The Spirit Catches You

In Sociology class were reading a book by Anne Fadiman called "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down"...a very long winded title, but a great book. It is about an immigrant Hmong family who go through many hardships in the American medical system. The youngest child named Lia is an epileptic and has frequent seizures which result from a number of different reasons. The language barrier between the doctors and the family are very evident and cause a rift in respect for one another. The book takes place in California after the Hmong family flees their home city of Laos because of war. Throughout the book you see that both sides are beginning to gain trust in one another and that the english barrier is still in tact but becoming weaker and weaker. This book really shows the trouble some newcomers feel when coming to this country or any country where everything is new and unusual to the way people lived prior to that moment. I suggest that everyone picks this book up, it is very interesting as well as informative.