Hmong people in America or the Hmong Americans are a group of individuals who are from Southeast Asian, the individual started living in America during the time of the Vitamin war and has since developed slowly, even though the group is still very small. These people have a unique set of beliefs, culture, and tradition and their settlement in the USA have been met with a variety of challenges passed by their rigid culture, mostly to the healthcare professional as they have to interact with the two cultures and help the treat the patients. “Their adaptation to our western model of healthcare delivery is often slow, hindered by particularly strong traditional beliefs, culturally-based patterns of communication, limited English proficiency, and a deep distrust of governments.” This article major on the process of the adjustment of the Hmong to America and the biomedicine.
The Hmong community in the USA has faced many healthcare challenges as they try to harmonize their rigid culture to the modern USA culture and the modern biomedical in the USA. Further, their adjustment has been made even more difficult due to the level of healthcare inequalities which has dominated the country, and this has led to inadequate healthcare services and the lack of care insurance by the Hmong. Further, the poor healthcare services these individuals get in the USA has also been made worse by the welfare budget constraints, and the last factor which has made their adjustments to the American and its biomedical even worse is their rigid culture and belief. Based on the demand of their culture and their inability to understand the Modern American and the modern biomedical, they have not found it kind in this system and thus has created more crisis in their process of adjustments.
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In the book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall ; it is evident that the American doctored understand less the culture of the Hmong. For instance, in chapter seventeen of this book, Lia had brain death despite the fact that she was taken to the hospital, she was deprived of oxygen, and this led to her death after three days. In the book, it is documented that in the year 1993, Jeanine also suffered the same fate as Lia. She also lost her brain when she was deprived of oxygen when she suffered asthma attack which also affected her respiratory system and thus affected her. The doctored could not understand this kind of disease due to their inability to communicate well with the patients. Their culture also affected their adjustments to America since even they could not administer medicine as was recommended by the doctor, other than this, they did not have faith in this kind of medicine. For instance, a child with seizure could be diagnosed with epilepsy at western Hospital among the Hmong. The doctors could then sent such a child home with complex and many types of drugs which could even be understood by the parents, and thus they administer them irregularly. The parents than with inadequate faith they have in the American healthcare system thought the child is affected by the evil spirit, and they offered other tradition option of treatments such as sacrifices and much more. The child thus died since these two cultures are not harmonized (Fadiman, 1997; 18). It is usually important for people to be assisted if they move from one culture to another. However, Hmong are not getting this kind of adjustment assistant, and they are battling with a cultural barrier which has made health care services very poor on their side. They had culture guidelines. However, these are not applicable and thus possess challenges for their adaption in this culture.
The biomedicine in America has made the Hmong adjustment very difficult. Biomedicine in America has instilled a belief in doctors that issues such as spirituality, sacrifices, evil spirit and others misconceptions are not applicable in the field of medicine. Further, the biomedical has it that there is no any other option for an approach to the disease a part of what the doctors believe. This has created a barrier and has adjusted among American biomedicine even harder. It hindered the communication between the doctors and the patients. The doctors thus could not understand the patient's sides as described by Fadiman in chapter eighteen of his book. The view I rigid and judgmental when they are dealing with people from a different culture such as the Hmong (19). Hmong people have no belief that disease is caused by symptoms and bacteria as Americans believe. They believe that disease is not caused by the germ theory, but are caused by control of spirits, infringements of the taboos and the soul loss. The adjustments thus were very difficult for the Hmong since their belief, and that of biomedicine was not related. Lack of English proficiency, inadequate clinical terminologies, and inadequately qualified health interpreter were the factors which resulted in the difficulties in adjustments to biomedicine. There are instances as described in chapter eighteen of the book; The Spirit Catches You and You Fall where communication worked well between the doctors and the Hmong, however, due to the language barrier and culture misunderstanding, the adjustments were still very difficult.
In summary, the Hmong found adjusting to the American culture and Biomedicine very tricky. Other than the uncooperative medical staffs, other factors such as language barrier also played a part in making adjustments of Hmong to Americans and biomedicine very difficult.
Reference
Fadiman, A. (1997). The spirit catches you, and you fall. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 1-100.
