lee, who had epilepsy. Epilepsy is called, quag dab peg1 in the Hmong culture that translates to the spirit catches you and you fall down. In the Hmong culture this illness is sign of distinction and divinity, because most Hmong epileptics become shaman, or as the Hmong call them, txiv neeb2. These shamans are special people imbued with healing spirits, and are held to those having high morale character, so to Lia's parents, Foua Yang and Nao Kao Lee, the disease was both a gift and a curse. The main question in this case was could Lia have survived if her parent's and the doctors overcame

Lia Lee was a Hmong infant born with epilepsy. Lia’s parents were immigrants to a Western nation. However, the parents held tightly onto traditional beliefs from their native country. The incongruent belief structure of the East and West created difficulty when the two systems collided in an effort to care for Lia Lee. Specifically, when the drug therapy prescribed for Lia Lee was not followed by her parents. Subsequently the child’s medical team contacted child services, which lead to Lia’s removal from her family. The result of the cultural misunderstanding was fragmented family. In addition to fueling the distrust of the western healthcare system by an already marginalized community.

In ‘The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down’, Lia, a Hmong baby girl, is born to a Hmong family living in California as refugees away from their war torn land in Laos. In Laos the Lee’s where farmers and lived in the country according to their Hmong traditions and beliefs. In California they barely understood the language, much less Western culture or medicinal practices. In Hmong tradition, illness was seen as a spiritual problem rather than a physical problem and a Shaman that practiced spiritual ceremonies and used natural remedies was sought to prevent or cure certain illnesses and/or diseases; so when Lia suffered her first seizure at the age of 3 months and was taken to Mercer

“In the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”, Anne Fadiman explores the subject of cross cultural misunderstanding. This she effectively portrays using Lia, a Hmong, her medical history, the misunderstandings created by obstacles of communication, the religious background, the battle with modernized medical science and cultural anachronisms. Handling an epileptic child, in a strange land in a manner very unlike the shamanistic animism they were accustomed to, generated many problems for her parents. The author dwells on the radically different cultures to highlight the necessity for medical communities to have an understanding of the immigrants when treating them.

I have to admit when I first read “The spirit catches you and you fall down” I thought it would be pretty boring turns out its one of the most interesting books I have ever read. The cultural conflicts can apply to anyone and knowing a little bit more now what the Hmong people have actually gone through can make everyone develop a great amount of respect for the culture. The Lee family continuously went full force colliding with the American ways in order to protect their traditions so they could preserve their culture. Unfortunately, in the end it didn’t help them but that was all they knew considering the fact that that the doctors at MCMC hospital didn’t really go out of their way to explain procedures it only makes sense for the Lee family to revert back to what they know in their traditions.

Many Americans believe that the Hispanic race such as Latinos and Mexicans are migrating to the United States to threaten and divide the U.S into two cultures and two languages. Samuel P. Huntington states, " Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexican and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves" ( Huntington). Not all Americans believe this is true on the contrary they support the Hispanic people. These people migrate to the United States with a chance of coming for a better future,

Pluralism is when society consists of a variance of people; however, people stay in groups in which they can identify themselves with causing culture differences to live on. Pluralism is different than assimilation significantly. This is because pluralism is when people group themselves with similar people to keep living their unique cultural lifestyle and assimilation is when people of unique cultures conform to the culture that surrounds them (48). Rather than promoting the blend of culture, the idea of assimilation, also called Americanization, in the past ensured the English language would thrive and the early institutions would remain for years to come (48-49). This varies to pluralism which welcomes the idea of racial, ethnic and cultural differences.

Overall, American culture is constructed through the assimilation of cultural groups throughout its history. For example, the Hot Dog is an american mean, yet it was the Germans that first created it and brought to America. The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council wrote, “As it turns out, it is likely that the North American hot dog comes from a widespread common European sausage brought here by butchers of several nationalities” (NHDSC). The staple food of American culture, is not even from America. In the same way, American music is the byproduct of other cultures that lived in the US: “American roots music draws on the lived experience of ordinary men and women, who were and often still are defined and limited by cultural constructions of

The scholars of the Chicago School of Sociology have presented a theory of assimilation that generally states that people of different cultures and ethnicities that come into the United States (also applies to other countries as well) will have contact with American culture which will generate conflict. These people of a different culture or ethnicity will eventually acculturate and integrate into a so called “Melting Pot” of culture in which they will give off their own unique flavor but will eventually blend into mainstream society. I feel that this theory is quite eloquently constructed, but is rather limiting and not necessarily representative of every ethnic group that assimilated in the United States and should be broadened to

Immigration into a First World country other than one’s own creates a border between one and the country they now reside in. Immigrants come into these countries knowing that they will be seen as aliens and foreigners to people already living there. In order to become socially accepted by the community, assimilation becomes the only solution they possess to feel better about themselves. Assimilation into First World country cultures disrupts the flow of cultural knowledge, which causes cultural alienation, resulting in traditional customs to be left in ruins, therefore integration of cultures rather than assimilating to First World country traditions becomes a better way of life.

How many technological devices do you use daily? In this day and age, the list would probably include smart phones, laptop computers, tablets, or more, but do you know where these devices were made? Even if your device was assembled locally, there is a good chance that the parts inside come from a collaboration of companies working together from all over the globe that are part of the global supply chain. For the last few decades, more and more companies rely on outsourcing, to produce their products and to provide services. Which in effect has globalized our world, and depends on countries being able to collaborate and work together to provide the products and services demanded by the customers at the end of the supply chain. As an