The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

This was an incredibly insightful look at a culture whose reaction to immigration has been radically different from what we might imagine based on experience with other imigrant cultures. She provides a very balanced understanding of the viewpoints of both patient and medical establishment. It will forever change the way I interact with my Hmong patients.

I read "The Spirit Catches You, and You Fall Down" as a required reading for a Sociology course on Health and Ilnness in Society. This is simply put, an amazing piece of work, that not only is thorough, but has a great deal of emotion and you really are able to sense the pain, frustration, and joy, of both the Lee family and the medical community that cared for her. This work is also a testiment to the Hmong people and culture, who are often grealty overlooked in US Asian American culture. Anne Fadiman goes into great detail describing their culture, from it's language, history, and religion both here and in Loas, and to their unfortunate and tragic involvement in the US war in Vietnam which landed them in refugee camps in Thailand. My opinions vacillated at times from anger to empathy for her parents and their inability and refusal to follow the doctors advise, that could've saved their daughters life. I encourage this book to be read by anyone going into the medical field where you will encounter a myriad of ethnicities, that often fly in the face of conventional US medicine. This is nonfiction that reads with the excitement and personality of a well crafted novel.

exceptional book for those involved in anything dealing with human relationships. gives unbiased information from all sides of the issue (language & cultural barriers resulting in medical "errors")
this book smacks you in the face with your own preconceptions about what families know about their child, and what professionals know about their field, and how sometimes those two don't mesh, resulting in the child being put in the middle.
oh yeah, and every once in a while you will want to yell out about "the guy hiding behind the rock." because hindsight is so clear!

I was assigned this book as a supplement to a Cross Cultural Communication class. It's a very interesting read about a young girl who gets caught between Eastern and Western medicine. It makes a good read to see how CCC can be so important in our daily lives. It has a good lot of medical jargon and even more characters. There are a lot of doctors that are important for various reasons. It is certainly not a light beach read. Once you read it though you'll want someone else to read it to have someone to talk about. You can get in long discussions over who is "right" and if there is a right.

Detailed, researched look at the Hmong people of Vietnam in America through the experiences of one family in the medical/hospital system as they try to help their epileptic child. Although the action takes place in California, the story would probably have been similar no matter where the family lived. Non judgemental author keeps reader engaged. Structure of the book with alternating chapters detailing the history of the Hmong and then the specific family works well. Cross cultural misunderstandings seem inevitable given language and cultural differences. Sad without being depressing.