The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down Essay - 1896 Words

Cultural Diversity in the U.S. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down or quag dab peg is said to mean â€Å"a soul stealing dab; peg means to catch or hit; and quag means to fall over with one’s roots still in the ground, as grain might be beaten down by wind or rain† (Fadiman, 1997). The Lee family belonged to the Hmong tribe, which was the basis of their differing beliefs in comparison with modern medicine. Lia’s parents believed that when she was three months of age, she had been startled when her older sister, Yer, slammed the door of the Lee family’s apartment. This resulted in Lia’s first seizure which her parents believed made Lia particularly fit for divine office. The Hmong believed epileptics became shamans or medicine men and†¦show more content†¦Dee naturally fell in love with baby Lia and still had room in her heart to love on Nao Kao and Foua who were Lia’s worn out parents. She treated the Hmong people with more empathy than the sum of all of Lia ’s doctors combined. An outstanding example of Dee’s selflessness was when she carried Lia in a backpack while she carried her own youngest child on her front; she also let her sleep in her bed, and breastfed her along with her own baby. Out of all the children she ever cared for, Mrs. Korda only ever recommended Lia to be reunited with her family. When she entered Lia’s hospital room for the first time, she was immediately seen by American people and doctors as the smart white woman which was in stark contrast to the way the Lee family was viewed among Western doctors. After the Lees were given back custody of their little girl, their family and children still remained friends with the Kordas and their children with frequent visits. Often when Dee would take Lia to her doctor’s appointments, she would leave her own youngest in the care of Foua. In my honest opinion, this was one of the purest forms of trust and the fact that she displayed this kind of fellowship with Lia’s tired and worn out parents was a beautiful picture of two different cultures learning how to live in harmony. Lastly, I admire how the Kordas did not ask nor receive any recognition or praise for how they helped the Lee family although it was surely no easy feat to take care of a childShow MoreRelatedThe Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Essay876 Words   |  4 PagesSpirit Catches You Essay The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a book by Anne Fadiman about a Hmong family (the Lee’s) that moved to the United States. It deals with their child Lia, her American doctors, and the collisions of those two cultures. In Fadiman’s unbiased book I learned that there are many cultural differences between Hmong and Americans concerning opinions, stubbornness, and misunderstandings. To begin with, a cultural difference between Hmong and Americans are theirRead MoreThe Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down Essay1293 Words   |  6 PagesEach and every culture is unique in it’s own way. From cultural practices, beliefs, values, biases, attire, to past history and experience, our world is shaped in many dissimilar ways. The book â€Å"The Spirit Catches You, You Fall Down† highlights how diverse the Hmong people are compared to that of American people. In this paper, I will examine the impacts of multiculturalism within the Western health care system, particularly, how the care Lia and her family received after fleeing their home inRead MoreEssay The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down3417 Words   |  14 Pagesand physical ailment. According to Fadiman (1997), â€Å"†¦the noise of the door had been so profoundly frightening that her soul had fled her body and become lost. 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BecauseRead More The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman Essay1868 Words   |  8 PagesThe Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman is about the cross-cultural ethics in medicine. The book is about a small Hmong child named Lia Lee, who had epilepsy. Epilepsy is called, quag dab peg1 in the Hmong culture that translates to the spirit catches you and you fall down. In the Hmong culture this illness is sign of distinction and divinity, because most Hmong epileptics become sham an, or as the Hmong call them, txiv neeb2. These shamans are special people imbued with healing spiritsRead MoreThe Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down - Anne Fadiman Essay examples1611 Words   |  7 PagesBook Report The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down - Anne Fadiman This book addresses one of the common characteristics, and challenges, of health care today: the need to achieve a working knowledge of as many cultures as possible in health care. The Hmong population of Merced, California addresses the collision between Western medicine and holistic healing traditions of the Hmong immigrants, which plays out a common dilemma in western medical centers: the need to integrate modern westernRead MoreFadiman Case Study: the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Essay1601 Words   |  7 PagesSummary of The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down In ‘The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down’, Lia, a Hmong baby girl, is born to a Hmong family living in California as refugees away from their war torn land in Laos. In Laos the Lee’s where farmers and lived in the country according to their Hmong traditions and beliefs. In California they barely understood the language, much less Western culture or medicinal practices. In Hmong tradition, illness was seen as a spiritual problem rather thanRead MoreAnne Fadimans The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down And Waste Away Essay1312 Words   |  6 PagesThe interviews in Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down and Joshua Reno’s Waste Away both have their fair share of barriers to overcome, even though their research could not be more different. Anne Fadiman conducts interviews in two drastically different topics, Hmong culture and medicine. Joshua Reno favors a landfill in Michigan; interviewing residents living next to Four Corners Landfill. However different these two areas of research may be, both books show that interviewingRead MoreThe Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down Addresses Experiences And Decisions1018 Words   |  5 PagesFadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down addresses experiences and decisions we may all relate to in some degree through the point of view of a journalist. It offers a different perspective and insight that has been used as an acceptable resource on cultural competence. As a passive reader, our understanding of cultural competence has grown more humanistic, because we feel the healthcare provider’s frustration and their concerns becoming more salient, while we see how a breakdown in communicationRead MoreThe Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down Essay1566 Words   |  7 PagesThe book titled The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: Talks about a Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures written by Anne Fadiman. Anne Fadiman is an American essayist and reporter, who interests include literary journalism. She is a champion of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Salon Book Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest. In the book, Anne Fadiman explores the clash between a county hospital in California