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

Fadiman begins the chapter with an autobiography that May, one of Lia’s sisters, writes for a school assignment about her family’s experience fleeing Laos in 1979. When the United States military withdrew from Laos, former North Vietnamese forces came in to occupy the villages. They retaliated against the Hmong, viewing them as enemies of the state for supporting the United States during the war.

Rather than accept these persecutions, 150,000 Hmong, like the Lees, escaped to Thailand, a dangerous journey that they covered by foot through the forests and mountains. During their travels, they experienced mass shootings, explosions from landmines, and drownings in the Mekong River. They also encountered starvation and disease. To quiet babies, families often drugged them with opium, causing unintended overdoses and death; to survive, many Hmong left their elders, the sick, and wounded behind. When Fadiman remarks that the Hmong seem like a cohesive community, one of her respondents replies that most suffer from survivor’s guilt.

Fadiman also discusses the origins and living conditions of Ban Vinai, a refugee camp in Thailand, which at its peak in 1986 accommodated 42,858 inhabitants, 90 percent of them Hmong. Fadiman refers to the work of Dwight Conquergood and his observation that most camp officials blame the Hmong for their poverty and economic dependency.