Another issue is that I feel that depression is more prevalent because Asian families are more sensitive toward the topic and choose to avoid it altogether. They find it a shame to be depressed and do not understand the severity of it. Growing up in a city with a large number of Asians, I knew a lot of girls that were clearly depressed but would never tell their families about it so they could never get the proper treatment because they too were ashamed of their depression or only referred to it as a phase. In my family, the word suicide was like taboo. One time as a joke I just exclaimed ,"I might as well just go kill myself." My dad lectured me for about an hour how that he never wants to hear me say things like that again and that I am very blessed and options like suicide are foolish. My mom on the other hand talked it out with me closely, but I think it is because she was more sympathetic toward my position being a Asian woman living in America herself.
Overall, I am not sure how a change would be made in order to lessen these high suicide rates among Asian American women without completely altering the culture and traditions of their ethnic backgrounds. However, I hope that these problems are more abundantly discussed as these statistics show a clear problem among Asian American women that need to be addressed.
I think May's post highlights the fact that many Asian American issues get ignored because Asian Americans are stereotyped as the "model minority". In that sense, oftentimes the stereotypes is used against us - because we are quiet and submissive, and many of us have found success from working hard, many claim that we don't need the resources provided to so many other people - at the Claremont Colleges, school officials used this same reason to deny Asian Americans the resources African American and Latino/Latina American groups got.
ReplyDeleteI think people should do something about the Asian American women's suicide rate...but action isn't taken because people don't know about this issue that Asian Americans face - as May said, there is a stigma prevalent in Asian American communities associated with going to counseling or talking to psychologists about problems. As such, Asian American women tend to suffer silently and alone. I feel that these issues need to somehow be addressed by society, but at the same time, I think It's difficult to find a good way to solve this problem without creating newer stereotypes that only hinder Asian Americans even more.