Abstract
A review of Anne Fadiman's book, "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down", that deals with the cross-cultural misunderstandings that adversely affect the health of a Hmong baby. The paper also discusses a personal perspective of the problems described in the book.

From the Paper
"Journalist Anne Fadiman's even-handed true story of the seven-year medical tragedy of a Hmong infant girl named Lia, caught up in a conflict between Western medicine and Hmong beliefs of medicine, is a compelling story of cross-cultural medicine and cultural values and ethics. The book's title "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" is a translation of the Hmong phrase "qaug dab peg" which means the spirit is stolen. The phrase is generally translated as epilepsy in Hmong-English dictionaries. Fadiman points out that the Hmong..."

Tags:Hmong, Fadiman, Spirit, Medical, Culture, Health, Prejudice, Doctors, Assimilation

Abstract
This paper is an analysis of Anne Fadiman's account of the cultural barriers to effective healthcare delivery between Western physicians and a Hmong patient with epilepsy in "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down." The review further demonstrates the cultural obstacles to effective healthcare delivery in the 1980's U.S.

From the Paper
"Anne Fadiman's account of the cultural barriers to effective healthcare delivery between Western physicians and a Hmong patient with epilepsy in "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" reveals the cultural obstacles to effective healthcare delivery in the 1980'ss in the U. S. Diagnosed with epilepsy in at the Merced County Medical Center (MCMC) Lia Lee's condition serves to illustrate the highly significant differences with respect to illness and healthcare in the U S and Laos."

Tags:Laos, Hmong, biomedical, pharmaceutical, shamans, spirit, secular, science, faith, customs, anthropology, medicine

Abstract
This essay argues that Weber's theory of social stratification (McIntosh 1997) provides the reader with a valuable resource for understanding Anne Fadiman's (1998) "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down". Where Marx provides a valuable foundation of class divisions based on economics, Weber's elaboration allows a deeper understanding of the complex systems that characterize the contemporary social sphere.

Tags:traditions, culture, values

Abstract
This paper discusses the difficulties that can be experienced when a patient and medical professional do not understand each other's culture or language. The paper focuses on "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman, which is the tragedy about three-month-old Lia Lee, from Laos, who unfortunately was one of these cultural misunderstandings.

From the Paper
"Several stories in the report (Wilson-Stronks & Galvez, 2005) highlight inadequate informed consent. A Muslim man refused chemotherapy treatment for stomach cancer, because he believed the only way to receive chemotherapy was to be attached to "a pump" that would interfere with his praying. The physician did not understand that his aversion to chemotherapy had to prayer, and treatment was delayed for precious months. Other stories stress cultural misunderstandings: The son of a 72-year-old Italian woman who had a CT scan consistent with metastatic colon cancer asks the surgeon to not tell her the diagnosis because it will "kill her." A 64-year-old African-American has angina, but is reluctant to go for a cardiac catheterization. He mistrusts the healthcare system due to a poor experience with a family member and memories of the invasive procedures done as part of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Such concerns are indicative of what took place in Spirit in 1982. How far have medical centers gone, or not gone, in these past three decades?"

Tags:language, culture, understanding, treatment

Abstract
This paper explains how in her book "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down", author Anne Fadiman recounts the life and death of a little Hmong girl living in Merced, California. It discusses how the girl, Lia Lee had what Western doctors call epilepsy, and which the Hmong have a far more lyrical explanation that lends itself to the title of Fadiman's book.

From the Paper
"The most common neurological disease, epilepsy can be frightening and potentially debilitating. However, in cultures around the world and throughout time, from the Hmong to the ancient Greeks, epilepsy opens pathways to creativity and an increased understanding of the universe. Thus, as Fadiman points out, many epileptics become shamans. When Lia Lee first started having epileptic seizures, her mom Foua, speaking not a word of English, rushed her to the Merced Community Medical Center. There, doctors tended to the eight-month old child as best they could under the circumstances. Because all she was doing was coughing when she arrived at the hospital, doctors gave her chest x-rays and diagnosed Lia Lee with "early bronchiopneumonia or tracheobronchitis," unaware that she had just recently seized. The same thing happened on more than one occasion until finally Lia Lee was rushed to the medical center in the middle of a seizure. Visible evidence at hand, doctors were then able to accurately diagnose Lia Lee's illness and prescribe a course of treatment."

Tags:epilepsy

Abstract
This paper discusses immigration problems and their psychological causes through a review of the book, "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down," written by the editor of the "American Scholar", Anne Fadiman. The paper contends that problems encountered by immigrants have their roots in psychological resistance to change, explaining that this resistance often leads to internal and external conflicts and cross-cultural miscommunication.

From the Paper
"'The Spirit Catches you and you fall down' is an extraordinary piece of writing in which various issues have been woven together in the style of investigative journalism by the editor of the 'American Scholar', Anne Fadiman. The story revolves around issues of cross-cultural medical practices and miscommunication that often leads to tragic circumstances. This book may not be very unique as far as story is concerned but the way clash of cultural values has been highlighted is not something that we get to see very often in investigative accounts of tragic events. The author has carefully illustrated the story of a family torn between immigration problems, communication barriers and epilepsy."

Tags:hmong, cultural, miscommunication

Abstract
This paper discusses the role of ethnocentrism in the book. "Ethnocentrism" is the belief that your culture is "better" or "superior" to other cultures and that cultural standards are universal. It is often the wedge that keeps people from many cultures from blending into a cohesive unit, and in "The Spirit Catches You," it is quite common to see how the Hmong, with their culture of beliefs and superstitions, and American doctors, with their medicines and science, would clash and never see eye to eye.

From the Paper
""The Spirit Catches You" is the story of a Hmong family, the Lees, and their young daughter Lia. Lia is diagnosed with epilepsy, which the Hmong call "the spirit catches you and you fall down" disease. The story graphically illustrates two cultures that meet head on - with each one having absolutely no understanding of the other. The Hmong's entire culture is built on a series of beliefs and superstitions that they use nearly everyday to combat illness and appearance. For example, the author notes early in the book, "Although the Hmong believe that illness can be caused by a variety of sources - [...] by far the most common cause of illness is soul loss" (Fadiman 10). Thus, the Hmong use spiritual and holistic approaches to their daughter's health problems because it is all they know. The American doctors, on the other hand, want the Hmong to use American medicines and treatments, and the Hmong have no idea what these treatments are, or how they will benefit their daughter. What happens as the two cultures collide is a comedy of errors and misunderstanding, except that it is not funny, and Lia pays the price in the end."

Tags:lia, hmong, medicine

Abstract
Tomson Highway's play The Rez Sisters may be said to effectively "catching the conscience" of the nation of Canada, in its innovative use of the play medium. This is an outstanding example of play as performance, rather than literature. Highway draws on Native oral culture to present a play that draws the viewer into the world of the reserve, and in so doing, surely catches the conscience for many.

From the Paper
Option 1: "Catching the conscience" of the nation of Canada in Tomson Highway's The Rez Sisters Tomson Highway's play The Rez Sisters may be said to effectively "catching the conscience" of the nation of Canada, in its innovative use of the play medium. This is an outstanding example of play as performance, rather than literature. Highway draws on native oral culture to present a play that draws the viewer into the world of the reserve, and in so doing, surely catches the conscience of many. In The Rez Sisters, Highway presents a play that clearly demonstrates the notion that plays are not literature. In this play, the spoken word and

Tags:tomson, highway, rez

From the Paper
"Anne Fadiman's book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1998) is an intelligent and moving " and unsettling story " about the costs that individuals must sometimes have to pay for living in a multicultural society and the challenges that immigrants face in the United States, even after they think that they have made it to the promised land. Fadiman also shows how the American mainstream cultural establishment " in this case represented mostly by the doctors and other medical personnel that work with one particular immigrant family " sometimes finds itself unable to help newcomers to make the leap into the often perilous new world of their dreams.
Lia Lee was born in 1981 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants to California, and soon developed symptoms of .."

Tags:BOOK, REVIEWS, NON-FICTION, IMMIGRATION

Abstract
The paper asserts that the main theme of the novel is cross-cultural barriers and problems faced by immigrants in America. The paper discusses the psychological causes underlying the difficulties that immigrants, especially from Eastern countries, experience in integrating into a new society. The paper explains that while Western immigrants accept their new culture and assimilate relatively easily, Eastern immigrants resist assimilation. The paper summarizes the book and analyzes the cross-cultural miscommunication demonstrated by the family disagreeing with the established medical community as to the true nature of their child's illness and its causes.

From the Paper
""The Spirit Catches you and you fall down" is an extraordinary piece of writing in which various issues have been woven together in the style of investigative journalism by the editor of the "American Scholar", Anne Fadiman. The story revolves around issues of cross-cultural medical practices and miscommunication that often leads to tragic circumstances."

Tags:epilepsy, immigration, medicine, eastern, culture, doctor, assimilation