Imagine for a second coming here, not knowing the language and having to start over from scratch, dealing with culture shock and identity loss, then compound that with the stoicism and importance of family that comes with Eastern thought. Our PRF’s also experienced the racism we did. The reality is that many of PRFs have experienced trauma, heck immigrating itself can be traumatic. If you take the time to think about it, we’re not that far removed from events like the Vietnam War, Korean War, Rape of Nanjing, the Cultural revolution, European colonization, internment camps, Hiroshima/Nagasaki, Khmer Rogue and countless other atrocities. Or, maybe it’s something else – something deeper.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that most of our PRFs have/had no point of reference of Western positive role models, individual emotional needs, and child discipline that we were educated in. I don’t think there’s a short answer to this. Some of us try to scrub out the “abnormal,” others of us feel like they can’t escape it, and others simply embrace it as part of their existence, yet the thought remains: It hovers like a dark cloud over the ways that we now reflect on our experiences of mental health and suffering as a result of the shame, neglect, abuse, and other underhanded tactics that our PRFs used/continue to use to try and reinforce their views as one of preeminence in our lives. I see it in our stories, I feel it in our pain. I bet many of you wondered, “Why can’t I just be ‘normal’?” That same sentiment continues to manifest itself in our lives. Or Saturday mornings dedicated to (insert Asian language here) school and other structured activities. Or being forced to go to family gatherings with our annoying relatives and babysitting our cousins. Or helping with the family business while other kids went home to eat snacks and watch afternoon cartoons. We experienced some of these differences in very tangible ways like being stuck at home practicing piano/doing homework while the other kids played outside.

We often find ourselves in the middle of these two ideals, having been influenced largely by our parents, while growing up in a culture that approaches things very differently. Whereas many of them continue to carry with them their Eastern (sometimes Confucian) ideals of collectivism, filial piety, and family first governance. Many of us, consciously or unconsciously/learned or unlearned, seem to bask in the ideals of individualism, independence, and democracy (or socialism) carried by the wings of capitalism into a better life than our PRFs grew up in. As a result, their offspring (us) share very similar experiences, such as racism, exclusion, and questions of self-identity and belonging, and perhaps more recently, uniqueness and unity the “Asian- (insert current nationality here) experience.” Yet, while we bond over memes, language jokes, and boba, we seemingly have very different experiences and views compared to our PRFs. When they migrated, they brought with them their widely accepted customs and cultures into a new country, where they became the minority, and passed along some of those generational beliefs things onto us. If you’re reading this, it is likely that you’re also part of the Asian Diaspora – the scattering of (Asian) people from their homelands to different parts of the world – and that your PRFs were/are immigrants. I hope this not misinterpreted as being parent apologist propaganda as I do not want to invalidate anyone’s experiences, but from everything I’ve read, I wanted to make a few comments to help make sense of some of these experiences. For many it has taken the form of a wide range of abuse, often misnomered as “for our own good.” I want to focus specifically on the PRFs that “mean well,” but fail to communicate it clearly to us. As many have pointed out, parents/relatives/families (from here on out PRFs), often cause a great deal of anguish and contribute greatly to our experiences of depression, anxiety, etc. This seems to be a very common topic that plays a large part in many of the stories that people have shared, often negatively, as major contributors to the development of many mental health issues. I wanted to touch on an issue that I’ve seen pop up a lot in Subtle Asian Mental Health: Parents and Families.

Intergenerational trauma vietnamese