How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
I was suspended in a large bowl of Fish Soup. Medicine was religion. Religion was society. Society was medicine. (6.2)
See what we mean about fish soup? In Hmong culture, there are no distinctions between different aspects of society—everything is mushed together into one glorious mess, like a bag of skittles left in the car on a summer day. Too bad it doesn't apply to the melting pot thing.
Quote #5
"Culturally Sue was pretty white, and she [...] was not [...] sustaining the Hmong culture very well, so a lot of Hmong really saw her as selling out." (7.40)
Of course, there are some downsides to this adherence to tradition. Maybe poor little Sue shouldn't be rewarded for becoming Americanized, but she certainly shouldn't be punished for it. In the end, however, it's hard to have an insular, traditional community without some hostility for outsiders.
Quote #6
The difficulty of establishing a parallel chronology [...] was compounded by the fact that the Lees did not tell time in the same way the hospital record-keepers did. (8.13)
Yet another reason it's literally impossible to see eye-to-eye. The Lees don't even measure time like Americans. This is yet another Hmong tradition, formed by their long history as an agrarian society, which proves to be completely useless in their new urban home where Swatches abound. This is one of those times when cultural assimilation must seem pretty tempting to the Hmong.