The Spirit Catches You and You Realize You're WrongHow would it feel to escape post-war communist forces, only to face an ethnocentric population in a new country? In Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, a portrait of a haunting, often touching ethnography (i.e. a book detailing particular data from an extended period of time spent by an anthropologist living in close contact with a community of individuals during his or her fieldwork) of Fadiman's experience living in Merced, California, which was home to the largest population of Hmong refugees, such as the Lee family, from Laos, who suffered from mass confusion in an attempt to navigate the American healthcare system. Because the Hmong could not speak sufficient English until children acquired language skills native to the United States, California residents were not accepting of the Hmong community. Fadiman aims to better understand how disease knowledge differs between Hmong and Western doctors, which pushes the reader to understand how medical care is complicated in the past and present from the perspective of an American observing a family's struggle Hmong with the system. In America, it is not uncommon to be judged for your clothes, your house, or the amount of money your family makes, so it is easy to believe that the Hmong people have not been easily accepted into American society. Overall, ethnocentrism, or the tendency to believe that one's culture is superior to another, is one of America's weaknesses, and this account demonstrates that ethnocentric behavior was prominent even in the 1970s and 1980s, when Fadiman was in the process of carrying out his field research in post-culture. -Vietnam War era California. While Fadiman lacks ethnocentrism… at the heart of the card… interconnection between Foua and Dr. Peggy through bonding through motherhood. When her son was diagnosed with leukemia, Dr. Peggy and Foua hugged each other and all previous ethnocentric actions exhibited by Americans before this point vanished as they cried together. This event in history paints the picture of cultural holism, which concludes that natural systems should be viewed as wholes and not as parts. Thanks to Dr. Peggy and Foua's unity, the women showcase the idea that cultures can, in fact, overcome previous differences and exist as one diverse population. In conclusion, the ethnocentrism that was prominent in American society during the Hmong resettlement is harmful to any culture. The structure of any aspect of life or culture is knowledge, therefore it is humanity's responsibility to tolerate others instead of believing in superiority..