Aparna Komarla - A04 - Week 6

This week’s reading on the mental health of Asian American students stood out for me. Katherine Kam’s “On Some College Campuses, A Focus On Asian American Mental Health”, highlights the mental health challenges Asian American students face in college campuses in the United States, and the rates of suicide and suicidal behavior among students in the community. The article is heartbreaking, as thinking about the legacies of trauma that so many individuals bear within them that fails to get addressed is hurtful. While Kam discusses the lack of acknowledgement in Asian communities about mental health, I believe that her critique is incomplete as it does not recognize the long serving practices in Asian cultures that value mental and emotional well-being. I think that Eastern methods or views on mental health are vastly different from how the West sees it – in the form of institutional resources and services. I would want to have more conversations about how we can be more inclusive of cultural interpretations of mental health, and diversify the dialogue surrounding it.

Question: Do you think that Asian cultures have an inherent neglect towards mental health?

Media:

 

References:

Kam, K. (2013). On some college campuses, A focus on Asian American Mental Health. New American Media.