Summary Of The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down By Anne Fadiman

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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. Lia, unlike her older siblings, was born in the Merced Community Medical Center (MCMC) and thus her placenta was incinerated. The placentas of her other siblings were buried under their hut where they lived before moving to America. The Hmong people believed that the most probable cause for illness was soul loss hence the reason of having

They are never intimidated by being the minority and do not consider the customs of other cultures superior to theirs since they do not like taking orders. In addition to that they are very capable of getting very angry as learnt by the people who have tried to conquer them who end up with hate for them. This forms a good basis of understanding the unwillingness of the Lees to comply with the doctors regarding the health of their daughter. Lia’s epileptic seizures began when she was three months old when her elder sister, Yer, slammed the door. The Lees believed that the noise frightened her soul that it left her body and their attitude towards her sickness was a mixture of concern and pride. They were concerned that the disease is potentially dangerous but happy that a healing spirit would enter their daughter making her a person of high moral character. The condition was of divine nature to the Lees but the doctors perceive it as a disease to be cured or

As Fadiman wrote, “Doctors on the late shift in the emergency room had no way of taking a patient’s medical history, or of asking such questions as Where do you hurt?” (25). The fact that Lia’s parents could not understand English contributed to her not getting better since the doctors assumed that they would give her the medications as prescribed which they did not. A quote of Fadiman that says it all, “Over time, her drug regime became so complicated and underwent so many revisions that keeping track of it would have been a monumental task for a family that could read English. For the Lees, it proved to be utterly confounding” (45). The Hmong became frustrated with the American medicine as seen when the author says that it was typically Hmong for patients to appear passively obedient only to later ignore everything they had supposedly assented to after they left the hospital. It therefore stressed the doctors who considered the Hmong as the most difficult patients. This was well brought out by a doctor who said that the only easy way to treat the Hmong people was with a bullet in their head known as “high velocity transcortical lead therapy” (63). Lia was equally difficult to the point that nurses would pray she is not admitted any time she fell epileptic. The uncooperative nature of the Lees made Lia be taken away from them