ASAMST 143 AC (Dr. Winston Tseng, Fall 2023)

In Asian American health, my main objective was to do group volunteering with an Asian American organization. My group teamed up with the Asian Immigrant Women Advocate Group (AIWA) in downtown Oakland. I created lesson plans to teach English to chinese immigrant workers in various areas ranging from mental health support, job applying, and women's health. This gave me a better idea of how hard it is for non-native English speakers to seek out and receive support and resources. The volunteer coordinator, Sunny, told us about how she was hesitant on seeing the doctor because she had difficulty describing her symptoms in English. On the car ride when my mom was dropping me off for January 2024 military drill, she told me about how I have access to so many opportunities in the US. She told me that she can't do them because her English isn't that good.

The other major lesson was about Asian American youth. On one of my research articles, I read about high rates of suicide and self-harm among Asian American women. The main cause was a divide in identity among Asian Americans. I greatly resonated with this. At home, we are in an Asian family which is more collectivist. My parents speak Nepali and we eat Nepali food. Outside, it's America. All our friends are American, the food we eat is American, and we are supposed to be more outspoken and individualistic. This creates a large divide as we constantly have to live in two different worlds as two different people. Sometimes, we feel like we are failing in both worlds feeling like a foreigner. We feel too American for our family and we feel too Asian for our life outside. This leads to high rates of depression and self-harm.

The internal conflict of wanting to be free yet wanting to be a good son/daughter leads to risky behavior in self-harm, drug abuse, alcohol overdose, and unprotected sex. It's necessary to find a healthy strong identity that encompasses both to alleviate these problems.

Lastly, disaggregated data. Asians on average do well in education and income. However, different ethnicities perform a lot worse such as Vitenamese, Pacific Islander, Mongolians, etc. This could be due to coming from a poor country or due to conflict caused by the US.