The Asian American community is seeing a growing trend mental health issues relating to depression and academic pressures -- an exacerbated by a cultural adversity to seeking treatment, according to Josephine Kim, a lecturer at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education and the featured guest of Thursday's Pan Asian Community Dinner. The event, "Breaking the Silence: Asian Americans and Mental Health," was hosted by the Pan Asian Council in Collis Common Ground.
Kim addressed various stereotypes and myths that contribute to mental health issues among Asian Americans, citing the "model minority" label that is used to describe Asians' success as a minority group. She displayed Time and Newsweek magazine covers with pictures of Asian-American students and the headlines, "Drive to Excel" and "Whiz Kids," explaining that this label creates pressure to maintain a successful image and breeds false generalizations about the Asian American community.
Kim offered the example of an Asian American college student who sought academic help from a professor, only to be told, "You can't be struggling, you're Asian."
"We internalize this belief, and it makes it hard for us to seek help, especially from an outside group," she said.
Asian American youths face the particularly difficult challenge of living within two distinct cultural contexts, Kim explained. The Western values they acquire in school stress individualism, independence and a "self-first" attitude, she said. Conversely, Asian cultures tend to embrace a collectivist "we" attitude that encourages interdependence and puts the family first, she said.
These conflicts can make it difficult to forge a personal identity and can also strain parent-child relationships, she added.
"The damaging part is that we love and respect our parents, but we feel like we always have to do something else," Kim said.
This pressure can lead to problems with body image, competitive friendships and unhealthy levels of perfectionism, according to Kim.
"I've heard of 'the difference between fail-fail and Asian-fail,'" Kim said. "Asian-fail is below a 98."
When mental health issues arise, cultural factors, such as the importance of family pride, can be a deterrent to seeking help, Kim said, adding that Asian Americans will wait, on average, 5.3 years after the onset of symptoms to seek mental health assistance.
As a result, Asian Americans in need of mental health care often "slip through the cracks," she said, using the example of Seung-Hui Cho, an Asian American student who murdered 32 people before killing himself at Virginia Polytechnic Institute last year. Shortly after the rampage, information surfaced that Cho had long displayed symptoms of mental illness, such at selective muteness and anti-social behavior, but never received adequate care.
Kim highlighted a study that showed suicide to be the second leading cause of deaths among Asian Americans, with the suicide rate highest in females ages 15 to 24. Another study revealed that Asian and Asian American students make up 60 percent of the suicide victims at Cornell University, despite constituting 12 percent of the student body.
The solution to these problems lies in reducing the stigma that surrounds mental health, according to Kim. At an institutional level, schools "need to make sure there are equitable services and counselors who know something about the culture," Kim said.
After the speech, Kim said that she planned to meet separately with mental health staff at Dick's House while at Dartmouth, and that she had spoken with students about the College's mental health services.
"I'm already hearing that they don't have enough counselors, and students get put on a waiting list for weeks," she told The Dartmouth. "Making that initial call to ask for help is difficult enough, and to be told you have to wait and then making the call again is incredibly tough."
She also recommended that Dartmouth diversify the counseling staff in order to best serve diverse cultural needs.
"There's something to be said about talking to someone who looks like me," she said. "You can assume that they'll know something about your background and culture and be able to relate on some level."
Table facilitators led discussions afterwards, and students, staff and faculty were invited to reflect on the speech and make connections to their own lives.
One student, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the topic, said that she had suffered from depression for seven years before seeking help from the College last year. She pointed out the difficulty in getting an appointment at Dick's House and stressed the need for improved mental health treatment at Dartmouth. Audience members interviewed by The Dartmouth said that while there is still work to be done, events like Kim's speech show that a dialogue is beginning to take place.
Nora Yasumura, the Office of Pluralism and Leadership's advisor to Asian and Asian-American students, said that she has worked with staff around campus to expand their understanding of cultural issues facing Asian-American students. The Pan Asian community dinners aim to further that goal by opening the discussion to the greater student body, she said.
