Essay on "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down"

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Review of “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” The book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman is a compelling look at what can happen when two distinctly different cultures are forced through a variety of circumstances to interact in the best interest of a child. This story is the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction and has received a tremendous amount of notoriety. The story chronicles the account of Lia Lee, a Hmong infant diagnosed with epilepsy by western medicine standards, and the clash of how “modern” medicine’s idealistic expectations with its morally ambiguous approaches impact a traditional and culturally intact Hmong approach to little Lia Lee’s wellbeing. Fadiman utilizes a classic anthropological approach in examining the how the Hmong culture and Lia Lee were impacted and what that means for American culture and medicine. Fadiman found that modern western medicine, with all of its virtues, cutting edge treatments and diagnostic capacities, hit a quintessential brick wall when faced with Lia Lee’s family and culture. What western medicine saw as a failed attempt by the Lee family to assimilate into American culture is the backbone and the lesson to this story; it would appear that instead of the medical establishment trying to understand and incorporate Hmong culture into what could be perceived as a holistic care model, the Hmong culture instead acted as an impassible divide, one that may have led to the death of little Lia. Fadiman describes Lia’s family as being fiercely devoted to her and regarded their daughter as a future shaman because of the Hmong beliefs about seizures. Lia’s family approached her affliction with immense love and kindness, incorporating traditional Hmong practices, western medicines, and herbs that her mother grows in her

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