Model Minorities and Tragic Suicides

The Senate confirmation of Chinese-American Gary Locke as commerce secretary this Tuesday marked an unprecedented third for Asian-Americans in the White House (the first two being Steven Chu and Eric Shinseki).

This number does not include Asian-American White House staffers like cabinet secretary Christopher Lu, Obama’s special assistant Eugene Kang and senior political adviser Pete Rouse .

It seems Asian-Americans are finally getting some recognition and acknowledgement they rightly deserve after all the years of quiet but immense contributions to America, from the building of America’s railroads and revolution of agriculture in the late 1800s, to the current development of Silicon Valley.

Indeed, the ex-Washington governor’s confirmation is a capstone for Asian-American political participation, symbolizing huge progress since the days of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 to the pan-Asian movement sparked by the injustice surrounding Vincent Chin’s death in 1982.

Since this proud moment ushers into the limelight Asian role models who will inspire many, it is also a good time to re-visit the issue of the “model minority” stereotype that has plagued Asian-Americans.

In 2006, a Cornell University news article reported that since 1996, 13 of the 21 – 62 percent – of all Cornell student suicide victims were Asian or Asian-American. Asian-Americans, however, comprised a mere 14 percent of the student body. The school became so concerned with this issue that it established a special mental health-oriented Asian and Asian American Climate Task Force to address this problem.

The task force found that the overbearing pressure to constantly outperform one’s peers due to the “model minority” stereotype had been a significant factor affecting the state of the mental health of Cornell Asian and Asian American students; the devastation from the failure to meet academic expectations led to suicidal thoughts.

“Asian-Americans may have elevated levels of perfectionism and this creates undue pressure to do well in college,” Joel Wong, IU assistant professor of counseling psychology, said. “This is a result of number one, expectations of others, including classmates and parents, and number two, pressure when it (the belief) is internalized – Asian-Americans setting unduly high standards for themselves.”

During Gary Locke’s acceptance speech for commerce secretary designate, he said his success came from parents who espoused, “Get a good education, work hard, and take care of each other.”

Likewise, many other Asian households, too, emphasize this mantra. They passed onto their children the belief that in order to be distinguished in America one has to be academically exceptional and have a high-flying career.

Hence, when Asian students do not meet expectations, or do not have talent for fields in science, math, medicine and engineering, there is heightened shame and condemnation for their perceived incompetence.

Additionally, Asian students tend to avoid voicing their concerns even when they are at their wits’ end. According to a report, “Suicide Among Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders,” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Asian-Americans do not access mental health treatment as much as other racial/ethnic groups do due to strong stigma associated with mental illness.

Because of the model minority myth, suicide is not normally associated with Asian-American college students.

But the recent Virginia Tech killing and suicide of Seung-Hui Cho in 2007 and the decapitation of an Asian graduate student by another Asian graduate student at the same school this year illuminate the reality that Asians and Asian-Americans are in need of mental health services to mitigate the tremendous pressures they face from this model minority label.