On Demand
Asian American Students at Risk?
Andrew Lam, editor at New America Media and the author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora, and Peter Yee, president of NY Coalition for Asian Mental Health and assistant executive director of Behavioral Health Services at Hamilton Madison House in Manhattan, discuss whether cultural pressures for extreme achievement played a role in the suicides of three Asian American Cal Tech students in recent months.
- About the Brian Lehrer Show »
- Staff Bios »
- Contact Us »
- Tapes and Transcripts »
- Latest Episode »
- Show Archive »
Features & Series
Podcast
Stay up to date.
Subscribe to the Podcast
YOU PRODUCE The Brian Lehrer Show
Be a listener-producer with facts, questions and people you'd like to hear on the air.
More
The Brian Lehrer Show Scrapbook
Visit the scrapbook for daily photos and miscellany from The Brian Lehrer Show.
More
Shop at Amazon!
The Brian Lehrer Show picks
Start your Amazon shopping on WNYC.org and a portion of your total purchase goes to WNYC.
More
Comments
Refresh
I have had Asian American students tell me that, contrary to stereotypes, all Asians are not math and science "wizzes." To do poorly at exams and studies is to dishonor the family not only oneself. Is this culture still pervasive even after numerous generations in USA? Is it equally true for males and females? If not, why do you think this is not, and who is more challenged to be a "success"?
Aren't Chinese and Japanese statistically better at math because their languages allow children to learn counting faster, i.e. they learn to count before they learn the actual language intricacies? Thus the pressures on English speaking Asians are unjustified because they don't have that advantage thus causing depressions in students.
You're talking about Asian Americans but that is quite broad. Is there a difference by country?
Please address your views on the gunman that killed the 13 people at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, New York, and committed suicide if possible?
I think this is a profoundly interesting conversation and it resonates for other immigrant groups. I think more discussion needs to be had about the psychological trauma of migration. I have witnessed the profound depression of working class African immigrants for whom significant sacrifice has been made to allow them to come to the States and who often find themselves unable to meet the very high expectations those family members back home have for them. It leads to deep shame and depression. While it may not manifest in suicide, it can lead to other self-destructive behavior.
Looks like you are talking mainly about East Asians. How do South Asians fit into this?
I am French but studied at Caltech. The reason Asians have better grades is that they work harder.
There are also white people who commit suicide at Caltech.
Is it that big a problem? It is just 0.3% of the student population.
Does religion have anything to do with the suicide rate? A friend of mine says that a belief in reincarnation also contributes to higher rates of suicide because of this. I don't know if I agree. What do you say to this?
Surprizingly , what you are talking about matches well with what Indians go through too. This is not only for people from the Sinophere, but also Indosphere!
I am surprized that Indians were not mentioned by the two speakers. (Indians are Asians too!)
I am Korean American. My parents were not as strict as other parents I know. But there is pressure to do well, exceptionally well, and to avoid those careers that do not guarantee success. I think, for my parents, a lot of this has to do with growing up during a war and then leaving everything behind to come to America with just a hope that they could make a new life here. I really believe my parents and many Korean parents experienced some form of PTSD after the war and for that reason are terrified of instability.
As an Asian American, it is astonishing to hear such stereotypical generalizations being made about Asians.
I work at an university science department in New Jersey. Just yesterday a large percentage of our monthly staff meeting was devoted to students who should be in another major.
In many of the cases where the science major and the student is a poor fit, the parents are pressuring the student to pursue a career that is in demand and will provide some measure of job security.
In one case a student who repeatedly failed a course could not change majors because the parents refused to pay tuition for any program except science.
Perhaps this topic is related to a larger issue of the purposes behind higher education and its relation to future earnings.
My experience with Asian families is that the high pressure to succede causes a split with some children attaining super high levels of success and other children basically burning out and becoming dependant on their family for support. Of course these children are below the radar and never talked about.
I agree, I am Chinese and in the bigger picture, this pride and pressure is reflected in the culture where people are traditionally cold and unsentimental, lacking in simple cordial gestures.
Thanks, Carrie [3]. I was wondering the same thing. To take it a step further, is there any difference based on a person's ethnic group & that group's status within the country of origin?
When my family moved to New York from Tokyo when I was 12, in 1977, I started going to American school for the first time in my life. Obviously I had to start from learning English.
Thirty years later, I still remember what my mother told me and my sister:
"do well in school, both academically and in behavior. Your classmate will not judge 'you' but judge about our country based on you two".
There was a lot of pressure. We always strived to do well and succeeded.
Luckily, both my sister and I are strong toward pressure. But it was still very tough. I cannot imagine how it would be for a lot of Asian students who enroll in US schools through government scholarships or who are not as strong toward pressure than we were.
I agree with Carrie, what is an Asian? Chinese, Japanese Korean? Can we include Indians, Cambodians, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Iranians?
I went to parsons school of design which had a Very large Asian student population - I would say at least 30% - and I observed them to be some of the worst students in the school - I can't comment on the state of their mental health - but they did not prove the idea that Asians are more competitive and higher achieving students at all - many of them seemed like they couldn't have cared less and couldn't be bothered to make any effort at all.
question -- any connection between student suicides and antidepressants?
A Pakistani parent told me his son committed suicide after he was put on antidepressants at Stanford without the parents' knowledge. Patient confidentiality laws and university practice.
The parents were not warned that suicide is a risky side effect.
For the purpose of your topic, lumping the three "asian" suicides together is understandable. But you're avoiding the basic question: what does the police report say about those three cases. They are all seperate and I'm sure investigators have an idea about why each of those persons killed themselves at Cal Tech.
When doing research on my Swedish great grandparents in the midwest at the end of the 19th century, I was amazed to find how many obituaries were with regards to people committing suicide.
Immigrant and displaced person suicide doesn't appear to be new.
When I was in university, I tried to kill myself..... more then once. I grew up in US and parents told me that I am the hope of my family.... what a presure... If I want to live as a person, I had to let my parents down... so,, I had break my parents dreams of me while I was in university. I am deeply sorry for my parents pain of seeing failing child. but I wanted to live.
In my experience, if I did badly in school my Japanese mother made feel like I didn't deserve to live because I was "worthless" and "incompetent."
I have date a woman from japan america who has l d ,she was beeten as a child , I was just in indonesia she is not suwasidal
I was in school for 18 years as an undergraduate, a graduate student studying engineering and Mathematics. From my experience, it was never Asian students who truly excelled. Sure, there were a few among the top but it was always some white student from rural part of Midwest who had true inner motivation and rose to the top. Asians who excelled in high schools to get into top colleges tended to lose their motivation once they are in college, realizing that they are not the smartest student in class. As for the comment about Asian student in Parsons, these are the children of cash-rich parents who are in school for partying and socializing, which is sometimes the best way to succeed.
I want to comment on how children with parents that are born in the U.S. are not immune to spanking and beating, as many of these students are raised and reared by grandparents who might hold the view that spanking as a way of disciplining.
Ethnicity alone cannot be the factor in determimning whether students are suicidal or at risk of depression. Support networks, a sense of self-worth, and other things can offset this tremendous pressure that some might feel because of the ethnic background or way of being reared.
Just want to comment on the lack of education among Asian community on the topic of how to deal with failure. It has a more profound impact over generations. Parents who don't know deal with failure pass this trait to the second generation, and later the third generation, so on an so forth. I would say this is true for both Asian American and Asian who lives outside US.
I wonder what this conversation would be if we were pending a heavenly body collision in say 43 years.
We would be pushing the limits of our know-how & dreams to just get some semblances of our selves off the ground and into orbit.
We should be pushing despite the 43 years not really existing.
We need to redefine success now- not just for asians.
Cheers,
Secret Asian Man
Perhaps, if there were more Asian American mental health professionals and counselors, more Asians would seek help. If there are people that are similar to them and can understand more of their problems, there will be more Asians going into therapy. However, there is an under-representation of Asians in the mental health profession.
I felt uncomfortable listening to this show at many occasions because of the vague generalizations which were made about "Asians". I think that there are traits common across many cultures, which the guests should have done a better job at recognizing. Instead of referring to the "experts" why not interview a college student who is actually going through the process...who knows first-hand about academic / family pressure.
Hello, We have started a new initiative on facebook, to stop student suicides.. It will be great if you can join in and support us in this.. Spread the word, Save a life..
http://www.facebook.com/stop.student.suicides
Leave a Comment
Please stay on topic, be civil, and be brief.
Back to EpisodeEmail addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments. Names are displayed with all comments. WNYC reserves the right to edit any comments posted on this site. Please read the WNYC.org Comment Guidelines before posting.