This is an account of refugee Hmong Family in Merced, California and the unfortunate battles with the medical establishment that led to their daughter's existence in a persistent vegetative state in the 1980s. The book, written in 1997, chronicles Lia Lee's sudden onset of severe epilepsy and the lack of communication between the hospital staff caring for her and the parents. Due to lack of competent translators, the non-English speaking parents could not understand most of what the hospital staff told them resulting in accusations of non-compliance with medical orders. Frequently the medical orders conflicted with the Hmong way of life and their animist beliefs. Many of the hospital staff were extremely prejudiced against the Hmong, convinced they were just stupid. Even when they did "follow orders" and administer medication properly, Lia suffered "the big one", a seizure that left her essentially brain dead. After removing her from life support the family took her home to die but she survived to age thirty before succumbing to pneumonia cared for by her family the entire time. Alternating with Lia's story, Fadiman gives a historic overview of the sad history of the Hmong people. Sadly, this award winning book was done no favors by the audiobook narration which I nearly abandoned mulitple times. The mispronunciations in the recording were horrendous with multiple instances in each chapter. I gave the narration a bad review on Audible.
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