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 ...
read more
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Your search:Books»The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures(169 available copies)
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Noonday Press
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780374525644ISBN:0374525641
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. No writing, Not ex-library, Not a remainder. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 341 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Noonday Press
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780374525644ISBN:0374525641
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. clean, straight, well bound and unmarked, light wear. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 341 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN-13:9780374525644ISBN:0374525641
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN-13:9780374525644ISBN:0374525641
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN-13:9780374525644ISBN:0374525641
Description: Good. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date Published: 1998-09-28
ISBN-13:9780374525644ISBN:0374525641
Description: Like New. Like new, lightly read copy. Overall clean and tight. Minor shelf wear. Delivery confirmation on all domestic orders. Fast Shipping. 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."
"I think that every book has its points. This book is not only excellent but also educational. It shows us how different cultures treat injuries and their beliefs in treating them. Overall, it has a great storyline, it has alot of information and educates others how diffrent cultures handle medical problems."
"Anne Fadiman tells the story of a severely epileptic immigrant baby girl rendered brain dead by the American health care system in the alien world of Merced, California. The story did not merit even a clichéd mention in the Merced Sun-Star under the topic heading of “falling through the cracks,” or the “melting pot,” or “culture clash.” Had it news media attempted to elevated this story as a national narrative about immigration or assimilation, it would not, on the surface, seem the stuff of a riveting read. Ms. Fadiman, however, took notice and assiduously researched the story. The result of her persistence is a complex narrative of human drama akin to her analogy of “fish soup,” or the essence of the Hmong tribal people. The ingredients of the story include the history and animistic culture of a displaced Asian mountain tribe, the Hmong; the broken promises and failed war of the United States government in Southeast Asia; an inadequate and incompetent US immigration policy; the American care health system---as well as the welfare, judicial, legal, foster care and educational systems; small town prejudice; a close-up of the medical establishment and just about every other tired expression that can be summoned to define culture clash. All of this is spiced with the detailed personal stories of the baby’s refugee parents, Foua Yang and Nan Kao Lee and the baby’s primary care physicians, Neil Ernst and Peggy Philp. The stories and interviews from well meaning social workers, foster parents, Lee siblings and Hmong immigrants are juxtaposed against the anger, confusion and reputation of American health care workers and other indignant local inhabitants of Merced. The garnish comes with outside “expert” opinions on Hmong history, culture and religion, and insight into Western medical practice. At some early juncture in her nine years of research on this book, Fadiman realized the imperative of having a “cultural broker” to assist her in overcoming her ignorance about the Hmong and to transcend the language and cultural barriers that had made this story so incomprehensible. In finding a cultural broker, she was given access to the Hmong world. Ms. Fadiman becomes the de facto cultural broker in the telling of this riveting story and attempts to move our understanding beyond the tired clichés. Of course, this is as much a story about Ms. Fadiman's journey as it about the other major characters in the book. The narrative of this real life case is so bloated with the perceptions of competing antagonists that it is hard to decipher the reality. There are very few truths on which one might agree. Firstly, the Hmong are reluctant refugees in America and cannot return to their homeland. Secondly, because the baby, Lia Lee, suffered frequent seizures and acute epileptic convulsions (the spirit catches you and you fall down), the attending health care workers did not have time to consult with the patient’s relatives nor could they rely on inept translations prior to administering seizure stopping and/or life saving emergency procedures. Thirdly, Lia Lee is now brain dead. Ms. Fadiman gives a sympathetic voice to the Hmong and provides the reader with sufficient background in the their history, language, culture and religion to understand the tribes’ tragic limbo in America, their resistance to assimilate, the consequences of their inability to communicate in English and the inherent dangers of any well meaning but entrenched bureaucracy. At times, Fadiman is so immersed in her affection for the Lee family and the travails, customs and spiritual beliefs of her subject and that she loses her sense of objectivity, despite her claims of neutrality. She tries hard to place blame, to find the scapegoat. Of all the peculiar and disturbing incidents that this story reveals, two asides by Ms. Fadiman gave me pause in validating her credentials as culturally sensitive. The first was her condescending rendition (twice told) of the story of a Christian Fundamentalist family who smashed their TV and then danced a jig around it; yet, she was enthralled by Hmong animal sacrifices on the living room floor; so much for her cultural relativism. Secondly, her dismissive remarks about Roger Fife, the one doctor in Merced preferred by the Hmong, have to be attributed to her sense of intellectual superiority because Fife was neither steeped in nor enamored by animistic folklore. Anne Fadiman, daughter of the noted author and intellectual, Clifton Fadiman and foreign correspondent Annalee Jacoby Fadiman, finally puts sentimentality aside and comes to her journalistic senses. Late in the book, she is told quite candidly that, “Western medicine saves lives.” This statement resonates with her recent personal experience of illness and she knows that it is intuitively correct. Her romance with the Hmong and animism is placed into perspective---sabers, gongs, rattles, finger bells and strings which connect the soul of sacrificial pigs to the severely ill, do not save lives. Fadiman moves from perceptions to concluding conjecture on the case i.e. that baby Lia’s medical condition was so severe, that had she not been in America, she would have most likely died in a Laotian refugee camp; that the Lee’s brought their baby daughter to the hospital so frequently because they knew that Western medical care was needed; and that if the medicines been correctly administered from the start, the baby might have survived. Conjecture aside, Fadiman concludes that each national player in this narrative inevitably misperceived the other because they believed in the myths that their own culture was superior. She ends this poignant story with a weary determination to assign blame, not to septic shock or spirits, but on cross cultural mis communication. Not the stuff of myths, but an engrossing journey on the global highway."
Kirkus, 08/01/1997 "A brilliant study in cross-cultural medicine."
Washington Post Book World, 02/15/1998 "Fadiman?s book is superb, informal cultural anthropology - eye-opening, readable, utterly engaging." -- Carole Horn
New Yorker, 10/06/1997 "[Fadiman] describes with extraordinary skill the colliding worlds of Western medicine and Hmong culture...yet she remains exquisitely attuned to the interconnectedness of things."
New York Times, 09/24/1997 "Ms. Fadiman tells her story with a novelist's grace, playing the role of cultural broker, comprehending those who do not comprehend each other and perceiving what might have been done or said to make the outcome different. She has read widely in the anthropological literature on the Hmong....[T]he value of Ms. Fadiman's book is its clarity about just how vast is the difference between Hmong animism and Western science. Her story is a gripping and poignant one at the center of which is an exceedingly likable and honorable family, the Lees, whose love for their afflicted daughter is wondrously unconditional but whose superstitious world view maintains an iron grip on their minds." -- Richard Bernstein
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
