The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down Essay

The book I read to examine multicultural issues and cultural biases was The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Faldiman. I found it helpful to use Google maps to get a visual of the location Hmong refugees came from in Laos and mentally trace their journey across the Pacific to settle in Merced, CA. There are two main cultures discussed in this book which includes the subordinate Hmong Lee family and the dominant White American doctors who tried to help Lia with her medical or spirit issues depending on which culture you asked. Faldiman stated in the preface, “I have always felt that the action most worth watching is not at the center of things but where the edges meet.” This statement would hold so much relevance because Lia’s treatments could have been less stressful if the two cultures reached a point of intersectionality. This is also congruent with what Tatum mentioned in Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria concerning, “Changes in immigration policy in 1965 dramatically increased Asian immigration, significantly altering the demographic makeup of the Asian Pacific American community.” In order to have a full

understanding of what the characters in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Faldiman took an in depth view of the Hmong’s culture.
Foua and Nao Kao Lee gave birth to their precious daughter Lia. Lia was the 15th child born to the Lees. Sadly, she was only baby number eight to survive and was the youngest of their clan. The family settled in Merced, California along with a relatively nice size of other Hmong immigrants. The Hmong culture in general adopted a philosophy of “think a little less like and American and more like a Hmong” way of thinking to preserve their culture. The Hmong culture had an interesting way of dealing with child bearing. For starters, if a woman was not able to conceive children, they would consult the Txiv Neeb to perform a healing ceremony. The Hmong women were very careful about the foods they ate during pregnancy, and they believed if they did not eat what their bodies were craving that their children would be born with a deformity. In the event of a birth defect, the Hmong would show those babies even more attention because they believed there was karma for adult wrongdoings and they accepted any deformity with humbleness.
Prenatal care was not very common. In fact, a Hmong woman would try her best to get home to give birth. The father played a major role in the delivery process. A hole would be dug to store the placenta as a part of their soul calling beliefs. It was on the third day that the child would be given a name and considered as a part of the human race. If a baby did not survive to the third day it was like they never existed. The soul calling was an important part of the Hmong culture because they believed in evil spirits called “dabs” who are constantly on the prowl to steal the souls of people, especially children. Hmong mothers designed special clothing to make their babies look like flowers as a camouflage from the dabs. The dabs are omnipresent and waiting to devour any vulnerable soul.
The Hmong culture has a strong belief in fight or migrate way of self-defense. They prefer to live peacefully in the mountains with homes they construct and relying on food they grow for themselves. Unfortunately, the Hmong have faced many obstacles throughout the years from pressures to assimilate to Chinese and European traditions to fleeing from oppression. They faced a lot of race issues simply for being who they were. The Chinese described them as “barbarians.” They were in the out group as far as their body shape. The Hmong are short and stocky built, and rumors swirled that they had wings under their arms and tails. The negative stereotypes came from their refusal to Chinese acculturation. If they did not follow the criminal code they were treated like barbarians and had their noses, ears and testicles sliced off as a form of punishment.
The Chinese officials built a wall to segregate them, however they failed to realize the Hmong have a “lock my body can’t trap my mind” way of life. The Hmong refugees could be contained, but never controlled. Characteristics of the Hmong personality identity are that they do not like to take orders, they do not like to lose, and they would rather flee or fight before they would bow down to a way of life contradictory of peaceful, self-sufficient life in the mountains. Their ethnic identity would not be swayed in order to preserve their customs from each generation to the next. On page 19, Father Mottin summed up the Hmong’s resoluteness when he said, “The Hmong…have never possessed a country of their own, they have never got a king worthy of this name, and yet they have passed through the ages remaining what they have always wished to be, that is to say: free men with a right to live in this world as a Hmong.” These identities are important to reference because the Lees were constantly misjudged and stereotyped for simply being Hmong.
The title of the book, “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” was based off a strong belief linking to the soul stealing dabs.

The term “quag dab ped” is the translation of the book title. There was an incident when the older sister slammed a door and three month old Lia went into convulsions from a seizure. The Lees believed that Lia’s spirit had left her body. It was the beginning of a long journey to get help because their family status identity was set on the credence that children where their most prized possessions. The Lees wanted to consult with a txiv neeb who is known as having a healing spirit. There is also a shaman who is regarded as divine if they are epileptic. There were mixed feelings about if Lia was really sick and if the prescribed medications would heal or worsen her

condition.
Given the descriptions of certain Hmong identities helps to interpret the collision between a dominate group and subordinate group when it came to Lia’s health diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Dan Murphy at Merced County Medical Center was the first to diagnose Lia with epilepsy. The MCMC was very familiar in a bad way due to stereotypes with the Hmong because one in five residents were Hmong. Cultures collided because the Lee family thought the cause of Lia’s illness was her spirit leaving her body after being startled from the noise of a door slamming. On the opposite side was the doctor giving the scientific and results based diagnosis of epilepsy. The entire book was a series of events about the lack of cultural diversity, internalized negative stereotypes and ethnocentric monoculturalism. The Hmong would not fit the Sue and Sue model for Asian race identities because they never made it to stage two of trying to fit in with white people. The Hmong were already fleeing the control of the Chinese way of life, so living in America would be no different.
Chapter four was titled, “Do Doctors Eat Brains” because the Hmong had a lot of distrust about the medical care in the United States. The Hmong believed in shamanic healing with herbs, tea baths and blessing from the txiv neeb. The cultures clashes led to impediments in Lia’s treatment plan. The Lees and other Hmong people faced a language barrier that was a constant problem throughout the book. Even with an interpreter, it was difficult to know if the right phrases were being delivered to each party. It would be similar to whispering in someone’s ear and they whisper to the next person and so on. By the time the message reaches the last person, the entire statement is changed. The cultural norms of Hmong healing did not consist of doctors asking a ton of questions, autopsies and surgeries. Also, the Hmong avoided the Christian hospitals because they were led by missionaries who were adamant about converting the Hmong which showed complete lack of compassion for their strong spiritual roots. Doctors would show complete disregard for the simple, yet important healing remedies by cutting off the strings tied to the Hmong as self-healing. The doctors at MCMC failed to bridge the gap because they were so accustomed to their one-sided western views.
Next comes a set of doctors named Neil and Peggy who are a married couple, very intelligent, physically active runners, and have astounding reputations amongst their colleagues. The first thing they noticed was Lia being overweight. She was a lively child who ran around the hospital if she was not watched closely, stubborn when it came to taking her medications, and still being breast fed. Lia was prescribed so many meds but they were not being administered correctly primarily due to the language and cultural barriers. The doctors and nurses tried to color code and give directions based off the way the Hmong used to tell time based on animal feeding times. The modified directions and attempts to accommodate the Lees were not successful. It was very frustrating to the doctors when the medications were not dispensed because the Lees wanted to change the dosage based off the side effects they observed with their daughter. Peggy and Neil were flat out racist by thinking the mom was dumb and the father put up a wall. It is very difficult to get displaced out of your native land, oppressed by refugee camps, then arrive to the land of the free and be expected to conform to the dominant culture.