A Typical One-Dimensional View

“The Spirit Catches You…” is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in learning trivia about Hmong-Americans and, in particular, the tragic outcome for an epileptic Hmong-American child caught in the middle of an epic clash between her Hmong parents’ orthodoxy, her American doctor’s cultural chauvinism, and a medical system ill-prepared to communicate with its non-English speaking patients.

Fadiman’s “indispensible historical [and comprehensive] reference,” “Hmong: History of a People,” had been rejected as conjecture akin to fantasy years before The Spirit’s publication by most scholars on the Hmong. Thus it is surprising to find some of their unfounded premises woven romantically into her book. The notion that Hmong, with their “broad noses and lighter skin” and, sometimes reddish-blond hair, might have originated in the Urals or Eurasia has long been relegated to myth by most reputable scholars. Additionally, “Hmong means free [or free men]” had been denied and repudiated by Dr. Yang Dao—the scholar to whom the phrase was attributed.

Fadiman did a marvelous job of collecting a cornucopia of information and factoids about one of California’s most intriguing refugee groups. However, the reader is cautioned against drawing any conclusions about Hmong as a whole from them. Lacking the cultural context and the interpreters fluent in both Hmong and English to competently translate material, the author creates an ethnic group that is both homogenous and one-dimensional.

Nevertheless, the genuine respect and sincerity with which Fadiman treats all of the people/characters and the subject matter involved becomes evident once the reader gets passed any dissonance resulting from the book’s many incongruities. (E.g., Lia was born in Merced, California thus making her a natural born American, a fact contradicting the book’s title and one that her doctors and the book’s author never acknowledged.) “The Spirit Catches You…” excellently portrays the high stakes involved when a powerless child is caught in the middle of conflicting best intentions—not a clash of cultures.