Essay On Asian American Teenagers

Identification of the population Asian American teenagers refer to the 15 to 24 years old U.S. citizens of Asian ancestry (Pew Research Center, 2012). According to a report of U.S. Census Bureau, in the first decade of the 21st century, Asian have been the fastest growing population in the U.S. There have been about 18.2 million Asian American citizens, and approximately 5.6% of the US whole population until 2010. The percentage of the population has increased 46% between 2000 and 2010. However, the percentage of white American has only improved 9.7% (Briefs, 2010). The Asian American population is the fastest growing population in the U.S., so some growing problems of the Asian teenagers also appear constantly in recent years. Asian teenager …show more content…
The main reason is that Asian is one of the fastest growing group in the United States. So far, depression in Asian American teenagers has high proportion than other American population. According to a national youth risk behavior survey, found that about 28% of Asian American high school students had felt depression that interfered with their daily life (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2003). Also, about 19 percent of these high school Asian American students had made a suicide plan, and 11 percent of them had made at least one suicide attempt. This data is obviously higher than other American teenagers. (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2008). More worryingly, because of the influence of the traditional Asian culture and lacks of understanding of mental illness, most Asian American teenagers cannot get timely treatment. Asian parents usually avoid talking about mental illness with others. In China and South Korea, mental illness is stigmatized, that means people with mental illness will bring shame to their whole family (Lin & Kleinman, 1981). Therefore, when they hear themselves or relatives encountering mental illness, they usually don't share illness condition with others, also don't actively seek