Hmong Means Free Man

This book is required reading for medical students according to the Hmong Interpreter where I work. It was the winner of the national book critic's circle award. Was praised by editors from the Washington Post to the New York times and many others. After you read it you will see why.

I first learned of the Hmong when I went to work a year ago at an interpreting service. One of our on site interpreters is Hmong. Until then I had never heard of them. We each got to go into a meeting with one of the language interpreters to hear all about how they got to the united States and about their culture. I have been fascinated ever since then. They really are remarkable people..

The Hmong lady that I work with is about 5 foot at best and lived the first 10 years of her life in the jungle running from the communist. She saw so many horrific things that I think she should write a book herself. It is just lately that she is able to talk about these things.

When I heard a co-worker talking about this book, I knew I had to read it.

This is a book about a Hmong family living in the United States and the difficulties they encounter with the Medical Doctors who discover their infant daughter Has epilepsy. The medical doctors here in the States want to treat the child with medicine like they would any other child that has the illness. The parents have different thoughts and ideas about how they think the child should be treated.

Imagine coming from a country with no running water, no toilets, really living in the wild and not knowing how to use any of these devices. It explains the confusion when they are put on a plane and not knowing what anything was that they were given. Then when the child is sick and in the hospital the doctors are wanting to take blood and do spinal taps and things that the Hmong people don't know what in the world they are doing this for.

It really would be like telling a three year old how much medicine to take. It is a very eye opening book and full of twists. I did not expect the ending to turn out the way it did. I don't want to reveal too much or you wont read it. But I hope if you like true stories you will check this book out. It might change your mind if you are one of these people that thinks that these people were brought over here and supported by our tax dollars. You will see that these people would rather be home and supporting themselves like they did before they came over here.

Just about every other chapter in the book deals with the family and how they came about coming to the United States. This family ended up in Merced , California and the doctors there were not use to the Hmong culture. It is different that the other Asian cultures. They really had no way to communicate with the family since the family did not understand English and could not read or write.

Anne Fadiman, is the author of this book and she did a wonderful job in interviewing the people that were and are involved with the family of this child.
I am so happy that I got the opportunity to read this book.
Epilepsy to the Hmong is when the Spirit Catches you and you fall down. Thus the title of the book.

The book talks about the rituals and the ways that the Hmong deal with Births, death and dying. It is really very enlightening. I myself had never heard the word Hmong until I went to work for the Interpreting service . The Hmong are a very family orientated culture and have clans. This is all explained in the book.

If I had to say one bad thing about the book it would be that I wished that the terms that are written in Hmong were written the way we would pronounce them. That made it hard for me to follow but that is just me.