Bookworm

[#1]

by Anne Fadiman

This fascinating story weaves the intricate story of two cultures colliding as a family and doctors work to find the cause of three-month-old Lia Lee’s illness. The first is a Hmong family who are refugees from the CIA-run Quiet War in Laos. The second, a husband/wife team of American pediatricians. Both want the best for Lia, but their ideas clash dramatically over her treatment and diagnosis. Western medicine follows a path toward epilepsy, while the Hmong family, who's beliefs are deeply rooted in rituals and ancestral involvement, refer to her symptoms as a spirit that makes their daughter fall down.

This engaging tale begins when little Lia Lee arrives at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California. This sets off a chain of events  and a series of interactions that explores issues of culture, medicine, religious beliefs, immigration and the complex issue of medical (or non-medical) care. Who is right and who is wrong?  Who’s to decide the fate of this young child? Fadiman weaves a tragic tale that leads each character to ultimately experience frustration, mistrust, misunderstanding, fear and uncertainty. And each must pick a side of this tottering fence.

Throughout the story we see parental love pitted against a doctors’ sense of duty. Yet, no one is the villain and no one is the clear hero. And what of Lia? The story is spellbinding...and may have you questioning your own predisposed beliefs about the connection between medicine, spirit, body and soul.  

About Anne Fadiman

Fadiman is an American author and the daughter of the renowned literary, radio and television personality Clifton Fadiman and World War II correspondent and author Annalee Jacoby Fadiman. She attended Harvard University, graduating in 1975 from Radcliffe College. Her 1997 book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Researched in California, it examined an extended Hmong family with a child with epilepsy, and their cultural, linguistic and medical struggles in America. Fadiman is married to the American author George Howe Colt.

The Hmong In America

By Jeff Lindsay (Read his complete essay and additional information)

Many Americans mistake them for Chinese or Vietnamese, but the many Hmong immigrants in our nation are from a distinct culture. Most of the adults were born in Laos and grew up as poor farmers from the hilltops of northern Laos, before they were recruited to fight for the United States against powerful Communist forces. There are roughly 180,000 Hmong people in the U.S., largely concentrated in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and California. Several million Hmong people remain in China, Thailand, and Laos, speaking a variety of Hmong dialects.

The Asian Hmong culture is agrarian, like many cultures in Indochina, with religious beliefs based in animism (including the use of shamans for guidance, healing, and other ceremonies). Hmong culture places a great deal of emphasis on relationships between relatives and members of clans, with respect for elders and strong families. Remembering ancestors and traditional ways is important, and many efforts are made to preserve traditional ways and to keep the memory of the accomplishments and suffering of ancestors. Elaborate Hmong quilts or "flower cloths" (bandao or "paj ntaub" in Hmong) are one example of Hmong art that conveys stories from the past.

The Hmong in the U.S. came mainly from Laos as refugees after the Vietnam War. They once lived idyllic agrarian lives in the hills of northern Laos, but that changed once many of them were recruited by the CIA to fight for us in the once-secret wars in Laos. They fought bravely and suffered many causalities, but once we pulled out from Vietnam and left them in the lurch, the North Vietnamese and their puppet government in Laos marked the Hmong for genocidal extinction. Many of the Hmong fled from invaders (and from chemical weapons, including "yellow rain" and other toxins), losing many lives as they traveled through the jungle and swam the Mekong river to Thailand.

Read more about the Hmong people, culture and history by Jeff Lindsay.