Article on Suicide Rates in the Asian American community August 14, 2009
Posted by peterong in Asian American, Chinese American.trackback
New American Media put out an article about the rise of Asian Americans and suicide rates and referred to recent happenings involving three students at Caltech who committed suicide. As I read this and people are chiming in about the influence of pressure of achievement from family and also the overall environment at the university to excel. I think that some of the scholars are missing is that suicide narratives are such a part of the cultural narrative.
As I remember so much of our histories and stories in our family has always had one or another relative who found their only way of escape was to take one’s life. It was not glorified in any sense but more of a necessary reality of our family history. As I think through the analysis of some of the psychological issues which we as a culture forgo or dismiss, I think the deeper issue of transparency or creating space so we know how to speak into our individual and collective pain.
I think that we do undergo a sense of shame or other circumstances of our cultural environment. But I think that the issue is in large part of the focus of personal achievement for the sake of the community approval. But it is the focus on the personal. On the burden of the individual to represent the whole that is so graceless and distorts our understanding of the gospel. But it is not unlike our western counterparts which also focus on the personal glory as the pinnacle of one’s existence. but when we subscribe this sense of worship of self, eventually we will find something toxic and disfunction because we are made to worship. This is an insoluble question of our existence…what or who do we worship? The reality is that this is aorist tension, of in process or “already and not yet.” It is our theology or thinking that we work out this reality of our pain in the midst of our worship. To know that we are often found wanting in the midst of glory. But we put on the pretense that God is the very central thing or to the other extreme, our failure is the very central thing. We have a abbreviated gospel. It is either ONLY about God or ONLY about our failure. But it is the fuller view is our failure in the midst of God’s glory. To make it capable for us to enter in with humility because we have a hope to our tragedy. That there is a wonderful narrative of salvation comes to those who are brokenhearted. To not self worship our moral conditions but rather to worship God who redeems.
Suicide is the darkest conclusion of our pursuit of self worship.
There is a sense that there is no way out because we have failed to present the gospel that invites us to the beautifully excessiveness of God grace. Especially in the Asian American culture, the religious works helps us keep our obligations to God tenable and even some of the sacrificial gestures are forms of appeasement to God. It is our moral credentials that is the measure of our success or failure that determines our discipleship but not at the work of Christ on the cross.
In varying degrees, we are so desperate for grace because of the tremendous despair of a world of ungrace. What a challenge for us to express grace. To show that all our hope is in Christ alone. So the movement is from this central place of grace and from that we can work out who we are in Christ.
[...] issue and how it connects with self-worship and Asian culture. He says it well, so just link over (link). If we believe that the Kingdom of God will effect real cultural change and redemption, even for [...]
Thanks for your blog. It’s a much needed discussion for Asian American families.
This is a very sad statistic for Asian and Asian American families. In recent years in China, the official number of students committing suicide (mainly middle school students) is around 20,000 per year. That translates into 50 students per day throughout China. Thta’s a freakin’ huge number of young lives lost. Officials believe the main reason is the lack of love from parents due to work stress and broken families. Meanwhile kids are still pushed by their parents to excel in school. When such an expectation fails, kids feel hopeless and often opt for suicide. Some try several times before they succeed in ending their lives. The common suicide reason in China is so clear – lack of parental understanding and love. Here in America, we don’t think it that way when in actuality we share the exact same reason in the Asian American communities with China. Asian American (thank God, it’s usually the first generation immigrants) parents push their kids so hard to the extent that their kids don’t feel loved or understood by their parents. Because of the language and cultural barriers, first generation Asian parents don’t even try to understand the American culture or their kids, which really frustrates and embarasses their American-born children regularly. When will Asian parents wake up?
This topic needs to be discussed more and really be talked about with every Asian American parents being asked about their thoughts and how they would do to prevent pushing their kids. I am an immigrant from China with kids born in the U.S. Thankfully I am very aware of this problem with fellow Asian American families. I have made sure my kids are given opportunities to become a well-rounded individuals (academi, sports, camping, social events with friends from school, partying, etc.). Too many Chinese American families that we know don’t even see the need to do activities with their kids other than academic ones. Needless to say, their kids are suffering but the parents are proud with their kids’ academic abililty. Who cares if your 2nd grader knows division and outperform a 4th grader at the end of the day if your child ends up needing psychological counseling? How can we help our Asian American parents undertand the priority? Please help! For the sake of many, many children from the first generation Asian immigrants.
Oh, I forgot to mention that we are a church-going Christian family. We see the exact same phenomenon with Christian families among Asian Americans in Chinese churches through the U.S. In fact, I believe Chinese churches provide an environment for first generation immigrants to compare their kids and hence push and scold their kids. After experiencing and witnessing much of this Chinese culture, we finally left our Chinese church to attend an American church when our first child was about 1 year old. Many Chinese parents (friends of ours) had already started comparing our kids when they were about 1 year. We are much happier than without being a total Chinese environment. We still have Chinese friends but we can definitely control whom we want to be our friends.