The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures Paperback - 1998

This is a very serious book filled with history, medical information, Hmong culture and the politics of war and immigration in the United States. It is a rather damning text, both to the U.S. in our international politics, and to the rigidity of our medical system. Lia Lee is the 13th child of a Hmong couple from Laos. When the communists are victorious in Laos the Hmong people were killed, tortured, starved for their part in the war which was fighting on the U.S. side. So Lia's parents (Lia was not born yet) took their children and walked, in great danger, to Thailand where they lived in a refugee camp until they were given permission to emigrate to the U.S. Culture shock doesn't even begin to describe it. Like many Hmong they ended up going to Merced, CA. hoping for a bit of land to farm as this is what they knew. They didn't get any land, most Hmong didn't. Lia's mother grew her plants and herbs in her apartment building's parking lot. Lia is born in a hospital in CA. (The other children had been born at home in Laos, caught by their mother's forearms so they wouldn't touch the dirt floor, in silence so complete that the other children were not wakened.) Lia seemed normal but at about 8 months her sister slammed a door and Lia fell down in an epileptic seizure. The U.S. doctors understand this condition as a storm of electrical activity in the brain that causes seizure. The Hmong understand this condition as 'the spirit catches you and you fall down', her soul fled when she was frightened by the slamming door. They took her to the ER and here started the collision between the American doctors and Lia's parents and the Hmong community. Because Lia's parents did not comply with the regimen of anti-convulsant meds she was taken away from them when she was two and put into foster care, by her doctor's request to the courts of CA. Even though she had great foster parents I think this whole experience was to Lia's great detriment. She was given back to her parents before a year was up and they gave her the prescribed meds but Lia kept getting sicker and eventually contracted sepsis and seized until she was essentially brain dead. Western medicine sent her home to die expecting it to happen within hours or at the most days. Lia did not die, her parents took the most excellent and loving care of her. She was clean, fragrant, beautiful and emotionally responsive to her parents. Her parents used herbal medicine that they knew from Laos and Hmong shamanistic healing ceremonies. That didn't mean Lia came back, but she lived. The last scene where the chanter is calling her back is just heartbreaking. This book was of particular interest to me as I was epileptic as a child, and also because I have a disabled child. I felt somewhat ashamed reading how Lia's parents took care of her. We take good care of our son, but not as spectacular as her parents did. I thought I should make more of an effort. I also believe that there is a spiritual aspect to all of life. That as long as we are alive on this earth our body and soul cannot be separated or treated medically without consideration for the physical and spiritual aspects of a person. I think that there is every possibility that both the western understanding of epilepsy and the Hmong understanding of epilepsy (if you are Hmong) are both true and not mutually exclusive. I was impressed with and interested in Hmong culture and looked up to see if they have a community here in Seattle. They do. It was also interesting to read about animal sacrifice, now in modern day life. Not warehouse killing but individual animals sacrificed in propitiation or thanks. Altogether, an amazing book.

a reader