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Some Asian American students say the stress they’re under — by parents, by peers and themselves — has led to mental health problems.
A recent essay contest about mental health underscores the problem. The contest, sponsored by the Alamo-based Culture to Culture Foundation, drew 127 entries from high schools across the area, including Pleasanton and San Ramon Valley high schools.
While non-Asians wrote about problems including body image and bipolar disorder, most of the Asian students wrote about stress and its consequences, including despair, self-loathing and High Achievers Syndrome.
“Many of my friends physically and mentally succumb to the inability to satisfy the expectations of their parents,” wrote one essayist, Calvert Chan. “It is unacceptable for teens who are working hard to suffer from anxiety and depression and have no means of venting their stress.”
Another student, Edward H Wang, wrote: “I hear a little voice in my head, and as much as I try to stifle it and smother it, it continues to whisper to me. It tells me that I can’t succeed, that I can’t triumph, that I can never live up to my hopes and dreams and why — because I am lazy, slothful, cowardly, the embodiment of the ills of human nature.”
Sal Fu wrote: “after I kicked the year off with a D in AP Chemistry — my focus went from learning the wonders of science to frantically trying to raise my grade. Soon after, education became a drag. It was all about meeting deadlines and neglecting others for the sake of balancing grades. The stress had built up to the point where I detested school, and hated doing things in general.”
While those are just a sampling of the essays, the students are not alone in how they feel, with dozens of others making similar points. Nor are they alone as part of the larger Asian American population of the area.
Culture to Culture founder Chia Chia Chien said Asians face a stigma about seeking help for mental health issues.
“Most of the Asian American population, they wait until very late or they’re in crisis or when a tragedy happens,” Chien said. “Even now, for the second generation, it’s probably better because of cross culturization, but there still are some problems because they wait until the last stages.”
She said adults may rely on traditional remedies first, and even after getting medication, they might take a half dose instead of what’s prescribed.
Matthew Narron is a doctor of psychology at Axis Community Health in Pleasanton. He said it’s hard to talk across the board because the label Asian American fits so many cultures, but generally, people from China and Japan often show what’s known as the “polite face.”
“Displays of strong emotions are frowned upon,” Narron said. He added that if they are prescribed a pill for a mental disorder, “that’s sign of weakness.”
He said other cultural differences come into play as well, including how counselors and clinicians relate to patients.
For some, he said, the approach is, “I come in and you’re going to tell me what the problem is,” as opposed to a counselor, who wants to ask that the problem is.
“People will come in with a problem in the family that cannot be dealt with,” Narron said. “They’ll come in if they can’t figure it out.”
He noted that some people come from what he described as “the collectivist concept,” where the group is more important than the individual.
But, he said, “Most clinicians are fairly culturally competent.”
Narron said Axis sees its share of young people struggling with mental health issues.
“We definitely see kids that are coming in here and are getting B’s,” he said. “That clashes big time.”
He explained that in some places, such as Japan, there aren’t enough slots to fit every student.
“When they get out of class, they go to cram schools, that’s when they actually do their work. There are only so many slots, elementary to middle school to high school. If you don’t fit into that system, you go to private school — you are now shameful,” Narron said. “You’re killing your kid over getting an A, but they’re saying we have to fit in the national system.”
Kathy Kane, clinical director of the Discovery Center in Danvile called Asian American mental health problems “a big issue.”
She said the center has a contract in place with the San Ramon Valley school district to provide counseling, but “there are very, very few that actually make it into the counseling office.”
“As we are able to see through our Culture to Culture essay contest, there are people who are really suffering. They can’t reach out for help,” Kane said.
While she says the center does see some families in its clinic, “part of the issue is the difference between the children who are being raising in the American tradition and their parents, who are more connected to their culture of origin.”
Her big concern, however, is for the teens.
“Mostly they’re internalizers. They’re keeping things inside themselves instead of acting out — staying up all night, not getting any rest, carrying a lot of anxiety — super high expectations,” Kane said. “The adolescent culture, particularly at Dougherty, the whole peer culture is about hyper-achievement, so they’ve now getting it from their peers as well as inside the home.”
And she said bullying now has a new face.
“It comes around grades. Your status is based around your GPA and how many AP classes you’re taking,” she said.
“Kids are not being children any more,” she added, explaining that she sees fifth-graders feeling pressure over AP classes.
But she said, “The biggest tragedies are the ones who wind up being suicidal or self injuring.”
The only culture in America I know of that celebrates ignorance, laziness, and hatred is the one exemplified by Mr. Tell.
As for the pressures felt by school-aged kids who want to succeed, well, that’s the logical outcome of capitalism: the logic of ownership is to own more; the logic of education is to succeed over others (e.g., Hunger Games) even at the cost of forfeiting one’s quest for genuine understanding and knowledge of the human condition.
Survival of the fittest…
I appreciate the values of Asian Americans re: education. Keep in mind that high grades are not the only predictor of a happy and successful life.
High grades may not always get you into an excellent university.
The USA is blessed with many wonderful young people. There are many different values that Americans encourage.
Believe me, you will not drop if you’re not the brightest apple on the tree. And if you are, you may not have a happy and successful life.
Consider seeking a balance. You may find someday that you’re a wonderful human being and a good parent and spouse. You may never be the smartest person on the planet. Perhaps you’ll never get married or have children. Your income may be OK. If you’re young, you still have time to figure out who you are and what you want to become. It’s a piece of work and it’s not a race.
Most of what others think about you is none of your business.
I remember about 3-4 years ago, the loner male Chinese student at a major Eastern university went on a shooting rage, killing half a dozen or so. Parents knew he had mental issues , but lived quietly and did nothing.
Unfortunately, folks do go on the rampage sometimes and harm innocent people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers:_School_massacres
Those individuals come from various countries in the world.
It’s tragic.
I guess that living in the world can be like living in a pressure cooker and some folks crack.
Observer wrote: “I remember about 3-4 years ago, the loner male Chinese student at a major Eastern university went on a shooting rage, killing half a dozen or so. Parents knew he had mental issues , but lived quietly and did nothing.”
What’s your point? You think that the parents of Adam Lanza (Newtown shootings), James Holmes (Aurora movie shootings), and the Columbine shooters did not know that their sons had mental issues?
I thnk it’s just as big a tragedy to spend your life trying to achieve for your parents’ sake, never feeling known and loved for who you are. These children may get the high status job and house, and feel empty their whole lives. Superficial living is what is being taught to these kids by their parents.
Maybe it is time for the parents to be a parent. There ego is part of the problem not the kids.
But at the end of the day we need programs. Yes that is where most will end up do to the lack of social skills and no ability to lead others.
And why to I say this. Because I hire them each day and they can program but lack the social skill to work in teams and the ability to think out side of the box.
Just maybe you should try letting your child be a kid and play. Doing 8 grade math in 4 grade can wait a few years but being kid is now.
I really respect the Asian achievement ethic particularly that parents encourage in their children. Contrast this with some other cultures where children often have no fathers, parents are absentee, on drugs or in prison or where children think achievement and education are not cool. We see which cultures are succeeding in life and which ones aren’t.
I respect all cultures. Here in America, for example, African-American culture — an extremely diverse phenomenon make of numerous subcultures — has produced such outstanding individuals as Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, Cornell West … the list is long and continues to lengthen. So too with Asian Americans. Incredible achievements across a wide variety of subcultures.
The problem is how to organize a society that doesn’t lend itself to chronic defeatism among some, intense feelings of anxiety among others. We’re not there yet, nor, I would argue, will we be until we decide to organize ourselves around an alternative set of principles than those offered by our capitalist political economy.
There are factors in every culture that produce success and contributions to society and there are factors in cultures that create failure. The solution starts by acknowledging problems and addressing them within the culture not to continually blame others and look to government for continual assistance. The answer doesn’t lie with “organizing a society”. We’ve tried that through the last half century with a huge number of government-funded and expensive programs which haven’t worked.
Asian americans have quietly gone about being successful in our society with low crime rates, high rates of marriage stability and graduating students.
It’s all about how you see society and your role in it.
Of course there are exceptions brought about by the myriad situations that form individuals as they grow, but the Japanese tend to view their individual progress as having been made possible through the support they receive from those around them rather than as the result of individual effort alone. This of course also means that individuals feel the need to meet the expectations of family, teachers and others that populate a fairly wide circle.
I wonder if such a perspective comes into starker conflict when transplanted to American culture, which tends to be more indulgent of self.
Mike
There will always be students who are high achievers and they come from various socio-economic backgrounds. All American students will not attended college/university and those students may also be viewed as highly successful.
Living a full and satisfying life is more than being a college/university graduate, having a high paying job, getting married, and having children.
Millions of Americans are transplants. Some arrived early in their lives and others arrived later and adapted to life in the USA with relatively few difficulties.
I’ve had social and professional contact with numerous Americans from various racial/ethnic backgrounds. Some have attained the American dream while others have experienced enormous difficulties living in the USA. The majority of individuals that I have befriended I perceive as successful Americans. They are happy, educated, socially responsible Americans who do not have criminal records. They have never harmed fellow Americans and they’ve all paid taxes, never stolen from their employers or fellow Americans, and served in the US military with pride and have never deliberately harmed others.
ALL of my retired friends have worked as volunteers. They were not all born in the USA. I enjoy knowing Americans from various social and ethnic backgrounds. At this time, the majority of my closest friends are responsible senior citizens.
Incidentally, there are many successful Asian Americans living happy and fulfilling lives. However, not all Asians are college/university educated, many have not completed high school or attended/completed college/university. Many work in lower paying jobs and also exhibit symptoms of mental illness. There also many Asians in American prisons.
It’s easy to generalize about various populations that live in the USA. One of my primary concerns is “can we all get along?”
AMERICA IS GREAT BECAUSE MOST OF US HAVE WORKED HARD TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT.
It never ceases to amaze how stunted intellects can take an idea and reduce it to a third grade proposition.
We live in a society where, as Asian American kids’ essays reveal, the high expectations for success (which are already staggeringly high and skyrocketing upward seemingly without stop), leads to high anxiety, guilt, shame, and sometimes the taking of one’s own life. If we listen to these kids, maybe we can catch a glimmering of understanding about the nature of the culture that emanates from our current political economy.
So, too, that participants of African-American culture can succeed as they have while so many are cast aside in abject despair, is suggestive of the need for us to go back to the drawing board. We’ve done something wrong, and continue to do so.
Matters will not change, as they should, until we develop new imaginaries of possibility that point to new ways of organizing our lives and prioritizing our values.
Asian gangs in prisons need to be studied: http://knowledge.sagepub.com/view/prisons/n21.xml
as you can see…some are successful than others…Asians that is…
There are many many many Asian criminals involved in sex slavery of women and children in the bay area.
Every culture has an underbelly…all Asian cultures included.
Not all are terrific students…some a brilliant slaves.
Still, there must be a way to help the Asian students who are suffering and not happy.
It’s my hope that the Asian students who feel enormous pressure to succeed eventually become healthy, happy, productive, successful adults with loving friends and family.
To your success: VIVA!
There are factors in every culture that produce success and contributions to society and there are factors in cultures that create failure. The solution starts by acknowledging problems and addressing them within the culture not to continually blame others and look to government for continual assistance. anyway here is the http://www.essaysmaster.com look it on and think to how to write better essays
Childhood.. what a terrible thing to waste. In our race to force successful adulthood we sometimes sacrifice our children’s right to be children. Loss of joy and innocence prematurely is like extinction, it is not a state that can be reversed
Coffee is for closers
Too many people put so much effort into getting into a top university right out of high school knowing that it’s like a sweepstakes. AP courses, volunteer work, worry about grades all contribute to a high stress level.
There is the much less stressful approach of attending a community college for 2 years, then transferring into a prestigious 4 year college.
Las Positas, for example, has an on-track program to satisfy the lower division requirements of both the UC system and the state college system which makes the process of transistioning into a 4 year school very easy.
To get into a community college you don’t have to take AP courses, you don’t have to have volunteer hours, you don’t even have to take an SAT. This all greatly reduces the stress on the high school senior, and on the parents. And the best part for parents is that the cost is thousands less than going to a “big” school right away.
When it’s time to transfer out of the community college, the 4 year college can see that the student has demonstrated a level of commitment to obtaining a 4 year degree which helps in the admission process.
And in the end, the student graduates with a degree from a good 4 year school and no one cares that the first two years were done somewhere else.
Granted, the level of education at Las Positas can’t be compared to what one would receive at UC, but given everything else it is a viable way to go.
Too many people put so much effort into getting into a top university right out of high school knowing that it’s like a sweepstakes. AP courses, volunteer work, worry about grades all contribute to a high stress level.
There is the much less stressful approach of attending a community college for 2 years, then transferring into a prestigious 4 year college.
Denis – http://www.ails.fr
To Denis69 – my sentiments exactly.
My son graduated from Foothill in 2013, is attending Los Positas and will begin the transfer process into SF State or USF or CAL later this year.
While at Foothill he took zero AP classes, did not take the PSAT or SAT, did the required volunteer hours to graduate and actually enjoyed his final year.
Getting into Los Positas was a snap and getting into a 4 year school will be easy for him also since the requirements are lower for transferees.
Granted, the education is better at Cal/SF state from start to finish but not everyone makes it and it’s common to have to go somewhere else that is less desireable right out of high school.
Oh, and did I mention that the cost is much less at the CC?
In case there is a question that my son lacks the smarts to get into a 4 year school, while he was in his senior year at Foothill he joined the US Army Reserves and had to take an apptitude test to measure his English and math skills – he scored an 86%.
Achievement is important. So, too, is getting something personal out of ones studies, and letting that passion guide ones future studies. I don’t mind if my kids get a B in history class. If they can come out of it personally relating to something they learned, I will have considered it an A+.
But no C’s though. That’s my line.
What a load of baloney!! How about growing up in a family without a pile of money and having to work after school to help the family pay the bills. I sent myself to a junior college then joined the military to learn a trade, later using the G I bill to put myself through a four year college while working nights to pay off that loan and support myself and later a family. Many years later everything worked out just fine, sure would have been a lot easier and less “stressful” if I was born into one of those families and just had to worry about school and my grades, what a bunch of lightweights we are raising now, BUCKUP and quit your whining please
@Map
I can appreciate your comments, most kids have it easy here in P-town. When my son went to boot camp in Ft Jackson SC he came into contact with all types and backgrounds, and came home with a much bigger appreciation and understanding of life in general. He was pushed mentally and physically while there, and learned things that will stand him in good stead all his life.
I really think ALL kids ought to go into the military for a couple of years.
Well put “ED”. Should be mandatory 2 years military for every kid after high school, maybe we would have a lot less “prima donnas” crying about how tough their life is !! We all grew up real quick in boot camp, there was no mommy or daddy to cuddle us when things got tough, we all worked together and watched out for each other.