This family is constituted in the world by the ways of their traditional beliefs and values brought with them from Laos. Foua and Nao Kao came to America for the same reasons as many other Hmong families did and that was to avoid the assimilation they were faced with living in Laos. To the Hmong people their ethnicity is everything to them. "They did not come to America to save their lives, they came to save their selves that is their Hmong ethnicity" (p. 183). When Lia gets sick we start to see how this family's values and beliefs are very different from that of the western culture. With her epilepsy we see a clash between medical science and beliefs held by the Hmong. Dan Murphy a resident at MCMC diagnosed Lia with having epilepsy, meanwhile Foua and Nao Kao diagnosed Lia with having the illness "when the spirit catches…
Introduction Anne Fadiman is an American journalist and widely recognized for writing about critical and sensitive issues of the society. In the famous work ' In the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down', the author has focused on critically examining the intense collision between two different cultures, American and Hmong, by referring the case of Lia Lee (Fadiman, 1997), where Lee has been portrayed to be quite young and not physically well to speak for herself.…
In Chapter 1 of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Fadiman demonstrates cultural relativism towards the Hmong culture by including very detailed history, facts and procedures found in Hmong culture. When explaining the long process of pregnancy and birth in Hmong culture, she does not make and claims for or against these rituals. She does not compare the cultures rituals to another culture. Fadiman simply states facts and explains the steps it takes for a woman to give birth to a child. She even includes lore about dabs objectively in order to continue to go into greater detail about the great care women take on for their future children. Western bias is demonstrated to be neither negative nor positive in this chapter; it is simply different…
The birth of a child seems natural to the physicians that help with the delivery process. Yet, religious midwives believe that it is a natural miracle caused by God. Unlike naturalist, the Christian, Fall, and Redemption (CFR) approach adopts the Godly and natural view. According to author Angela M. Sabates, the naturalist approach is that reality compromises material substances, and the immaterial (God, soul, mind) either does not exist or is irrelevant to an empirical investigation because it cannot be measured. The unseen is a hoax that cannot be proven real. Evidently, the reality of naturalism consists of observable facts and solid material explanations. Life origin, the purpose of life, self-seeking tendencies, fundamental need for…
Lia Lee was the first of her siblings to be born in not only the United States, but also was the first to be born in a hospital. Her parents, Nao Kao and Foua, were Hmong immigrants who fled to the United States. This story is a journey of the family’s struggle, with their special daughter Lia, and also the doctors who played an important role in their lives. The biggest struggle, however, was the conflicting views and beliefs of these two parties.…
An important theme is cultural understanding. Another is the miscommunication between Hmong immigrants in the US and American doctors. In the first couple chapters, we learn that the Hmong have very different birthing traditions. They believe that people get sick because something had happened to their soul, or because they have come across a dab, or an evil spirit. They have their own medical beliefs and practices which have caused difficulties for the medical staff. “They won’t do something just because somebody more powerful says do it” (71). One important theme in the book was a culture clash. The Hmong like to be left alone, they do not like to be ruled. Most of the power laid on the Western doctors. Lia’s tragedy is an example cultural clash and shows that cultural understanding and cooperation is very important. This book shows that it is important to understand and respect other cultures and their perspective on health and wellness so we can incorporate it in the way we treat those…
While reading, “When The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down” you easily see how well this book relates to this class. You see people of different backgrounds coming together with the same goal. You see people with good intentions making mistakes due to lack of cultural competency. There isn’t a time in this book that doesn’t involve the confliction of people with different backgrounds. These conflicts such as different languages, different beliefs, and unknown information about medicine and technology led to the realization of what cultural barriers truly are within this novel. Witnessing the real struggle that the physicians went through to help a young woman, from those barriers.…
1. In her critique of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Janelle Taylor argues that Anne Fadiman’s portrayal of Hmong culture is problematic. Please explain how Fadiman’s story is problematic. In your discussion, be sure to consider:…
In many cultures around the world people have the same problems to face as we do. They just refer to them by different words and or different meanings. In “The Spirit Catches You,” a young girl by the name of Lia has a condition that Western Medicine considers to be epilepsy, but in her culture of the Hmong they believe it to be qaug dab peg. Some might consider these two conditions of the body and soul to be the same thing or quite different. Western medicine's way of dealing with the issue is far from the same as Hmong culture and in most cases with different results. As much as Western medicine proves to be right the Hmong are still questionable about accepting a new way of treatment in their culture and so are many other cultures for that matter.…
There is no doubt that western developed countries often turn a blind eye to other regions and cultures in the world that are less developed. One such culture that has little recognition is the Hmong, a small tribe in the mountainous region of Laos. After the Vietnam War, the United States experienced a high number of immigrant refugees from Southeast Asia, including the Hmong. A clash of cultures occurred as the Hmong and Americans tried to live together in unity. Perhaps one of the greatest contrasts is the way health is defined. The conceptualization of illness and its treatment in the Hmong community differs greatly from the biomedical model of health in the United States; these differences account for the consequences and inequality between…
I had acquired my books already from a fellow student and went home to enjoy my three weeks of not studying; just working. As I was putting the books away at home, I started reading the back of Anne Fadiman’s book “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” where a journalist of The Washington Post referred to the book as utterly engaging, readable, and a superb piece of writing. Instead of storing the book I carried it upstairs and put it on my night table. That evening after I snuggled up in my bed I got to know Lia Lee, her parents, her doctors, and I learned about the struggles that were involved in caring for an ill child that sat between two cultures; the Hmong culture and the culture of American health care professionals.…
In The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman narrates the story of Lia, a Hmong girl suffering from epilepsy who was surrounded by challenges due to conflicting viewpoints of her parents and her health care providers. For the Hmong people, epileptic seizures are viewed as a positive trait; those people who suffered from seizures are attributed to be a “twix neeb”, or “a person with a healing spirit” (Fadiman, 1997, pg. 21). Lia’s parents—Foau and Nao Kao (the Lees)—considered her condition as both a blessing and an honour. However, in some way, they also considered it as an illness because they made use of medical aid offered by doctors to relieve its clinical manifestations. A lot of the Hmong’s conflicting ideas…
In this essay I will review the question of how the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down exemplifies the techniques of ethnographic research that we have studied in class. Also I will consider the question if there are ways in which Fadiman could have improved her methods to be a better anthropologist. In the essay I will look at the specific methods and techniques that Fadiman utilized. I will discuss where she conducted her research and also cover how she conducted her fieldwork. I suggest Anthropological studies on cultural difference would have a practical application to Lia’s study for the following fact that the Hmong do not completely believe in western medicine.…
People have diverse beliefs about health, illness, disease, birth and death, which are directed by culture. Heritage assessment is an important step towards building understanding of cultural competency, a phenomenon that recognizes diversity, both in linguistic and cultural adeptness by the health care provider. A person’s culture, beliefs, heritage, and language have a substantial impact both as a patient and a health care provider within the health care system (Spector, 2009). Although only 29 questions were supplied in the heritage assessment tool, the questions cleared a pathway for opening up dialogue about ones beliefs regarding health, illness, spirituality, and family support, which linked personal values to them. In this paper diversity was identified as a key component between the three ethnic groups compared, which were American with subgroups of Irish/German, Hispanic, and Filipino…
The purpose of this research of the Asian Hmong culture is to provide an overview of the unique dynamics involved in their culture and how to implement appropriate nursing care. By taking into account the individuals ethnic, cultural and social background we can become more culturally sensitive, and provide culturally competent nursing care. This research will address the Asian Hmong culture, ethnicity, rituals and beliefs as well as the six cultural phenomena that are associated with this culture. It will also address nursing interventions specific to the Asian Hmong culture.…