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Title: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman ISBN: 0-374-52564-1 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 28 September, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.58 (138 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: What a roller coaster ride....
Comment: While reading this book I had many mixed feelings. I was frustrated, sad, and happy, and then frustrated all over again. This book placed my heart and mind on a roller coaster ride. I must say though reading it made me get a better picture of the many struggles the Hmong people went through. I think the author Anne Fadiman portrays the hardships and emotions of the Lee family well. This is a perfect example of what I see as a culture collision. What a tough situation for both sides to be put in. I mean here you have a Hmong family with a strong background of the eastern culture trying to fit into the diverse American ways. They couldn't read or even speak anything of the English language. To make matters worse, their daughter Lia is diagnosed with epilepsy. Major language barriers make it hard for these two cultures to communicate with one another. Frustration leads to blame and a bunch of misunderstandings cause a lack of trust between these two communities as this story goes into depth. Who is right? What is right? These are two questions that I constantly asked myself throughout this book. I tried to put myself in both people's shoes and realized that the bottom line is that both sides wanted the best for Lia. Both sides cared very much for her and only wanted her to get better. Throughout the book, you have the American doctors constantly trying everything they can possible do to help her out, yet on the other hand you have a Hmong family who doesn't really believe in what they're doing. But what are you to do? Well I hope when you read this book you'll find yourself in total awe. I found myself admiring the efforts of both sides in this everlasting battle. Lia has touched many lives and definitely for the people involved, will not be forgotten. I commend the Lee's, Anne Fadiman, and everyone else for allowing people like us into their lives.
Rating: 5
Summary: A spirit caught me up in this book
Comment: Anne Fadiman's book is a fascinating account of what happens when a left-brain culture (the American medical establishment) and a right-brain culture (a Hmong refugee family) go on collision course over a very ill little girl. Lia Lee is epileptic; she has uncontrollable seizures which require medical intervention and treatment. Lia's doctors see her family as negligent and ignorant because their inability to follow a complicated medical regimen makes her condition deteriorate; her family see the doctors as arrogant and insensitive, and insist the medicine they are giving her actually made her sicker. The tragedy is that both the doctors and the family genuinely want to help Lia, but their total lack of communication and inability to understand each other, linguistically and culturally, makes cooperation impossible. Those of us in the 'helping' professions (medicine, nursing, social work) often lose sight of the fact that the relationship between 'helper' and 'helpee' is most effective when each sees the other as an equal partner who deserves equal consideration and respect; instead, the 'helpers' often dole out advice and directions which the 'helpees' are expected to follow without question, and are then labeled backwards, resistant, or even negligent, when they refuse. The book zeroes in on the dangers of ethnocentric thinking in working with or treating people of different cultures; the Lees may have been illiterate and 'backwards' by American cultural standards, but they knew and loved their child. We end up admiring and respecting the Hmong for their warm family life and their support of each other in times of crisis, as well as respecting the medical personnel who grew as human beings as they came to recognize the Lees' humanity and their incredible strengths as parents. Many, if not most, American families would institutionalize a child such as Lia; but to her family, the sicker she became, the more precious she became. Anne Fadiman has given us an informative, excellently researched, uplifting and yet humbling book about a very special family and a very special child
Rating: 5
Summary: Sometimes Prejudice Isn't Evil, Only Ignorant
Comment: I may be too optimistic, but I've grown to believe that bigotry isn't always practiced by bad people, but often by good people ignorant of cultures other than their own. This was certainly the situation in the case that Anne Fadiman writes about. People from two cultures, each believing they are correct, clash and a small child gets caught in the middle.
Prejudice begins to break down in the light of true communication. Unfortunately for this child, true communcation was too big of a hurdle to cross. Fortunately for the reader, we can learn from reading about this experience.
This book will touch your heart and open your mind. The lessons learned within its pages will stay with you. This book is worth purchasing.
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Title: Ex Libris : Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman ISBN: 0374527229 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 25 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: Caring for Patients from Different Cultures: Case Studies from American Hospitals by Geri-Ann Galanti ISBN: 0812216083 Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press Pub. Date: February, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Mama Might Be Better Off Dead: The Failure of Health Care in Urban America by Laurie Kaye Abraham ISBN: 0226001393 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: September, 1994 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Cultural Diversity in Health and Illness, Sixth Edition by Rachel E. Spector ISBN: 0130493791 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 23 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $38.67 |
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Title: Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues, Updated Edition With a New Preface by Paul Farmer ISBN: 0520229134 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 05 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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