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The Book of the Week is “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, a Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures” by Anne Fadiman, published in 1997. This volume alternately told the story of every last detail of the medical history (too much information!) of a child of the Hmong tribe from the country of Laos, and how the child’s fate was determined by the clash between American and Hmong cultures.
The history of Laos from the 1960’s onward is an infuriating and depressing one. Via their war-orders, American presidents destroyed Laos’ populated areas with land mines, bombs, napalm and agent orange in order to cut off a major North-Vietnam supply route called the Ho Chi Minh trail.
To start with, JFK violated an international agreement that Laos (neighboring Vietnam and Thailand) remain neutral in the event of war in the region; this, by secretly ordering, via the CIA– the recruitment, training and arming of a Hmong guerrilla army (even child-soldiers); at its peak thirty-thousand strong. This militia (consisting of the “Royal Lao”) continued fighting the (Communist) Pathet Lao (who behaved genocidally toward the Hmong), through the LBJ and Nixon administrations. Previously, the Hmongs had been farmers, growing opium-poppies and rice. This expertise of the Hmong, provided “Quiet War” funding.
The Americans’ delivery of rice (terminated in June 1974) kept the peasants from starving to death. When the Vietnam war “ended” in spring 1975, about 150,000 Laotians flooded refugee camps in Thailand (the nearest country that would take them due to funding from the United States and other “democratic” nations).
Long story short, the American government destroyed the Hmongs’ peaceful way of life of agriculture and herding in the mountains of Laos. Thus, some politicians sought to salve their consciences by allowing a few Hmong refugees to come to the United States beginning in May 1975.
Preference was obviously given to the few thousand Laotian military members who had aided the Americans, and thereafter, about 25,000 Hmong arrived through 1980. The Hmong felt a sense of entitlement in collecting American public assistance, because: the CIA broke its promises to aid the Hmong in exchange for their risking their lives to help Americans fight the Vietnam war; and the United States military wrecked their country.
In 1980, the Lee family arrived. Born in July 1982 in California, Lia was the fourteenth child born to the Lees. As a baby, Lia was diagnosed with epilepsy. Even by the late 1980’s, not one tribal member who lived in their community– Merced, CA– spoke the English language. The language barrier plus lots of other cultural differences the Lees had with Merced Community Medical Center, led to many misunderstandings and serious physical consequences for Lia through the years.
The Hmong people perform rituals based on superstitions, beliefs and customs; for, they believe in honoring their ancestors, shamanism and alternative medicine in the form of herbalism and acupuncture. Their humungous families have multi-generational households, and their priorities consist of taking care of their families, then their clan, then their own tribe.
They stick together and their mentality is one of cooperation rather than competition. Here’s an example: “Then Jonas [who speaks five languages and works long hours; an anomalous member of the Hmong tribe in that he was educated and had jobs] drove home [of one residence] to his wife, his three children, his brothers, his brothers’ wives, his brothers’ ten children, and his ringing telephone.”
Read the book to learn much, much more about the cultural clash between the Lees and their American community, some history of Laos, and how, as is typical for war-refugees coming to America, the younger generation of the Hmong tribe is becoming assimilated in this country.