Since she was a teenager, Stella Ho has wrestled with fainting spells, seizures and suicidal tendencies.
Doctors in her native Hong Kong struggled to figure out what was wrong with her. She was unable to hold onto her job as an office clerk. Relatives ostracized her and kept her away from family functions.
"They didn't realize I was sick," said Ho, 56. "They were afraid I would become a burden and disturb the family peace."
Ho didn't really understand her condition either until she immigrated to the United States in 1988 and began seeking help from the Asian Pacific Family Center. The Rosemead-based nonprofit is a welcome comfort for Asian immigrants battling mental illness, a little understood and even invisible health issue in parts of the community.
"Most people are very uneducated about mental illness," said Jeanette Choi, program director for outpatient mental health services at the center. "For Asians, it's almost taboo to talk about it because it's considered a stigma and connected to shame and weakness of personality."
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one in four American adults suffers from some form of mental health disorder. Racial and ethnic minorities are less likely to have access to mental health services and often receive poor care.
But little is known about the full scope of mental health problems in the Asian American community. What limited research there is tends to lump this diverse group into one ethnic category, said California Assemblyman Mike Eng (D-Monterey Park), who held a legislative town hall meeting Wednesday to draw more attention to the issue.
"There are over 40 ethnic groups in the Asian Pacific Islander community," Eng said. "Our first goal is to show that this community is very diverse; each has its own characteristics."
Earlier this year, Eng released a report that was the first of its kind looking at the health profiles of the various Asian subgroups living in California. The study, done in collaboration with the University of California Asian American and Pacific Islander Multi-Campus Research Program, showed that certain groups are at higher risks of some illnesses than the rest of the population, while other subgroups have been rarely studied, if ever.
For example, the Southeast Asian population reported a higher rate of mental disability than any other Asian subgroup. Experts say this could be the result of war trauma or experiences as refugees.
