Recounts the experiences of a refugee family with a disabled child confronting a culture vastly different from their own, without the benefit of cultural interpreters. A severely epileptic child is born in Merced, Calif., to a Hmong family, and misunderstandings multiply as the family tries to negotiate the medical system, and the medical staff of a small county hospital struggles to cross the cultural divide. The Hmong, originally from Laos, retain beliefs that are antithetical to science-based medicine, including the notions that the soul is of greater importance than one’s corporeal body and that natural and supernatural healing are complimentary, not contradictory. To Foua and Nao Kao Lee, their daughter Lia’s seizures have a spiritual cause. The story unfolds as doctors prescribe a series of anticonvulsant drugs, and a tragic sequence of events follows the family’s refusal to continue administering the prescriptions. The struggle between the Lees and their American doctors is highlighted by explanations of Hmong history, culture, and beliefs–all of which illustrate both the challenges Hmong refugees face in a highly material nation and the barriers social service and health care workers must surmount in order to secure the well-being of newcomers determined not to assimilate.
