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Hiding the Pain: Suicides High Among Asian Immigrant Women
December 22, 2003 - Friends still wonder where Ying Liu got the gun she used to kill her estranged husband, and then herself, last January in the home they once shared in a quiet San Jose neighborhood. The deaths of the two high-tech engineers from Beijing were widely reported in Chinese-language newspapers, rattling many in the Silicon Valley's insular Chinese immigrant community. Chinese and other Asian women in the United States have an alarmingly high rate of suicide. A mental health crisis is brewing in the Asian American community, say psychiatrists and mental heath advocates, one that is largely unacknowledged due to cultural stigmas that prevent Asians from seeking help when they need it. Once they do, they face a dearth of bilingual and bicultural mental health practitioners. Chinese American women have the highest suicide rate of all racial and ethnic groups nationwide, with 20 suicide deaths per 100,000 population, according to recent studies. Suicide occurs at a rate 2.5 to 3 times higher among Asian women in the United States than among Caucasian women. Experts say the numbers appear higher among the immigrant population. Zhi Jiar Zhuang, a San Francisco psychiatrist who sees primarily immigrant Chinese, says his clientele is prone to isolation. "The typical first-generation Chinese immigrant focuses all their time and efforts on their job and establishing a sense of security. They fail to establish an adequate social or support circle," he says. This is in contrast to living in Asia, where there are extended families. "When a problem arises (there), it is difficult to keep it secret from others, who quickly become involved giving the individual a sense of support and validation," Dr. Zhuang says. Ying Liu, 46, was described by friends as a loner and not active in the community. Her husband, Bin Yang, 44, was called friendly and outgoing. The two had separated about eight months before the shootings. Although Liu had recently left her job, money was not an issue because she came reportedly from an affluent family. A relationship or job is often the linchpin in an immigrant's life, Zhuang says. When either is threatened, it can often send the individual into a tailspin. But instead of reaching out, "there is a fear of the shame or losing face associated with discussing problems, especially among highly functional, successful individuals," he says. "Many Chinese still associate mental health problems with the psychiatric hospitals in the country in the 50s, which treated the severely mentally handicapped. They don't understand that everyone has issues."
Without help, an individual can quickly lose a sense of perspective. "Things can become very black and white, and their only option may be to hurt themselves or others," Zhuang says. Connie Louie of Oakland's Asian Community Mental Health Services, which provides help in 12 Asian languages, says that in her past seven years at the center she has seen many Asian immigrant women display suicidal tendencies. "In some Asian cultures it is common to say I'm going to kill myself. We hospitalize them right away, and many of them do not do it." Korean-born Taeyoung Schiefer, 42, of Santa Clara shot and killed her husband, Ulrich, 40, her two young daughters, ages 5 and 12, and then herself in April 2002. She was reportedly devastated by the dissolution of her marriage. The family lived in the Bay Area for just six years after moving from Germany, where Ulrich met Taeyoung and her eldest daughter from a previous marriage in Korea. Ulrich, a successful engineer, supported the family, but after he left their home in an upper class neighborhood two months before the incident, Taeyoung found a job as a waitress. The shootings occurred just days after Ulrich reportedly asked for a divorce. Taeyoung was described by friends as domineering, which Rolanda Pierre Dixon, head of the district attorney's domestic violence unit in Santa Clara County, says may contribute to acts of violence against family members. "They think they have the right to take the lives of the people they say they love," says Pierre Dixon. Taeyoung reportedly had begun seeing a psychologist. But ironically, once many immigrants get past the social stigmas to seeking help, they may find difficulty finding a mental health professional with bicultural and bilingual knowledge, especially for long-term treatment. "Once our immigrant clients are stable to go to a lower level of care, we have hardly anyone we can refer them to," Louie says. Chia Chia Chien, a bilingual Chinese therapist for the Berkeley Mental Health clinic for 20 years, estimates that there are only a handful of Chinese bilingual psychiatrists who can dispense medication in the Bay Area and only a few dozen bilingual Chinese therapists, home to more than 370,000 Chinese. Last May she helped to create the Chinese American Mental Health Network which funds scholarships for bilingual Chinese to enter the mental health practitioner field. Not enough studies are being done on mental health issues within the Asian immigrant population, she says. Chien also helped orchestrate the first Asian Pacific Islander Mental Health Awareness Month last May sponsored by Calif. Assemblywoman Wilma Chan. Chien is heartened by growing turnout at Chinese language panels on mental health issues her group organizes in the Bay Area. She hopes the sessions will convince Chinese in crisis to become more proactive in seeking help. "Ninety percent wait too long. It's like seeking treatment at a late cancer stage," she says.
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