Hate crimes expose a cultural discomfort about mental health for Asian Americans

This month, Illinois became the first state to require public schools to teach the historical contributions of Asian Americans, particularly their impact in advancing civil rights. At a time when hate crimes and violence against Asian Americans have surged, the legislation was established with the intention of remedying the underlying ignorance of those acts.

As a Filipino-American nurse working in community mental health amid a global, racialized pandemic, I’ve been afforded a unique perspective.

Many of my family and friends of Asian descent live in the Bay Area, where the rate of hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (or AAPI) has risen substantially. They established a dialogue about the violence the community has faced. Following the Atlanta spa shootings in May, many conversations among my friends and their parents centered on logistics of who-was-going-with-whom to run errands. It was imperative to remain in pairs when shopping for groceries, dropping off or picking up dry cleaning, or even staying home with grandma. 

As my peers and I talk about the emotional and mental toll the surge in violence has taken on our community, the conversations with our first-generation parents remain difficult to navigate. Much of the discourse lacks deep discussion of the impact these events have taken on our collective mental health.

According to a national survey conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in 2019, only 23 percent of AAPI adults diagnosed with a mental illness have received treatment — the lowest rate for seeking help among all racial groups. According to the same survey, shame and stigma were the most cited reasons for avoiding psychiatric help. Estimates of mental health cases have increased since the pandemic began.

A survey completed in March this year of 3,736 individuals within the AAPI community revealed alarming results. It stated that Asian Americans who experienced racism cited feeling more stress from anti-Asian hate than from the actual pandemic, and among those individuals, depression, anxiety and physical health problems have worsened. The data revealed that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among Asian Americans has risen as well.

In addition to stigmatization of mental health among first-generation Asian Americans, so too remain the language barriers, inability to access resources, and the fear of jeopardizing immigration status. 

Currently, as acts of aggression and hate crimes against the AAPI community remain high, elders within the community find themselves simultaneously the target of violence and a source of concern for their children. Among many Asian Americans, worry for their parents’ safety remains a central concern.

In a reversal of roles, some second-generation Asian Americans report feeling more anxious for the safety of their parents than for their own. A Chinese-American friend, for example, began to cry when discussing her feelings about her mother walking down the block to their neighborhood grocery store in San Francisco. Another friend revealed his anxiety over leaving his Filipino grandmother home by herself. This turnaround of intergenerational dynamics not only highlights the difference in how second-generation AAPI individuals interface with American culture, but also exposes the cultural discomfort related to speaking about mental health.

An Indian-American who attends medical school on the East Coast told me that his Bay Area upbringing helped shape his family’s idea of mental health in general. He said that company wellness workshops recently in vogue in the Bay Area have helped his mother to view mental health in a different light, and that the exposure to the topic at her workplace has helped to facilitate discussions about it at home. Several others have stated that, while the violence against the community has disrupted a sense of safety, it also has served as a catalyst to talking about the stress and anxiety it brings about.

While the pandemic continues, and violence and aggression toward the AAPI community persists, the piece of legislation passed by Illinois is a valuable societal step to help stymie the ignorance that perpetuates hate crimes. For AAPI individuals, it’s an opportunity to see ourselves reflected in our history and to establish a dialogue about where we came from and where we are going as a community. For better or for worse, violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders brought on by the pandemic has become a part of the community’s history. Continuing the discussion about our collective mental health can be a valuable tool in shaping the future.

Katherine A. Buaron, a Filipino-American registered nurse, is a nurse consultant in community health with the College of Nursing Faculty Practice at Rush University System for Health. She is a Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd Project.