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Case Study: The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down

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A shaman plays the role in Hmong ethnomedicine as a spiritual healer, by calling the soul back to a person’s body, repairing a soul and warding off evil spirits. In the case study the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Cha Koua Lee is the shaman who performed a healing ceremony for Lia. He brought his tools of the trade that consisted of a saber, gong, rattle, finger bells and a flying horse; these were all the tools that Shee Yee had used during his time on earth.
During the sacrifice of the first pig, for Lia family (to safeguard and protect them throughout the year), the shaman did not kill the pig, in order to maintain a good relationship with the animal. One of the Lee’s cousin cut the pig’s throat. After the animal had been ritually
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“The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anna Fadiman tells the story of Lia Lee, a Hmong child with epilepsy, whose life could have been different if only her family was caught up in western medicine. This book reveals the tragic struggles between a doctor and patient because of lack of communication. When Lia was around three months old, her older sister Yer accidentally slammed a door and Lia had suddenly fallen into the floor. This is the first recorded time that Lia was experiencing an epileptic shock.

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The spirit catches you and you fall down by Annie Fadiman is a story about Hmong girl named Lia Lee, who is epileptic. Lia Lee suffered from seizures and eventually becomes vegetative for the rest of her life. The story is about a series of episodes of miscommunication, misinterpretations, disagreements between Lia’s parents and the medical team who is treating her. According to the Hmong culture they referred to the condition as the “quag dag peg,” which means the spirit catches you and you fall down (Fadiman, 2012). It first happened when Lia Lee’s elder sister slammed Lia with the door, which caused Lia to have a shocking reaction by jerking and frightening a “dab” (spirit) away (Fadiman, 2012).

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In the documentary, “The Split Horn: Life of a Hmong Shaman in America,” portrays the journey of an immigrant Hmong family battling to maintain their cultural traditions alive in the United States. In the Hmong culture, it is believed that every individual has seven souls and if they have an illness, for example sickness, it means that their soul has departed or taken by evil spirits. Hmong people believe in Shamans, who are gifted and respected people who can make contact with their ancestors and return the lost souls of people. In this documentary, the main character Paja Thao is a shaman who is challenged by American customs to keep his cultural Hmong traditions alive and pass it down to his children. Paja becomes sick because he feels like his children don’t care about the Hmong tradition anymore because they don’t participate in his rituals and realizes his children have assimilated to the American culture.

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In Anne Fadiman’s, A Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, there’s a conflicting battle going on between cultures. While it might never be specifically stated, Anne Fadiman attempts to convey a neutral understanding to her readers of the Hmong beliefs and culture alongside of the culture of biomedicine western society is mostly familiar with. While the Hmong beliefs and practices in medicine are taboo to western society, readers gradually see that Hmong medicine is just as equal or more powerful than biomedicine that we’re so familiar with. It’s an important concept to understand in this book is that the doctors are there to treat Lia’s disease, not precisely concerned with Lia as a person. Hmong medicine seems to be more related to in helping

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Chapter two is called "Madre, Mujer, Bruja" which means mother, women, and witch in Spanish. The name of the chapter set up with what Ms. Glass-Coffin talks about in this chapter. She looks at how the history of healings and rituals and how it has contributed to the contemporary perception of what healers do. When situations like the story of Maria de la O and her daughter Manuela the church would become involved and they would put these perceptions of witchcraft on the women. In contemporary times shamanic healers are mostly men, this is because the churches ideologies which were European made their way to Peru.

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In The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman made the point that a person's life can be ruined due to "cross cultural misunderstandings. " The text points out many issues between the patients and the doctors. It sheds light on many of the problems that the refugees faced after coming to America due to cultural displacement. From my understanding, the texts of Dettwyler and Fadiman show how medical limitations effects the health of the people whether they are in a foreign country or their own country and also the barriers they face due to lack of resources and knowledge.

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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall is a novel based on the clash of two cultures---the Hmong culture and the American culture. A little Hmong girl is diagnosed with epilepsy which her parents believe is caused by spirits. Because of this belief, they try to cure her illness not with western medication but their own Hmong ways. There is a huge misunderstanding between the parents and the doctors that Anne Fadiman explores. Anne Fadiman provides readers with a vivid, detailed history of the Hmong in Laos to their involvement in the Vietnam War to their struggles in America that explains this clash.

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The United States can be easily defined as one of the world’s biggest power house, with technological and medical advances like no other. However, America is anything but perfect, as demonstrated in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, a tragic journey written by Anne Fadiman about Lia Lee, an epileptic girl who unfortunately surrenders to brain-death due to cultural dissimilarities and misunderstandings. After the getaway from the communist forces in Laos, the Hmong, including the Lees, became United States refugees. Although the Hmong escaped the dangers of their homeland, an overwhelming task of adapting to the American society consumes them. Fadiman presents the assimilation as an essential yet difficult part of a Hmong refugee through

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Abstract This paper examines two theoretical perspectives, the humanistic perspective and the systems theory. Later, these perspectives/theories are applied to conduct a micro and macro level analysis of Lia’s life and her parents’ Foua and Nao Kao’s relationship/cultural belief to the Western healthcare system in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Furthermore, the implications of various empirical research are incorporated and used to guide potential methods that could be applied to relevant stories of the book. Moreover, the studies discussed different social issues and elements of cultural competence in the Western Healthcare system.

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