Anne Fadiman

The Anne Fadiman book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, is about a Hmong (an East Asian ethnic group) family, the Lees. The Lee family find it difficult to navigate through the American healthcare system that is being offered to them in Merced, California. They go from traditional Hmong health management in Laos, to a place where biomedical, science-based treatments. And when the Lees are faced with having to rely on western medicine to properly care for their daughter, Lia Lee’s severe epilepsy, this conflict of cultural resolution is brought to the light. This leads to distrust of doctors by the Lees and a development of unempathetic care by the doctors for the Lee family. The book is written in an alternating fashion, where every other chapter is a discussion of Hmong culture and the Laos war, in which America played a part. Fadiman’s decision to present the book this way, helps the reader…

Imagine coming to a new country with your family not knowing the language and all of the sudden a family member is having some sort of health issue. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman is an emotional rollercoaster to say the least. The Lee family has traveled thousands of miles, risking life and death to come to a new land. They have gone generations of farmers/living off the land to trying to find some sort of way to provide for their families with little too no sought…

Fall Down by Anne Fadiman, the Merced doctors treating Lia were raised and educated in a Western culture that taught the superiority and successfulness of using logic to deduce problems, so when they are faced with the “irrational’…

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a narrative nonfiction that revolves around a family who struggles with keeping their culture identity in a place where it is not welcome. The Lee family Struggles with discrimination, cultural differences, spirituality, language barriers and immigrant assimilation when they move to California. These are some of the things that get in the way of having one of their 15 children, Lia get the best care she can…

In the novel, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, cross cultural medical communications are addressed through the story of a young, Hmong girl, Lia. Through her medical journey with epilepsy, the book shows how traditional boundaries and medical beliefs can clash and at times, bringing some negative outcomes to patients and their families. The novel introduces us to the Hmong culture, stressing their dire need to hold on to their culture so much that even some older traditions can make the…

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down offers an insight into the clash of modern western medicine with the traditional methods and people of another culture, in this case the Hmong. The non-fiction book offers a skillfully written depiction of the plight of the Lee family, one of many Hmong refugees absorbed into the United States following their allied involvement in the “silent war”. A complex and detailed presentation of two disparate cultures without preference for one over…

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is an eye opening book that shows the relativism of everyday cultural barriers. The book shows us how the Lee family struggled to get help for their severely epileptic daughter. With the Lee family being refugees from Laos and struggling to learn the English language it was difficult for them to communicate with health professionals which lead to the unfortunate result in Lia, the Lee’s daughter, to become in a severely vegetative state. Both the doctors…

significant impact on the life of not only Lia, but the entire Lee family, as well as the doctors and hospital staff who tried to make sure that Lia was receiving the best care possible. Jeanine enters the narrative in the seventh chapter, roughly a third of the way through the book. It is immediately clear to us, as the readers, that she is driven and truly believes in what she does. In order to fulfill her duty to the children placed under her care, she must ensure that they have the…

Both authors used lucid descriptions to portray the events and situations in their essays. Abani depict lively imagery in “The Lottery,” such as engaging our sense of smell with by describing that In “Under Water,” Fadiman also portray vivid imagery, for example, by describing the strength of the “higher and swifter” Green River. The authors further show their eloquence by brilliantly utilizing figurative language in their essays. In “The Lottery,” Abani applies irony:. The quote ironically…

Author of nonfiction book “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall”, Anne Fadiman relays the questions to her readers in her preface: “What makes a good parent?” and “What makes a good doctor?” As far as anyone is concerned for the latter question, specifically what makes outstanding health care, Carolyn M. Clancy, MD, of the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality would describe quality health care as simply “getting the right care to the right patient at the right time – every time” ().…