Rating: 
Summary: Sympathy Please!
Review: After carefully reading this book, one can easily draw the conclusion that this book is merely a plea for sympathy of Hmongs living in America. Obviously the author wants a much more expansive government health care system to cover these immigrants. The author makes it apparent to the reader that it was not the Hmongs fault for immigrating here and becoming a burden to our system. She justifies it through her vendetta against U.S. involvement in Vietnam/Laos. Quite clearly Fadiman wishes to express her extreme views in order to gain sympathy for these poor, uneducated, helpless Hmongs.
Rating: 
Summary: Culturally accurate and very honest
Review: I have been teaching English to Hmong students for many years and have experienced firsthand families' struggles and successes as they try to assimilate into the "American" culture. The personal stories, experiences, and traditions described in this story are not common or even familiar to most people, yet those of us working within the Hmong community know this to be everyday life. It is a very moving and heartfelt story...
Rating:
Summary: Snapshot of a Lost Chapter in US History
Review: I previously rated this book "five stars" because it explores issues of culture, immigration, medicine and of the activities in which the US engaged in LAOS.Beyond my assessment of this book--which, of course, brought tears to my eyes, I began to appreciate the complexities of the US involvement in Laos and the disconnect between the understanding of US medical procedures and traditional Hmong culture and medical care. If nothing else, I hope that reading this book will inspire you to read more about the Hmong situation in Laos, and the activities of the Viet Cong and the United States. You can find several of these books on amazon.com...
Rating: 
Summary: The spirit will catch you too...
Review: This was a required book for my Medical Ethics class, and I am a better person for having read it. Prepare yourself to experience an entire range of emotions when reading this compelling story. Furthermore, I urge you not to skip even one page of the book as you will miss a part of the essence of the message author Anne Fadiman is trying to convey. I promise you that after you finish reading "The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down," you will come away from the experience with a broader understanding of cultural, religious, and language differences and barriers, and perhaps even a little more compassion for others. To anyone going into the medical field, please read this book. It will give you an insight that medical textbooks cannot. The author certainly gave much of herself to express this endeavor. Bravo, Ms. Fadiman!
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking, fascinating, ... just plain GOOD
Review: "The Spirit Catches You And You Fall" is the story of a Hmong family in Merced, California and the cultural clash that ensues when they bring their epileptic infant into the county hospital for treatment. The constant stream of immigration into America from all over the world insures that we have all read many stories about culture clashes. But this one is so extreme that one wonders whether Americans and the Hmongs should ever have been placed on the same planet. It is not only a language barrier that causes problems, but also the very most fundamental assumptions that go into even the most casual conversations. The problems are exacerbated by the Hmongs' belief that the United States promised them significant cash subsidies in exchange for fighting on the Western, or royalist side, against the communists in the Laotian war (which was more or less simultaneous with the Viet Nam war). Needless to say, those cash subsidies were not forthcoming except in the form of the usual benefits available for new immigrants, along with the standard welfare payments. It has become a common complaint (sometimes valid, sometimes not, in my opinion) that immigrants 100 years ago wanted to become assimilated into the American culture as quickly as possible, whereas now they demand that the existing American culture adapt to them. But if you are unhappy with Mexicans or Pakistanis on those grounds, wait till you read about the Hmong! It is really not so much that they demand that Americans adapt to them, but that they cling to their own culture with a ferocity, a stubbornness, and a relentlessness, that is hard to believe. That culture includes animal sacrifices, a highly structured clan system, complex folk tales and hierarchies of spiritual beings, early marriage, and an eye-popping birth rate. The primary focus of the book is how that culture clash made it nearly impossible for the epileptic child to be treated effectively either from the standpoint of Western medicine or in they eyes of the Hmong family who loved her. Fadiman goes into the history of the Hmongs in Asia and how their experiences have hardened them into the people they are now. It is very easy for the American layperson to lump them together with all other Asians, but that would be a huge mistake. Even to refer to them as "Laotians" - as I did before reading this book - would be a serious dismissal of their uniqueness. The Hmong have suffered hardships almost inconceivable in the eyes of modern Americans. The book has no happy endings, and not an awful lot in the way of lessons. Fadiman provides some suggestions for what the American doctors and social workers should have done differently. (It's noteworthy that, like most multiculturalists, she says very little about what the HMONG should have done differently - even though Western medicine is demonstrably far more effective than the Hmong procedures of animal sacrifices and religious ceremonies.) Those suggestions, at the end of the day, would not have changed the outcome - at least not in my opinion. Those suggestions might have avoided some hurt feelings, and that in turn might have given the Hmong community a greater confidence in the doctors in Merced and Fresno. In that respect, things might have been better over the long term than they are now. But the primary lesson I came away with was that there is an almost impenetrable barrier between the two cultures, and that it certainly would have been far better if the Hmong had never been forced to come here. And underlying THAT lesson is the realization of the incredible cruelty that is visited upon otherwise peaceful people when the "Great Powers" make pawns of them in a global conflict. The only reason the Hmong are in Merced is that Southeast Asia was a battleground between the United States and the communist countries, and that each side was willing to use any means to win - even at the cost of the complete destruction of people the like Hmong. I have no hesitation in stating that I think communism was evil, and that we were right to fight it. But did anyone ask the Hmong, and other people like them, whether THEY were willing to pay the price for the victory of democracy? And did we have the right to decide for them? This book will have you thinking about those questions and more, long after you close the last page. And you are unlikely to find easy answers.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible work of journalism
Review: This book represents the highest form of the journalists art and is even better because it is written by a craftswoman of extraordinary gifts. The subject matter is both fascinating and horrifying. Having been a healthcare journalist, it is so easy to see why these terrible things happened to this family and to the doctors who tried desparately and often ineffectively to treat a young girl with powerful epileptic seizures. Fadiman plays it straight down the middle in describing a situation that has many people to hold the blame for what happened. She clearly outlines how each player in this drama acted and she was fortunate to deal with a group of healthcare professionals who were forthcoming and candid in discussing their shortcomings in the course of treatment for this girl. She also examines the culture clashes that exacerbated the problem and gives a beautiful description of the Hmong in the U.S. and background on who they are and where they came from. The picture she paints is clear and detailed and yet it leaves you with a sense of how muddled and messy the whole thing really is. This book should be required reading for healthcare professionals because it shows how even well meaning and competent physicians and nurses can make terrible mistakes by failing to fully understand what goes on outside the clinical setting. This child could have had a different outcome, but it might not have been possible given the place and time. Ultimately, Fadiman provides us with a chance to learn many difficult lessons about who we are, who we are becoming and about what kinds of promises our govenment makes when it gets involved in fights in other countries and picks local people to do its bidding.
Rating:
Summary: informative and heartwrenching
Review: As a health provider who has spent several years working with the Hmong in Thai refugee camps, I was very pleased to see something intellegent and informative written about these people. I have read authors who have written about the Hmong with an authoritative voice without actually doing much research and thus perpetrating inaccurate stereotypes. I have also read authors who have written with such bias (either the Hmong are wonderful, peaceful people without faults or the Hmong are ignorant, unmanagable and hopeless) to negate anything they might have to say. This author does neither. She has also maintained an excellent job of balancing her observations between the Hmong and medical communities, while trying to be objectively detached from both camps. I do disagree with a few of the authors perceptions, particularly regarding how foriegn relief workers in refugee camps feel about the Hmong. As a rule, most of my colleagues were extremely fond of the Hmong. This book is very well written, very informative and telling of both the Hmong and the US medical establishment and heartwrenching.
This book is well deserved of the National Book Critics Circle Award and a highly recommended read.
Rating:
Summary: Weaving through the misunderstandings...
Review: I found this book to be an invaluable resource in exploring the continuing issues of cultural diversity and medicine. I thought that it was well written and immaculately researched. Ms. Fadiman went deeply into the roots of the Hmong culture as well as their ties to America since Vietnam. I had not read much about it and although it got a bit wordy at times, learned a lot in 300 pages...All health care workers should read this for the perspective on cultural sensitivity it provides and medicine's role of treating patients NOT textbooks.
Rating:
Summary: Fadiman brought me right into the story
Review: "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" is well written and researched, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in either 'cultural otherness' or health care issues. As other reviewers have said, I found Anne Fadiman remarkably evenhanded when relating either the Lees' story, or the health care professionals' stories. Neither parents nor doctors did all the right things or all the wrong things, even for the right reasons. Fadiman also brought me right into the story. I could sympathize with the Lees' bewilderment and frustration with Lia's doctors, and I completely understood the doctors' frustration with the Lees. I read this book eagerly, which is not all that common for me with nonfiction. Pick it up. You won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: Thanks for completing the story
Review: I literally stumbled over this book in the book store and could barely put it down as it brought back my former life as a "refugee worker" who met one of the first (if not the first) Hmong family to arrive in Seattle in 1977 or 78. I want to thank Anne Fadiman for compiling and completing the entire story for me in such a beautiful and readable manner. I had heard a lot of the history and many of the rumors (especially about their leaders in the U.S.). I spent many hours in the Family Doctors Clinics with many of our Hmong refugees as they adapted to the first months of their new lives. I have many pieces of their beautiful handwork, several as gifts from our Hmong friends. As an IRC staff member, I visited several of the refugee camps around Nong Khai that they came through. But we were all "flying by the seat of our pants" in those early days and while we were learning a lot, there was lots we didn't know. This book has filled in the gaps twenty-five years later. I wish we could have read this book then. While the story seems very personal to me, I am gratified that this book has become an important document for the medical profession, as well as for other interested persons. If Lia has had this much impact on so many people, perhaps the spirits have turned her tragedy into triumph!
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