- Dooley takes the fall is a mystery novel by Norah McClintock - First published in 2007, re-published in 2008 by red deer press - Dooley is trying to stay low, but unfortunately getting himself into more trouble than he can handle. 2) Summary: - Dooley has moved in with his Uncle the last few months to try to stay away from trouble, while also going to his mandatory counseling sessions - He gets off after work early one day, only to see a figure falling off a bridge - It turns out to be a student from his school, Mark Everley - At first Dooley is just a witness but the police are suspecting that Dooley had something to do with his death - Next Mark’s sister, Beth comes into Dooley’s life as she tries to figure out more about his beloved brother’s death. -
In her book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman describes the story of the Lee family and the conflicting views that arose between Western and Eastern beliefs on providing Lia medical aid. When Laos fell to the communists, the Lees were among the thousands of Hmong who fled the country. They arrived in the U.S. with their seven children and settled in the town Merced. When the Lee’s fourteenth child, Lia, was three months, her older sister slammed the front door of the apartment and Lia fainted. Her parents Nao Kao and Foua Lee believed that the noise frightened Lia’s soul to flee from her body and became lost which they associated with qaug dab peg: “the spirit catches you and you fall down”.
‘The spirit catches you and you fall down’ was published in 2012 by essayist and reporter Anne Fadiman. This introductory book review analyzes the way in which different cultures perceive illnesses and diseases. It focuses on the story of the Lees a Hmong family, who moved to the United States and experiences difficulties with language, culture and biomedicine method of healing, which contradict to Hmong’s way of healing. The chapters describe the differences between the ways childbirth is conducted in Hmong society compared to the western society. As well as the struggle the Lees family has with the cultural differences in diagnoses and treatment of their ill daughter.
The author of this book is called Anne Fadiman. It is based on a story of a Hmong child known as Lia Lee who suffered from epilepsy. The demise of this condition shows the harm that can be contributed by absence of cross-cultural communication especially in the area of medicine. At the age of three months, the elder sister to Lia known as Yer banged a door which caused Lia to have the first seizure.
Anne Fadiman’s professional background is that of the Hmong lifestyle with its cultures against the entire American culture. In his background, there is miscommunication resulting from the refusal of the give medical dosages and other medicines due to the misunderstandings and mistrust. According to Barnsteiner , (p.71), there is also the inability of the US doctors to treat those people deeply rooted in the Hmong culture and they are also unable to learn that culture in the most helpful. Hmong is a refugee family in the US and that is where Ann Fadiman comes from. They come from provinces such as Laos and Sainyabuli which have tried to interact with the healthcare system in California and Merced.
In the short story The Bride, written by Christina Granados, we are taken into Lily’s perspective. Lily describes her childhood with her sister, Rochelle, who has been planning her wedding since birth. To plan her wedding, Rochelle uses the “five- pound bride magazines” (Granados 502). She plans the songs, the food, the guests, as well as the dress from these magazines. Rochelle, throughout the story, never seems to accept any traditional Mexican- American wedding practices.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a biographical work on a Hmong family living in California during the early 80’s. While the book is a true accounting of the Lee’s family attempt to secure quality healthcare for their epileptic daughter while traversing the American medical system and the Department of Children Services. The author, Anne Fadiman, takes the reader on a painstaking but necessary journey of Hmong history and culture and how they came to reside in Merced, California. As you learn more about the history of the Hmong people, you come to admire them as a strong and resilient people that have, as a people, overcome many challenges with respect to being conquered, nomadic and always having to start over.
One of the recurring themes of Anne Fadiman’s novel The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is the cultural unawareness that is present, not only the American perspective, but the Hmong perspective as well. This is evident in the recountment of a Hmong American that returns to visit Ban Vinai, a refugee camp in Thailand, after establishing herself in the United States. Most of the book is written with a focus on the Western doctors lacking understanding of Hmong language, customs and culture which in turn made it difficult for them to treat patients such as Lia. They struggled to explain procedures, while practical to them, appeared harmful and life-threating to the Hmong.
Task: Name: Course Name: Course Code: Lecturer: Date: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a book written by Anne Fadiman about a Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of the two cultures. It was first published in 1997. The author writes about Lia, a Hmong girl, who suffered from epilepsy that was recognised as qaug dab peg meaning the spirit catches you and you fall down in Hmong.
The book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman is based on a true story that delves into the life of Lia Lee, a young epileptic Hmong child (Fadiman, 2012). It focuses on Lia’s condition and her family’s experiences through the problem with the sole purpose of highlighting the collision between two cultures including the American and Hmong culture, and the effect that the cultures have on her health. Fadiman gives a detailed report on the complicated interactions between all the people around Lia and uncovers the deep struggles experienced in the pursuit of her well-being. Lia’s struggle as highlighted in the book primarily arises from a cultural collision
In Anne Fadiman’s book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, two cultures clash with each other in the struggle to save Lia Lee, a Hmong child refugee with severe epilepsy. Although Lee and her family live in the United States, and thus receive medical care from Westerners, her family believes that Lee’s condition is sacred and special. The following miscommunications, both culturally and lingually, between the American doctors and the Lee family leave Lia Lee in comatose at the end of the book. However, Lia Lee could have been saved if the Lee’s had a better understanding of the American doctors’ intentions, and the American doctors understood the Hmong culture. Essentially, the tragedy of Lia Lee can be attributed to the clash of American and Hmong cultures at both the surface and sub-surface level.
After reading “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman, is an interesting book because it talks about the Hmong culture and their believes in medicine. A lot of cultures have their own way with handling medical issues, whether it is with some sort of herbs or whatever that culture uses to help the sick. In the book it’s about a little girl that suffers from having seizures and how the family is trying to use their cultural believes but also uses Western medicine to stop the seizures. It’s really hard for different cultures to assimilate to the American way because they do not fully understand what they’re trying to do which is helping their daughter. They want the help of the doctors but not too much because they still have
North Dakota Road Trip The passage from The Horizontal World by Debra Marquart’s 2006 memoir is all about growing up in North Dakota and knowing the land around it. She is describing one of her memories when she was growing up in North Dakota. She relates to TV news anchors and really anyone who may know some of the geography of North Dakota such as the residents. Talks very highly of North Dakota’s geography and how great it is to live and grow up there, so she is trying to tell everyone why they should live there.
Around the world, people are viewed as superior to others, leading to some being given more rights than others. The number of rights an individual is given depends on gender, ethnic groups, social class, etc. For example, around the world, men are allowed- and encouraged- to receive an education, whereas women are not forced to. 66 million females are out of school for simple reasons such as religion or traditional beliefs. The females not given the opportunity to receive an education crave the opportunity to learn because they know education can lead to a brighter future.
She is described to have, “sapphire-blue eyes, white eyelashes, and platinum hair that falls to her waist.” (47) There is no doubt she is viewed as a beautiful young girl by the Congolese and there is no doubt why her sisters are jealous of her. The Congo people literally would pull on her hair just because they needed to know it was real hair. Now Rachel looked at the Congo people with a bit more judgement and wonderment than they did.
