Faye Du is conflicted. Like other children of immigrants, she’s grateful for the opportunities her parents have worked to provide her. And yet, she says, the pressure to honor their sacrifice through academic success has taken a toll on her mental health. As students across the country return to school, Asian American students like Du are grappling with an issue they say goes largely unaddressed in their own homes. Du describes a downward spiral where the pressure to succeed in school fed into the mental turmoil she was experiencing, which in turn impacted her performance in school which again fueled her inner anguish. And the worst part, she says, was that she couldn’t confide in her family. “In my household, poor mental health or mental disorders are seen as a disease or something that makes you less of a respectable and functioning human.”
Studies show Asian Americans are 50% less likely than other racial groups in the US to seek out help for mental health issues. A recent article in JAMA Pediatrics also noted an alarming rise in suicide rates among Asian American youth ages 15-24, with a 72% increase for males and a 125% increase for females between 1999 and 2021. Suicide is the leading cause of death for Asian American and Pacific Islander youth.
Advocates for disaggregating health data along racial and ethnic lines have long argued that doing so can provide a more granular understanding of the health challenges unique to specific communities. The federal government announced earlier this year that it would do just that, with new standards for data collection to be rolled out over the next five years.
Whether it’s the emphasis on family over the individual, common in Asian cultures, or the myth of the model minority, these entrenched norms can often make it difficult to open up about an issue that for many is deeply personal. As more young Asian Americans succumb to depression and the silence around mental health, the need for open conversations about these issues is greater than ever.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.