Summary 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 than
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In The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down‚ Anne Fadiman narrates the story of Lia‚ a Hmong girl suffering from epilepsy who was surrounded by challenges due to conflicting viewpoints of her parents and her health care providers. For the Hmong people‚ epileptic seizures are viewed as a positive trait; those people who suffered from seizures are attributed to be a “twix neeb”‚ or “a person with a healing spirit” (Fadiman‚ 1997‚ pg. 21). Lia’s parents—Foau and Nao Kao (the Lees)—considered her condition
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The two cultures 1. Do you think the author was evenhanded in her presentation of Hmong culture and medical culture? I absolutely believe that the author was evenhanded in her presentation of the two cultures. Throughout the book it was clear that she tried to look at everything from as many perspectives as possible to accurately portray the Hmong culture and medical culture. 3. Over the centuries‚ the Hmong fought against many different peoples who claimed sovereignty over their lands. What
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"The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" the book by Anne Fadiman is an interesting book that contains different situations where different cultures and traditions clashes as a result of different barriers. In this brief work I tried to shed light on some of these barriers that could exist in our clinical practice and how these barriers could be understood in different cultures. On the other hand‚ there is no doubt that cultural differences play an important role in problems analysis as well as
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“The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” Reader’s Guide Directions: Read the captioned book. Then answer the questions contained in this study guide. Post your completed document to the appropriate assignment box on the course website. 1. What do you think of traditional Hmong birth practices (pp. 3-5)? Compare them to the techniques used when Lia was born (p. 7). How do Hmong and American birth practices differ? I think the Hmong traditional give birth practice is very unsafe and dirty. The
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Cindy Copeland The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Chapter 1 “Foua never thought to ask‚ since she speaks no English‚ and when she delivered Lia‚ no one present spoke Hmong.” (pg 6) I cannot imagine being somewhere where no one spoke the same language – let along receiving medical care and/or delivering a baby without anyone speaking the same language. That must have been not only a scary experience‚ but a lonely one too. To have no one there and no one there that spoke my language
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Last semester I read the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman for one of my social work classes. This book is closely related to the chapter we covered this week on immigrants and refugees. This topic definitely piqued my interest. The book provided me with a descriptive overview of the life of a refugee from their perspective‚ while our textbook provided me with the knowledge base that is needed to assist this population. From a local perspective‚ I could never grasp the
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The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down by Ann Fadiman is a very interesting book. It’s amazing how difficult it is for Americans to understand other cultures because the United States is such a diverse country. However‚ as an American‚ I understood the frustrations that Lia Lee’s doctors’ felt when trying to diagnose and treat her properly. In this book both the American doctors and the Hmong peoples faced many hardships and barriers when trying to communicate with each other. After having read
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we are a “normal” American family. My heritage derives from German‚ Native American‚ and a Bohemian background. I honestly do not know much about my ancestry except for the few things my parents and grandparents have shared with me. How I see it‚ I am a mix of hundreds of amazing individuals from different races‚ cultures and backgrounds. Residing on a farm taught me a lot about hard work‚ medicine‚ and caring for others. I always knew I wanted to be a nurse even as a small child. At a young age my
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tells her story with a novelist’s grace‚ playing the role of cultural broker comprehending those who do not comprehend each other and perceiving what might have been done or said to make the outcome different” (Bernstein). 2. “This fine book recounts a poignant tragedy...It has no heroes or villains‚ but it has an abundance of innocent suffering‚ and is most certainly does have a moral...[A] sad‚ excellent book” (Konner). 3. “An intriguing‚ spirit-lifting extraordinary exploration of two cultures
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