As mental health continues to be a pressing concern among teenagers, youth ministers often must help to address taboos with parents. In this Ask Rooted installment, we asked Asian American ministers about the unique challenges surrounding mental health in their contexts.
To hear more about this topic, register for our webinar, Asian American Families and Mental Health, on Thursday, September 24, hosted by Clark Fobes with panelists Victoria Chiu, Monica Kim, and Danny Kwon.
What are some challenges surrounding mental health in Asian American contexts?
Jennifer Ting
More than a few students who have worked up the courage to tell their parents about their mental health struggles have sat in my office and described a handful of responses they’ve received: “You’re fine,” “You just need to pray more,” or “We never had this problem growing up.” Students often struggled silently because they learned that their parents’ real fear was what people would think about the family if anyone found out.
In a lot of our immigrant households, it’s not just our students who carry this struggle; it belongs to the whole family. A daughter’s anxiety is about more than what she’s going through; it’s a picture of how well she was raised, a reflection on her extended family, and a threat to the honor of her family’s name.
Most Western mental health frameworks start from the opposite premise. Struggles are private, and a person identifies them, works through them, and overcomes them on their own. So when an unassuming youth minister presents a family with a list of available biblical counselors in the area for their daughter (who take insurance!), it seems less like an invitation and more like an order to announce the family’s shame to a stranger.
I still believe in having this list available for our church members, but I’ve also come to believe that our churches don’t just need better mental health resources. We need clarity on the difference between guilt and shame, something most of us never understood growing up as Asian Americans.
Guilt says I’ve sinned; I’ve made a mistake; I’ve fallen short. Shame hits differently. It says something is wrong with me, not just something that I did. “I’m sorry” can resolve guilt but does almost nothing for shame. The language we often use about the gospel speaks beautifully to guilt. Jesus paid the debt; he wiped our record clean; he declares us not guilty before God.
However, to those whose deepest fear isn’t judgment so much as exposure, we also need to hear that Jesus did more than absorb our guilt on the cross. He also endured shame, publicly, on our behalf. Jesus “endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2). The gospel tells us that God, who knows all things, is not hiding from us but instead went and stood in the very shame we’re trying to hide. All this is so that, as his Word says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame” (Rom. 10:11). The fear we have of being seen and talked about has already happened to Jesus, on our behalf, and he wasn’t ashamed of it. Our students don’t have to carry that fear alone, and neither do their parents.
Justin Wong
The concept of “mental health” has faced a twofold struggle within the Asian American contexts I have served: an outright rejection of the idea and an unwillingness to understand what it truly means.
Outright rejection often came from a generation that viewed new trends and buzzwords as fads destined to be shelved alongside common slang, the internet, and James Harden’s beard. The prevailing sentiment was that terms like “mental health” were irrelevant to a church like ours. “That mental health nonsense wasn’t around when I was growing up!” Yes, someone actually said that—and meant it.
In one sense, I understand where that perspective comes from. So many “new” ideas appear, and it can be difficult to discern what is legitimate and lasting. Consequently, like many developments associated with changing times, they dismissed mental health as simply another passing fad.
Yet that dismissal allowed an entire generation to avoid thinking seriously about or engaging with the issue. They viewed mental health as a “them” problem rather than an “us” reality: not our people; not our families; certainly not our children.
Part of the resistance may have come from what acknowledging this reality would require of us. If mental-health struggles were present within our own walls, we would have to slow down long enough to know what our people were actually experiencing instead of merely continuing to develop programs designed to fill seats. We might have to admit that we had neglected a significant dimension of our people’s souls. It might even require us to acknowledge—however uncomfortable—that we had failed in some respects and needed to repent.
How does having immigrant parents affect our sense of stability and identity?
Huey Lee
As an Asian American, I grew up learning that love in my home was spoken in the language of sacrifice, not sentiment. My parents moved across the ocean with very little money, without knowing the language, and worked jobs without much training so I could have a shot at something more secure. I’m grateful for that sacrifice; it was a priceless gift.
But it also quietly taught me that my worth was tied to my performance. My parents’ own stability had been hard-won and easily threatened. I absorbed that anxiety without ever being told to carry it. I grew up scanning for approval, bracing for disappointment, and mistaking achievement for identity because, in some sense, my parents’ survival had depended on exactly that kind of sacrifice and determination.
Looking back, I don’t think my struggles with anxiety were ever just clinical; they were the natural fruit of a generation’s insecurity that was disguised, in my mind, as diligence, discipline, and hard work. But the gospel has spoken directly into that burden. My worth was never meant to rest on what I produce or how well I perform under pressure. It rests on the finished work of Christ on my behalf, who secured my standing before God once and for all.
Where my parents’ sacrifices, however loving, could never fully guarantee my security; Jesus’ sacrifice actually did. He doesn’t ask me to earn my sense of worth and stability; he gives it as a gift, rooted in a love that doesn’t fluctuate with my performance. That’s the good news I keep having to preach to myself: I can lay down my anxiety at the foot of the cross again and again, because my identity is no longer something I have to earn; it is a status I’ve already received in Christ.
Dorothy Lau
I’ll never forget what a friend once said about mental health in his teenage years: “Growing up, I felt like I wasn’t allowed to be depressed.” He put into words a familiar sentiment and false assumption that to be Asian American is to not have mental health struggles; your immigrant parents would need to give permission for them to be valid. Because an image-conscious community largely ignores and reframes mental health struggles, individuals can have a grossly underdeveloped and misunderstood sense of stability and identity. Asian-American contexts often measure stability by financial security, a consistent community of support, and how minimally life’s changes impact someone. Identity is usually founded on what one does (i.e., employment, church membership status), rather than who one is and becomes as one made in God’s image. As such, there’s a tendency for Asian American young adults to be high-achieving externally but unfulfilled and lost internally.
Even so, I’ll hardly ever know the deepest realities of what it is to operate daily in a novel language; pick up on a different culture, its laws, and social norms; face racial discrimination and ignorance; and create a new life from essentially nothing. Immigrant parents have imparted many admirable qualities to their children that embody ethnic origins and values.
At the same time, there are still aspects that can be redeemed; places where the Gospel has yet to, but surely can, bring healing and hope through the person of Christ, who is the same throughout time (Heb.13:8). Contrary to what can be touted in the Asian immigrant context, those who come to Jesus are saved through grace, not tireless works (Eph. 2:8-9). At the heart of the Gospel, Christ offers rest for the weary, for his commands are not burdensome (Matt. 11:28).
Candidly, I’ve learned to peaceably accept that Jesus desires for everyone to go to him as they are, but he will not leave them that way. We might not have solutions to all our problems, and our immigrant parents aren’t always the source of those issues either. But what we can trust is who Jesus says he is; what he says of/to us; and that he is for our ultimate good and God’s glory, regardless of our parentage and upbringing.
How do generational patterns manifest themselves, for better and for worse?
Terrence Shay
Asian-American culture can be distinguished from the mainstream by the presence (or absence) of generational patterns. Familiar ones include prioritizing academic achievement, filial piety, and hierarchical respect. Less noticeable ones include being conflict-avoidant, guilt-driven, and soft-spoken, especially in public settings.
These qualities affect mental health because they build an edifice of normalcy and expectation that we often strive to maintain to be accepted by our families and community. For better, Asian Americans are overachievers in education, trustworthy hires in the corporate world, and excellent team players who support organizational leadership. For worse, we bear the burden of being overworked, overlooked, and overwhelmed by our responsibilities while being ignorant of how to address pressing personal and relational issues in life. The gospel gives us a better future in Christ than one we can forge for ourselves.
The biblical narrative aligns more with the communal culture of Asian-Americans than with Western individualism. Therefore, built into the belief in Yahweh, the holy Creator God who gave laws to Israel to obey, is the expectation of corporate obedience leading to reward or punishment. Not surprisingly, God’s people failed often and could never fulfill the Law perfectly. Jeremiah 31:31-34 prophesied with hope about the coming of a new covenant that God will make with his people. God will write the law on their hearts so they will obey out of joyful desire to please him as his people. More importantly, each person would suffer death for their own sins (v. 30) instead of carrying the burden of the entire family or community.
The gospel is great news because all who repent and believe in the death and resurrection of Christ can receive justification and forgiveness of sin forever. Instead of being strangers, we belong together as God’s children through Jesus the Messiah. May we experience the true freedom found by shedding the shackles of cultural and familial performance and surrender our lives to Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to glorify our Father in heaven.
How can biblical and lifestyle choices set the tone in our homes?
Cristobal Tong
Growing up, rest in my house was something you earned, not something you were given. It came after you passed a test, you finished your chores, and you made your parents proud. Even when earned, it was brief. The next thing was always waiting. I don’t think my parents meant to teach that rest was conditional; it was just the model they had because they were conditioned to survive. But it meant that as kids, we absorbed a quiet rule: you don’t get to be tired, discouraged, or struggling until you’ve earned the right to be. Mental health, in that framework, isn’t denied outright, just deferred.
Psalm 62 offers a contrast to that framework: “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation” (Ps. 62:1). It does not say, “from him comes my salvation once I’ve proven myself.” It simply says, “from him alone”—nothing else. The famous words, “Be still, and know I am God,” aren’t a reward for the exhausted; they are an invitation before anything has been accomplished (Ps. 46:10).
If we want to set a different tone in our homes, we have to start with something small and concrete. Families have to acknowledge the hard days and times instead of performing like we’re “okay.” Household rhythms have to include time for intentional stillness, not just collapse after burnout.
The gospel gives us permission to rest that our own striving never could. Christ’s rest is not earned by finally achieving enough; it’s given. It’s offered to the weary as they are (Matt. 11:28). It’s available to our families right now, not someday, once we’ve earned it.
Teenagers and Mental Health by Monica Kim and Danny Kwon is a comprehensive guide that helps readers better understand the challenges adolescents face and outlines strategies for compassionate, gospel-centered care.
