Fadiman Essay

In this case study on cross cultural medicinal beliefs and practices, Anne Fadiman addresses the rift between Hmong spiritual and medicinal customs and the culture of American biomedicine by telling the story of a young Hmong child, Lia Lee. Lia’s journey started when she was three months old and she suffered her first of many epileptic seizures. Over the next few months she continued to suffer from her seizures and made at least three emergency room visits. Like most cases of epilepsy, the cause

year of 1997 by Anne Fadiman. The novel describes how the struggles experienced by an immigrant family who were from, Sinyabull Province in Asia during their time at a medical center in California. Fadiman narrates about a young child named Lia. Lia is the second born in her family and is suffering from epilepsy and causes her to have seizures. The novel exemplifies the cultures differences and clashes that are interfering with her regarding the treatment she is to receive. Fadiman also describes the

“The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman presents the story of a Hmong child and her family and the obstacles that they face through her battles with epilepsy. The story takes place in Merced, California and centered around the Merced Community Medical Center. The Hmong child is Lia Lee and her parents are Nao Kao and Foua Lee. The parents of Lia did not understand English nor do they speak it which caused a lot of confusion and commotion among the staffs as they tried their best

As provided by Fadiman, there are many instances where Hmong people and American doctors disagree and have a breakdown in communication. Rather than trying to bridge the gap between the two cultures, American doctors stubbornly kept trying to impose their way of healing

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down a Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman is a literary nonfiction story that takes place in Merced, California. The book centers around the Lee’s, a family of immigrants from Laos and Lia Lee, the Lee’s young daughter born afflicted with epilepsy. Lia was born happy and healthy in 1981 at Merced Community Medical Center (MCMC) in Merced, California. At three months of age Lia experiencing her first major seizure

filled with lots of emotion, anger, betrayal, misunderstandings and compassion. It talks about a Hmong family who lives in America and has a daughter named Lia Lee that is diagnosed with epilepsy. Fadiman explains the difficulty with communications between the two different cultures. Before Anne Fadiman became a writer she was a student at Harvard University. After graduating, she became a worker as a wilderness instructor in Wyoming before returning to her home town New York to pursue he career as

For instance, when Lia was three month ago, she had an epileptic seizure in which Lia’s mother Foua, and her father, Nao Kao, called the episode “the spirit catches you and you fall down” (Fadiman, 1997, p.20). According to Lia’s parents, it was a spiritual illness which Lia’s soul had fled out of her body (Fadiman, 1997, p. 21). On the other hand, Dr. Dan Murphy, who practiced Western medicine, diagnosed Lia Lee with epilepsy. The Ethnocentrism is the judging of other cultures by the standards of one’s

what they experienced. Lia, daughter of Nao Kao and Foua, was diagnosed at the age of three months with a neurological disorder called Epilepsy, which is characterized by having many seizures and other health problems. In this book, the author Anne Fadiman follows this family and learns their struggles and frustrations with cross-cultural communication and the United States interpreters and medical system. While reading this book, I noticed two very important theoretical perspectives: the Psychodynamic

In the story “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”, by Anne Fadiman is about a family who youngest child Lia Lee is diagnosed with epilepsy. Not only is the story about Lia Lee, but it also talks about the Hmong cultural group different beliefs compared to the American cultural beliefs. Throughout the story you see the differences throughout three different stages. Each stage shows at least one difference from the Hmong cultural belief, American cultural belief, and the techniques and practices

Anne Fadiman's “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” documents the continuous struggles faced between Western medicine in a California county hospital and traditional beliefs of the Hmong within a refugee family from Laos. Lia Lee, a Hmong baby, suffers from epilepsy and has many episodes of grand mal seizures. To medical professionals, seizures are episodes of abnormal neuronal brain activity. They are often caused by trauma, drug use, hypoglycemia, and hypoxia, but can also be triggered by

This fine book describes an impactful disaster. It has no legends or reprobates. However, it has a wealth of guiltless enduring, and it has a good. Fadiman advocates for specialists to consider their patients' stories about their illness and to attempt to utilize a model of collaboration as opposed to compulsion. For instance, Foua disclosed to Fadiman that she felt it was essential to utilize both Western pharmaceutical and religious approach. The Hmong trust that occasionally individuals get debilitated

Anne Fadiman documented this case and tried to untangle what exactly went wrong with the situation. Two key players in her narrative were Neil Ernst and Peggy Philp, the main doctors on Lia’s case. As Fadiman describes, “Neil and Peggy liked the Hmong, too, but they did not love them… [W]henever a patient crossed the compliance line, thus sabotaging their ability to be optimally effective doctors, cultural diversity ceased being a delicious spice and became a disagreeable obstacle.” (Fadiman 265)

emergency room and the Family Practice Center. (Fadiman, Chapters 3 and 5). Another medical encounter faced by the Lee family best depicts Lia’s obesity issue. Lia was defined as being fat and based on the physical growth chart Lia ranked in the fifth percentile for her height and age. However, her weight reached the seventy-fifth percentile, which made administrating injections into the veins quite difficult during the time of seizures. (Fadiman, Chapter 5 page 42-43). Moreover, there were consequences

Rhetorical Analysis on The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Kelsey Carter North Idaho College Author Note This paper was prepared for English 102, Section 09, taught by Audrey Cameron. Rhetorical Analysis of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down In Anne Fadiman’s book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures (1997), a Hmong family was faced with having to deal with westernized practices. Foua and Nao Kao, parents

diagnosis of epilepsy and faced by cultural inequality by her American doctors. Health care providers wrote Lia Lee off as a complex patient with severe communication barriers. Almost all of her admission notes contained the phrase” language barrier” (Fadiman, 2012). As she bounced back and forth between healthcare providers within the Emergency Room and pediatric visits, her doctor, Neil Ernst concurs that her parents are responsible for the communication barrier and non-compliance with prescribed treatment

exclusive to lavish events such as these and include everyday activities such as watching a football game and listening to a speech. Every belief, behavior, and symbolic system that a person shares with another is an example of culture. Authors Anne Fadiman and Joshua Reno explores the different aspects of culture and ethnography in their two books, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures, and Waste Away: Working and

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

Introduction The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman (1997), is a book that details the complicated journey of Lia Lee and her family, who were Hmong refugees living in Merced, California. Lia had a severe form of epilepsy that caused her to have many hospital visits and interactions with the health care system, where she received subpar care because of the language and cultural differences between the health care providers and her Hmong family. This paper will identify one social

book was written by essayist and reporter, Ann Fadiman and was published in 1997 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. There are 288 pages in this book. 2.) The book is non-fiction. 3.) When I was choosing a book, I was in utter confusion. I wasn 't a reader and I didn 't know where to look. Luckily, however, Professor Yanmei was able to show me this amazing book! 4.) There were many characters in this book, but I will only name the major ones: Anne Fadiman: Anne is author and narrator of this book. Lia

Anne Fadiman struggles to find the answer to who is responsible for Lia Lee’s health in her book, “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.” The book describes the clashing of both the medical community within Merced, California, and a Hmong refugee family, the Lees, cultural beliefs. The Lees daughter, Lia Lee, is plagued with a severe case of epilepsy, or qaug dab peg in Hmong, as a child and is administered to the Mercy Medical Center Merced, or MCMC, a hospital in Merced, California. The doctors