Not quite the enlightenment it's made out to be.

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	• The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Anne Fadiman Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 210 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Life Lesson to be sensitive and ethnorelative

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anne Fadiman, the author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for general nonfiction, the Salon Book Award for nonfiction, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for current interest nonfiction, and the Boston Book Review Ann Rea Jewell Award for nonfiction. In 1997, Fadiman delivered the Phi Beta Kappa orations at both Harvard (of which she is a 1975 graduate) and Yale. She was a 1991-92 recipient of a John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford. She was a staff writer at Life, won a National Magazine Award for Reporting for her reportage on suicide among the elderly. She lives with her husband and two children in western Massachusetts, where she teaches nonfiction writing at Smith College. She also was raised by parents who were well known writers.

SUMMARY OF THE BOOK
This is the story about the painful and difficult process of acculturation of Hmong ethnic, in general, and Lees family, in particular, with the culture of US, especially with the Health Care Providers. As first generation and newly immigrants, the Lees family with their own culture, spiritual beliefs, and moral ethics, were shocked with the force of the culture of Western biomedicine for the treatment of their daughter, Lia, who had epilepsy attack. Both cultures have their own truth and strong moral reason of their behaviors and practices that clash can not be avoided, especially when it is considered as an emergency cases. The doctors sued the family of being non cooperated with the Western treatment and the mother almost committed suicide of being seperated from her daughter. Anne Fadiman has presented a very good job in emphasizing more on the facts and reality of being culturally different, instead of condemning either of the cultural values.

This story also teaches us to accept, adapt, integrate, and be sensitive with the `otherness' of others, that can help diminish the unease of others. As Health Care Providers or future Public Health Practicioners and have learnt about the current challenge of demographic change and to be culturally and linguistically competent in this `melting pot' society, the lesson learnt from this book about understanding the `otherness' will be much appreciated and beneficial.

AUTHOR'S POSITION
What I like the most from the author is the way she put herself in the neutral position as an equitable explorer. Her statement of facts is more dominant than her own cultural background as a Western person. The accuracy of her writing can be verified by objective observation and divergent views from both culture sides. The language style is more denotative than connotative, respect the difference; she does not show any excessive critical tone to either of the two different cultures. I read one of the Hmong person's responses to this book and how amazed he is about the author's ability to explore and dig the Hmong culture in a very detail and objective way. I personally feel that she is free of value judgment and careless comparisons in her book.

Key areas of conflict
Though there are a huge misunderstanding due to language barrier, the key areas of conflict, for me, are more on the issuess of self pride and cultural fanatism. Coincidentally, Lia's case became a strong precipitation to the encounter of both of these strong cultures with it's own ethnocentricity. Through the writer's study, she found that: `Among the most obvious of these are that the Hmong do no like to take orders; that they do not like to lose; that they would rather flee, fight, or die than surrender; that they are not intimidated by being outnumbered; that they are rarely persuaded that the customs of other culture, even those more powerful than their own, are superior, and that they are capable of getting very angry' (page 17). The other realms of the arrogance of science and medicines as the only truth are very dominant among Western culture. Because Lia's parents rejected the Western medications, her American doctors have mistaken power for knowledge by ordering over-ride parental love, belief, and responsibility from Lia's parents to Foster Care for 10 months.

Fadiman went through long process of inventing the understanding of these misunderstandings between two opposite poles of the most sophisticated medical system and the faith and persistence of an ancient culture. She ended up with a great respect and admiration for the Hmong community and its devotion to its beliefs and rituals - without unrespecting the Western medicine. She personally mention in one of the interview to her that she had learnt how to become more loving and caring mother as Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, have displayed to their children.

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journalistic account that reads like a novel

Anne Fadiman did an unbelievable job of remaining non-judgemental in this tragic account of a Hmong family facing culture clash in California while trying to manage the epilepsy of a beloved daughter.

The interesting story of the Hmong people and their journey bringing them to the US helped shape my understanding of their difficulty assimilating here. The author clearly (and in an entertaining fashion) illustrates that the Hmong language, culture (and cultural "laws"), diet, religion and medical practices are all enmeshed. As a reader, I really felt for this family, who wanted so desperately to help their child in such a foreign culture.

The author's non-biased account evoked great empathy from me for all involved - the child, her parents (and family and community), the doctors, social workers and other caregivers. I really felt that I came away from reading this novel with a greater understanding for those from other cultures who have difficulty adapting to a new one.

The book really reads like a novel, and I found myself looking for the "bad guy"...but the unbiased account ultimately never provides one. I really feel that anyone in the health care industry would be well-served to read this book. The author presents a solution to situations like these involving the need of a "cultural broker", which is far more than a simple interpreter.

In this melting pot we live in, this is a very worthwhile read for anyone, but a must for healthcare professionals.

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Cultural Awareness

This book was purchased for my Cross-Cultural Psychology class and is just amazing! It has brought tears to my eyes. The storyline is about a family from Laos who comes the US as refugees, and as their daughter becomes ill, you see how culture really affects the decisions made about life and death. A wonderful read.

Highly Recommended for anyone who wants to expand their knowledge on cultural awareness.

compassionate and meticulous

Anne Fadiman is eloquent, engaging, knowledgeable, compassionate, and extremely meticulous. The research that must have gone into this work is staggering. Although no one should pick this book up expecting a novel, the strength of Fadiman's storytelling draws her reader in from the very first page, and she proves that truth is sometimes more startling than fiction.

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Not quite the enlightenment it's made out to be.

Many of the reviews here praise the book for its balance in presenting two sides of a serious cultural clash- one that leaves a little girl brain dead by the end. Ostensibly, neither side is right nor wrong, and well, the fact that this girl ends up as a vegetable is just how it goes in this awkward dance between the Hmong family and the American doctors treating her.

Phooey. A little girl gets treated by competent, caring doctors, who do their damnedest to insure that this girl gets the care she deserves, and her superstitious family stymies their every attempt at healing. They throw vital anti-seizure medicine away, ignore it on the shelf, double dose when they do remember, and otherwise cling to their animistic beliefs in trying to cure her. There is no doubt that the family loves this girl, but it breaks my heart to see such utter negligence in caring for a child. I don't care that they have these charming native ceremonies or are a proud, downtrodden race. Presented with the best medicine the world can offer, they prefer to sacrifice chickens instead- and wonder why their girl falls apart at the seams.

If anything, this book is a stark, yet unconscious, advertisement for missionaries to go and "tame the savages". On every page I wanted to slap the parents silly, and have their custody terminated by the state.

I generally feel uncomfortable at making jingoistic statements about how we in the west know what's best for the world, but my god, what more obvious illustration can there be than this book?

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

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