Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Asian American Women and Suicide

[AMBI1: COOKING SOUNDS]
NARRATION: We?re in my friend?s kitchen where she?s saut?ing onions and adding vermouth for what promises to be a delicious pasta dish. For this story, she asked to be called Jenny and that we alter her voice.

We met in school and I remember her radiant smile. But Jenny says that smile was just a fa?ade.
[cooking ambi fades]

ACT1: JENNY: Looking back, I didn?t really know it, but I think I was really depressed.

NARRATION: Jenny?s parents are immigrants from China and their values clashed with those of their American-born daughter. While Jenny wanted to hang out with her friends, her parents expected her to study, take care of her younger siblings, and stay out of trouble.

ACT2: JENNY: And I think for them, trouble was anything that involved outsiders or people they didn?t know, or just Western society.

NARRATOR: Jenny challenged her parents? conservative rules. she talked back to them and their fights erupted.

ACT3: JENY: They would say stuff like, ?? What are the neighbors going to think? ?Why did I have you? ? They were just?not only verbally and emotionally abusive, but also physically, both my parents.

ACT3B: JENNY: And there wasn?t anybody I felt I could talk to about that.

NARRATOR: After one fight, she downed a whole bottle of Tylenol pills. She was 17.

Helping people like Jenny is the impetus behind a California bill introduced last month by state assemblywoman Mary Hayashi. The bill creates a state agency to boost suicide prevention efforts.

Hayashi?s sister committed suicide at 17. Within her family, it was taboo to talk about her sister?s death.

Hayashi, a Korean American, says her bill helps tackle the misperception and fear many Asian Americans have toward mental illness.

ACT4B: HAYASHI: We don?t even acknowledge that mental illness exists in the Asian community. There?s so much shame and stigma that surrounds mental illness and that?s what?s keeping a lot of our young people from getting the services they need.

NARRATOR: The teen years can be especially isolating for Asian Americans, says Helen Hsu, a clinical psychologist at Asian Community Mental Health Services in Oakland.

ACT5: HELEN: I know a lot of our teen clients do complain about feeling completely torn between the values and the pressures of home and their peer group ? and feeling like they don?t have a place to go that understands them, their unique experience.

NARRATOR: Many of her Asian American women clients say they are overwhelmed with their multiple roles.

HELEN: So these are things like needing to be a student and do house chores and be extracurricular active in 100 different things for their college application. Or needing to be a mother and work and care take for your parent. And having to be perfect in all these different roles that are very draining. And it leaves someone very vulnerable to physical illness or an emotional illness, like say depression.

NARRATOR: She also thinks Asian immigrants bring their ideas about mental health with them from their home countries. And that prevents them from seeking help.

ACT7: HELEN: Like I?m from Taiwan and there?s this myth or idea that oh, you?re crazy or normal. Which is totally the opposite reality that there?s this huge continuum of mental health and these conditions are often extremely treatable, especially on an outpatient basis?But if all you?ve heard all your life is ?you?re crazy or not,? then you will do anything in your power to stay in the so called normal category not matter how much help you may need.

NARRATOR: Asian Americans use mental health services far less than whites, because of the stigma attached to it, according to a1999 report from the Surgeon General.

That?s why targeted outreach to Asian Americans is important, says Katherine Eng, a clinical psychologist in San Francisco.

ACT8: ENG: The squeaky wheel gets the grease. And in a way, that?s a very western expression. It makes sense that if you have a problem, you identify it. But I think with an Asian culture that emphasizes so much on harmony and interdependence and wanting to keep things very calm and not wanting to bother other people, they end up keeping it to themselves.

NARRATOR: Eng works at Richmond Area Multi-Service, a mental health agency that reaches out to Asian Pacific Islander. They try to erase the taboo of using their services [fade up radio program] and produced a weekly radio show in Cantonese to bring discussions about mental health into immigrant?s living rooms.
[radio program is hot then out]

In marketing itself, the agency avoids using language that might turn Asian Americans away. The words ?mental health? are deliberately absent from the group?s name and signs outside the clinic.

[AMBI2: STREET NOISE]
ACT09: ENG: And there have been times where I?ve walked into work and I hear people speaking both English and Cantonese saying, ?Huh, I wonder what this place is.? ? But that was part of the idea of wanting to reduce the stigma of coming in to see someone.
[STREET NOISE FADE OUT]

NARRATOR: Once clients make it in for treatment, health professionals like Dr. Fred Huang say they use a different approach with more recent immigrants.

ACT10B: FRED: You want to be able to frame the mental illness, not actually as an illness, but as something that?s more body oriented. That you might have nerves or feeling of weakness. ?Versus someone who was raised in American culture, I?d be more willing to say that you suffer from depression.

[AMBI: COOKING SOUNDS]
Version 1 NARRATOR: My friend Jenny survived her attempted suicide, but it took a long time before she looked for professional help. She specifically requested an Asian American woman who she felt would understand her family issues better.

ACT13c: JENNY: And whenever a friend brings up an interest in seeing a therapist, I talk I talk about my experiences of having gone to a therapist and what it?s done for me and I have good things to say about it.

Back