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19. MEDICAL, RACIST, AND COLONIAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF POWER IN ANNE FADIMAN’S THE SPIRIT CATCHES YOU AND YOU FALL DOWN

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Asian American Studies Now
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9MEDICAL, RACIST, ANDCOLONIALCONSTRUCTIONS OFPOWER INANNEFADIMAN’SMonica ChiuINTRODUCTIONThis essay is about medical, racist, and colonial constructions of power. It incor-porates the following seemingly disparate, but what I will prove to be inextricablyconnected, discourses: those surrounding the Vietnam War and its subsequentstateside refugee management; current medical care for Southeast Asian patients;and so-called authorial (medical, textual, cultural) constructions of Hmong rep-resentation. My critique is based on a reading of literary journalist Anne Fadiman’sThe Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, andthe Collision of Two Cultures,1her re-presentation of the actual case of epilepticHmong American child Lia Lee. Her book raises thorny questions concerningwhy Lia’s “proper” care remains a contentious debate between medical knowl-edge and Hmong cultural practice; how the historical construction of AsianAmerican identity contributes to present and continued Hmong mythologizationand feminization and to the Lees’ identity as deviant parents; and how Fadiman’soften ethnographic, and not always critical, text often contributes to reinscribingher subjects into the very colonial parameters from which she attempts to extractthem. My work offers new readings of the book’s stated “cultural collisions” inwhich cross-cultural healing is both accomplished and simultaneously denied viapractices that Fadiman interrogates and employs.THESPIRITCATCHESYOUANDYOUFALLDOWN
© 2019 Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick

9MEDICAL, RACIST, ANDCOLONIALCONSTRUCTIONS OFPOWER INANNEFADIMAN’SMonica ChiuINTRODUCTIONThis essay is about medical, racist, and colonial constructions of power. It incor-porates the following seemingly disparate, but what I will prove to be inextricablyconnected, discourses: those surrounding the Vietnam War and its subsequentstateside refugee management; current medical care for Southeast Asian patients;and so-called authorial (medical, textual, cultural) constructions of Hmong rep-resentation. My critique is based on a reading of literary journalist Anne Fadiman’sThe Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, andthe Collision of Two Cultures,1her re-presentation of the actual case of epilepticHmong American child Lia Lee. Her book raises thorny questions concerningwhy Lia’s “proper” care remains a contentious debate between medical knowl-edge and Hmong cultural practice; how the historical construction of AsianAmerican identity contributes to present and continued Hmong mythologizationand feminization and to the Lees’ identity as deviant parents; and how Fadiman’soften ethnographic, and not always critical, text often contributes to reinscribingher subjects into the very colonial parameters from which she attempts to extractthem. My work offers new readings of the book’s stated “cultural collisions” inwhich cross-cultural healing is both accomplished and simultaneously denied viapractices that Fadiman interrogates and employs.THESPIRITCATCHESYOUANDYOUFALLDOWN
© 2019 Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. Acknowledgments xi
  4. Introduction xiii
  5. ONE: SITUATING ASIAN AMERICA
  6. 1. WHEN AND WHERE I ENTER 3
  7. 2. NEITHER BLACK NOR WHITE 21
  8. 3. DETROIT BLUES: “BECAUSE OF YOU MOTHERFUCKERS” 35
  9. 4. A DIALOGUE ON RACIAL MELANCHOLIA 55
  10. 5. HOME IS WHERE THE HAN IS: A KOREAN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE LOS ANGELES UPHEAVALS 80
  11. 6. RECOGNIZING NATIVE HAWAIIANS A QUEST FOR SOVEREIGNTY 99
  12. 7. SITUATING ASIAN AMERICANS IN THE POLITICAL DISCOURSE ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION 118
  13. 8. RACISM: FROM DOMINATION TO HEGEMONY 126
  14. TWO: HISTORY AND MEMORY
  15. 9. THE CHINESE ARE COMING. HOW CAN WE STOP THEM? CHINESE EXCLUSION AND THE ORIGINS OF AMERICAN GATEKEEPING 143
  16. 10. PUBLIC HEALTH AND THE MAPPING OF CHINA TOWN 168
  17. 11. THE SECRET MUNSON REPORT 193
  18. 12. ASIAN AMERICAN STRUGGLES FOR CIVIL, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL RIGHTS 213
  19. 13. OUT OF THE SHADOWS: CAMPTOWN WOMEN, MILITARY BRIDES, AND KOREAN (AMERICAN) COMMUNITIES 239
  20. 14. THE COLD WAR ORIGINS OF THE MODEL MINORITY MYTH 256
  21. 15. WHY CHINA? IDENTIFYING HISTORIES OF TRANSNATIONAL ADOPTION 272
  22. 16. THE “FOUR PRISONS” AND THE MOVEMENTS OF LIBERATION: ASIAN AMERICAN ACTIVISM FROM THE 1960s TO THE 1990s 298
  23. THREE: CULTURE, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY
  24. 17. YOUTH CULTURE, CITIZENSHIP, AND GLOBALIZATION: SOUTH ASIAN MUSLIM YOUTH IN THE UNITED STATES AFTER SEPTEMBER 11TH 333
  25. 18. ASIAN IMMIGRANT WOMEN AND GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING, 1970s–1990s 354
  26. 19. MEDICAL, RACIST, AND COLONIAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF POWER IN ANNE FADIMAN’S THE SPIRIT CATCHES YOU AND YOU FALL DOWN 370
  27. 20. SEARCHING FOR COMMUNITY: FILIPINO GAY MEN IN NEW YORK CITY 393
  28. 21. HOW TO REHABILITATE A MULATTO: THE ICONOGRAPHY OF TIGER WOODS 405
  29. 22. OCCULT RACISM: THE MASKING OF RACE IN THE HMONG HUNTER INCIDENT 423
  30. 23. COLLATERAL DAMAGE: SOUTH EAST ASIAN POVERTY IN THE UNITED STATES 454
  31. FOUR: PEDAGOGIES AND POSSIBILITIES 475
  32. 24. WHITHER ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES? 477
  33. 25. FREEDOM SCHOOLING: RECONCEPTUALIZING ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES FOR OUR COMMUNITIES 496
  34. 26. ASIANS ON THE RIM: TRANSNATIONAL CAPITAL AND LOCAL COMMUNITY IN THE MAKING OF CONTEMPORARY ASIAN AMERICA 515
  35. 27. CRAFTING SOLIDARITIES 540
  36. 28. WE WILL NOT BE USED: ARE ASIAN AMERICANS THE RACIAL BOURGEOISIE? 558
  37. 29. THE STRUGGLE OVER PARCEL C: HOW BOSTON’S CHINA TOWN WON A VICTORY IN THE FIGHT AGAINST INSTITUTIONAL EXPANSIONISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM 565
  38. 30. RACE MATTERS IN CIVIC ENGAGEMENT WORK 581
  39. 31. HOMES, BORDERS, AND POSSIBILITIES 603
  40. Biographical Notes 623
  41. Copyrights and Permissions 627
  42. Index 631
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https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813549330-021

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. Acknowledgments xi
  4. Introduction xiii
  5. ONE: SITUATING ASIAN AMERICA
  6. 1. WHEN AND WHERE I ENTER 3
  7. 2. NEITHER BLACK NOR WHITE 21
  8. 3. DETROIT BLUES: “BECAUSE OF YOU MOTHERFUCKERS” 35
  9. 4. A DIALOGUE ON RACIAL MELANCHOLIA 55
  10. 5. HOME IS WHERE THE HAN IS: A KOREAN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE LOS ANGELES UPHEAVALS 80
  11. 6. RECOGNIZING NATIVE HAWAIIANS A QUEST FOR SOVEREIGNTY 99
  12. 7. SITUATING ASIAN AMERICANS IN THE POLITICAL DISCOURSE ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION 118
  13. 8. RACISM: FROM DOMINATION TO HEGEMONY 126
  14. TWO: HISTORY AND MEMORY
  15. 9. THE CHINESE ARE COMING. HOW CAN WE STOP THEM? CHINESE EXCLUSION AND THE ORIGINS OF AMERICAN GATEKEEPING 143
  16. 10. PUBLIC HEALTH AND THE MAPPING OF CHINA TOWN 168
  17. 11. THE SECRET MUNSON REPORT 193
  18. 12. ASIAN AMERICAN STRUGGLES FOR CIVIL, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL RIGHTS 213
  19. 13. OUT OF THE SHADOWS: CAMPTOWN WOMEN, MILITARY BRIDES, AND KOREAN (AMERICAN) COMMUNITIES 239
  20. 14. THE COLD WAR ORIGINS OF THE MODEL MINORITY MYTH 256
  21. 15. WHY CHINA? IDENTIFYING HISTORIES OF TRANSNATIONAL ADOPTION 272
  22. 16. THE “FOUR PRISONS” AND THE MOVEMENTS OF LIBERATION: ASIAN AMERICAN ACTIVISM FROM THE 1960s TO THE 1990s 298
  23. THREE: CULTURE, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY
  24. 17. YOUTH CULTURE, CITIZENSHIP, AND GLOBALIZATION: SOUTH ASIAN MUSLIM YOUTH IN THE UNITED STATES AFTER SEPTEMBER 11TH 333
  25. 18. ASIAN IMMIGRANT WOMEN AND GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING, 1970s–1990s 354
  26. 19. MEDICAL, RACIST, AND COLONIAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF POWER IN ANNE FADIMAN’S THE SPIRIT CATCHES YOU AND YOU FALL DOWN 370
  27. 20. SEARCHING FOR COMMUNITY: FILIPINO GAY MEN IN NEW YORK CITY 393
  28. 21. HOW TO REHABILITATE A MULATTO: THE ICONOGRAPHY OF TIGER WOODS 405
  29. 22. OCCULT RACISM: THE MASKING OF RACE IN THE HMONG HUNTER INCIDENT 423
  30. 23. COLLATERAL DAMAGE: SOUTH EAST ASIAN POVERTY IN THE UNITED STATES 454
  31. FOUR: PEDAGOGIES AND POSSIBILITIES 475
  32. 24. WHITHER ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES? 477
  33. 25. FREEDOM SCHOOLING: RECONCEPTUALIZING ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES FOR OUR COMMUNITIES 496
  34. 26. ASIANS ON THE RIM: TRANSNATIONAL CAPITAL AND LOCAL COMMUNITY IN THE MAKING OF CONTEMPORARY ASIAN AMERICA 515
  35. 27. CRAFTING SOLIDARITIES 540
  36. 28. WE WILL NOT BE USED: ARE ASIAN AMERICANS THE RACIAL BOURGEOISIE? 558
  37. 29. THE STRUGGLE OVER PARCEL C: HOW BOSTON’S CHINA TOWN WON A VICTORY IN THE FIGHT AGAINST INSTITUTIONAL EXPANSIONISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM 565
  38. 30. RACE MATTERS IN CIVIC ENGAGEMENT WORK 581
  39. 31. HOMES, BORDERS, AND POSSIBILITIES 603
  40. Biographical Notes 623
  41. Copyrights and Permissions 627
  42. Index 631
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