Bridges

"How many Asian kids are actually considered special ed in the class? You know it's just a scam, most of them look normal to me."

Every day I try to find another reason to back up my decision for going into psychology and more so with Asian American groups. Thank God for conspiracy theorists and ignorant people. If it weren't for you I wouldn't have a reason to try and defend myself. And out of that defense, there is pride for what I want to do later on in life.

It is difficult to explain the concept of a psychologist or psychiatrist to your Asian parents. There are two phrases in Vietnamese that describe psychology: "tâm lý" and "thần kinh". One means personality or attitude while the other loosely means spiritual cognition. In our culture, it is not a science but a label or an uncontrollable phenomenon in your thoughts and actions. If psychology is such a broad term, how would you even explain to an Asian family about psychological disorders?

I had a talk with a friend of mine about the cultural issues of accepting mental health as a valid portion of treatment. She knows someone with a learning disorder and agreed with me that if the child were taken to a doctor in an Asian country, that child would not be taken to a child therapist first. Knowing that your child is not just physically unwell but also mentally unstable is unheard of. Either be normal or crazy. It's sad but true, there isn't a middle ground for that.

Of course this is not a generalization of mental health programs on an international scale, but try Googling "mental health in Asia" or "learning disorders, Asia". It barely shaves off 1% of the results that are specific enough to even give anyone an idea of its existence; albeit my search has not been narrowed down, you'll see what I mean. Look up the same words but change the location to "United States" or "America", the links change. There are organizations reaching out to help prevent or raise money for a mental health cause. The only links that pop up for Asian mental health are statistics on Asians in non-Asian countries with depression or suicide rates. If you scroll down, Google would suggest you to look up advocacy or stigmas in mental health instead. Either support it or face the consequences of shame within the family or group.

That was just a run down for Asian populations, not Asian American ones. The statement made above, was about Asian American kids. America! "The land of the free and the home of the brave." It is the hypochondriac country that I lovingly call my home, but also the nation that has led other groups to consider fine tuning broad disorders into categories and more specific names.

You would think that Asian American psychology by now would have caught on as one of the trends. Sadly it has barely been 40 years old since its birth and still has not been recognized as a serious branch of study. Groups within the Asian American population would beg to be separated from the "more prone to..." category than anything else. Disorders that settle in the median of the high and low extremes of mental illnesses are too gray to decipher as real or not. It is still an all or nothing diagnosis. Strong cultural ties are preventing a universal understanding of something more than just depression or suicide. Until it has reached a wise age of 100 or so, I would hope that Asian American psychology by then has finally made its mark.