“I imagine what they would sound like if I could somehow splice [the tapes] together, so the voices of the Hmong and the voices of the American doctors could be heard on a single tape, speaking a common language” (Fadiman, ix). I was in awe at how quickly, in the last line of the preface, Anne Fadiman perfectly encapsulates all that is wrong with American medicine and the lack of cross-cultural knowledge healthcare professionals possess. She went on to write an eye-opening novel beautifully depicting the disarray that is the American healthcare system through the lens of the Lee’s, a Hmong family who struggled to care for their suffering daughter with epilepsy. I made a pact to myself to fully place myself in the position of the Lee’s as I was reading the novel. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have such a debilitating disease such as epilepsy and going to a doctor who not only didn’t understand my culture of beliefs, but refused to acknowledge or accept them. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have a child with this disease and trying to …show more content…
Before fully getting into the details of this major problem, it’s important to quickly summarize the Hmong culture. The Hmong originated in China and fought the Chinese to maintain their culture. During the Vietnam War, they fought against the Communist forces but were forced to leave their homes to escape persecution when the US withdrew their support. Most of the Hmong people then immigrated to the United States and tried to rebuild their lives as best they can. Their tenacity and unwillingness to surrender, both during the war and in every-day life, helped them survive, but also made their visits to the doctor extremely difficult, to say the