The spirit catches you and you fall down : a Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collison of two cultures / Anne Fadiman.
When three-month-old Lia Lee arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos. The Hmong, traditionally a close-knit and fiercely proud people, have been less amenable to assimilation than most immigrants, adhering steadfastly to the rituals and beliefs of their ancestors. Lia's pediatricians, Neil Ernst and his wife, Peggy Philip, cleaved just as strongly to another tradition: that of Western medicine. When Lia Lee entered the American medical system, diagnosed as an epileptic, her story became a tragic case history of cultural miscommunication. Parents and doctors both wanted the best for Lia, but their ideas about the causes of her illness and its treatment could hardly have been more different. The Hmong see illness and healing as spiritual matters linked to virtually everything in the universe, while medical community marks a division between body and soul, and concerns itself almost exclusively with the former. Lia's doctors ascribed her seizures to the misfiring of her cerebral neurons; her parents called her illness, qaug dab peg--the spirit catches you and you fall down--and ascribed it to the wandering of her soul. The doctors prescribed anticonvulsants; her parents preferred animal sacrifices.
Record details
- ISBN: 0374533407
- ISBN: 9780374533403
- Physical Description: ix, 355 pages ; 21 cm
- Edition: Pbk. edition
- Publisher: New York : Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997.
- Copyright: ©1997
Content descriptions
- General Note:
- Includes new afterword by the author.Reprint. Originally published: New York : Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997.
- Bibliography, etc. Note:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 327-340) and index.
- Formatted Contents Note:
- Birth -- Fish soup -- The spirit catches you and you fall down -- Do doctors eat brains? -- Take as directed -- High-velocity transcortical lead therapy -- Government property -- Foua and Nao Kao -- A little medicine and a little neeb -- War -- The big one -- Flight -- Code X -- The melting pot -- Gold and dross -- Why did they pick Merced? -- The eight questions -- The life or the soul -- The sacrifice.
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| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marion Library | 306.461 FAD (Text) | 37810435041214 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
| Cleveland County Main Library | 306.4 FAD (Text) | 22281500006335 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
| East Asheville Library | 306.461 FAD (Text) | 0020501846453 | Adult Nonfiction | Checked out | 07/07/2026 |
| Gibsonville Public Library | 306.461 Fadiman Health & Medicine (Text) | 30449050089724 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
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